Leonardo's Face on the Shroud
The artist felt there was more to Mary than the Bible told. Some scholars believe that The Virgin on the Rocks is a tribute to Saint John the Baptist, since John is exalted position closest to Mary and Jesus appears farther away and is somewhat shrunken. Leonardo was a Johanite, someone who believed in the superiority of Saint John the Baptist to Jesus.Forensic anthropologists at Michigan State University offered to test the theory that the face on the shroud and Leonardo's face are one and the same. Using forensic image comparison Todd Fenton and Norman Sauer compared the image on the shroud with a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. In a side by side analysis, they first lined up the eyes. Then they look at the nose and mouth position and the proportionality held. The basic results of their comparisons are they can not exclude them as a match. They also found congruent facial features similarities. While the evidence is both provocative and tantalizing, their findings were not convincing and inconclusive. Because the faces share similar proportions does not mean they are the same individual.