The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [107]
“Yes,” she said, a bit tentatively. “I guess that’s right.”
He pressed on. “So the trick is to convert the three-dimensional holographic information into the two dimensions of a flat drawing, right?”
“Where are you headed, Professor Gabrielli?” Bucholtz asked, wanting him to get to the point.
“Where I’m headed is that a brilliant forger who could think three-dimensionally might have been able to accomplish the two-dimensional image artistically, without the use of any advanced technology or hologram machine,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is this.” He started carefully. “The Shroud of Turin is two-dimensional. Studying how the image appears on the Shroud of Turin should be the key to learning how to draw three-dimensionally on a two-dimensional surface. It’s kind of like how a camera obscura teaches you to draw with perspective. Once you understand how the principles of perspective work, you don’t need a camera obscura anymore. You learn how to draw a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional surface with the skill a painter develops by understanding perspective.”
“I see your point, Professor Gabrielli,” Bucholtz said. “But the Shroud was created before the principles of holograms were understood, so a medieval artist such as you are postulating must have been a remarkable genius.”
Gabrielli conceded that. “I agree. But we may differ in that I do not tend to discount the genius of prior ages, as you may be inclined to do.”
Castle could see where Gabrielli was headed.
Rather than being impressed that Bucholtz was in the process of deciphering what Father Bartholomew liked to call the “Shroud codex,” Gabrielli merely understood Bucholtz as establishing a higher bar he would have to hurdle to make his forgery convincing. He would have to learn how to produce two-dimensional images with three-dimensional qualities.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Saturday
The Vatican, Rome, Italy
Day 24
Dr. Castle was ushered into the pope’s office, anticipating his first face-to-face meeting with Pope John-Paul Peter I, the man he had first met when he was Cardinal Marco Vicente.
Also scheduled to be in attendance were two Vatican physicians who had examined Father Bartholomew at Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic since his arrival from New York on Wednesday morning. After their discussion, Father Morelli had arranged to bring Father Morelli from the hospital to visit with the pope and Dr. Castle in person.
The pope’s office was as ornate as Castle had imagined, with expensive paintings on the wall, and an elegant, hand-crafted, gold-embossed wood desk with a red leather desk pad expertly embedded into the writing surface. Looking around, Castle saw gold everywhere: in the side chairs at the pope’s desk—one of which he now occupied—in the woodwork, even in the wallpaper. Thick antique Middle Eastern rugs, hand-woven into intricate patterns, covered the floor.
Ushered into the room next were Dr. Guilio Draghi, the attending physician at Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic, and Dr. Giorgio Moretti, a top psychiatrist from Rome whom the Vatican had asked to meet with Father Bartholomew to confirm Dr. Castle’s analysis. The priest ushering the doctors into the room made the necessary introductions.
When the three physicians were settled in their gilded chairs in front of the pope’s desk, the doors to the Holy Father’s living quarters opened and Pope John-Paul Peter I walked into the room.
Castle was struck by how small the pope was, no more than five feet, eight inches tall, he judged. Somehow, speaking to Marco Vicente by telephone, Castle had remembered him to be a much taller man. Still, wearing the white cassock and white skullcap of the pope, highlighted by the golden chain and cross that hung down across his chest, Vicente carried himself with the obvious dignity of his office. Bowing down to kiss the papal ring on his finger, Castle was impressed by the pope’s neatly trimmed white hair and the obvious warmth exuded by his soft, olive-colored eyes.
“Gentlemen.” The pope began the meeting as