In 1988, carbon dating of the world's most famous Christian relic revealed that it was a mediaeval or Renaissance forgery. Yet many questions remained. How could a hoaxer of 500 or more years ago have created an image that appears so astonishingly lifelike when seen in photographic negative? How was such an image formed? And who would have dared fake the Holy Shroud of Jesus? Setting out to answer these questions, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince discovered that the faker was none other than Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance artist, scientist, inventor - and hoaxer - whose innovations are acknowledged to have been centuries ahead of his time. They also reconstructed Leonardo's secret technique - becoming the first ever to recreate the Shroud image.Now revised and updated, sensationally the new 2006 edition of Turin Shroud presents the long-lost hard evidence to link the Shroud of Turin directly with Leonardo da Vinci. Perhaps this is even his 'confession' to having faked Christianity's most sacred relic, which will astonish both believers and sceptics alike, and present a new challenge to historians of both art and photography.

In 1988, carbon dating of the world's most famous Christian relic revealed that it was a mediaeval or Renaissance forgery. Yet many questions remained. How could a hoaxer of 500 or more years ago have created an image that appears so astonishingly lifelike when seen in photographic negative? How was such an image formed? And who would have dared fake the Holy Shroud of Jesus? Setting out to answer these questions, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince discovered that the faker was none other than Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance artist, scientist, inventor - and hoaxer - whose innovations are acknowledged to have been centuries ahead of his time. They also reconstructed Leonardo's secret technique - becoming the first ever to recreate the Shroud image.Now revised and updated, sensationally the new 2006 edition of Turin Shroud presents the long-lost hard evidence to link the Shroud of Turin directly with Leonardo da Vinci. Perhaps this is even his 'confession' to having faked Christianity's most sacred relic, which will astonish both believers and sceptics alike, and present a new challenge to historians of both art and photography.