The Museum of the Shroud – which today occupies the ground floor of the building at 28 Via S. Domenico and the crypt of the Church of the Holy Sudarium in Turin – is eighty years old and features a series of increasingly systematic exhibitions.

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It was in fact around 1936 that the Confraternity of the Holy Shroud – an ecclesiastical body founded on 25 May 1598 specifically to promote the worship and devotion to the Shroud – decided to organise some of the precious artefacts relating to the Shroud, collected over the centuries, into a permanent exhibition. The exhibition was inaugurated on 4 June 1936 in the presence of the Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Maurilio Fossati. The “Documentary Exhibition of the Distinguished Relic”, as it was named at the time, was housed in two rooms adjacent to the Church of the Holy Shroud.

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In the second half of the 1950s, the Confraternity, together with the Cultores Sanctae Sindonis – an association founded in 1937 within the Confraternity itself to coordinate scientific studies and publications on the Holy Shroud – worked to make the exhibition increasingly accessible.

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Thus, on 2 May 1959, a new exhibition layout was inaugurated in the same premises adjacent to the Church of the Holy Shroud. In 1961, however, major works began on the restoration of the church and the refurbishment of the Confraternity’s own building. The Museum, which had been temporarily closed, was reopened in 1963 in the refurbished premises of the Confraternity’s building at 28 Via San Domenico. A life-size copy of the negative of the Shroud, printed on film and illuminated by backlighting, was also housed here.

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However, the arrangement was still not considered satisfactory. The International Centre for Sindonology, established in 1959 from the ashes of the Cultores and with the same objectives, immediately took on the task of exploring an alternative location. A low-rise building adjoining the Confraternity’s house was identified. Work to adapt it for its intended use began in 1965 and was completed in 1973 with the inauguration of the hall which the Museum occupied for 25 years.

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In 1997, following the restoration of the crypt of the Church of the Holy Shroud and the exhibition design by Richi Ferrero and Marina Gariboldi, the Museum’s permanent home was finally opened, whilst the previous exhibition area was converted into a multimedia room for the screening of videos presenting the Shroud.

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On 15 April 1998, the Museum was finally inaugurated in the presence of Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini, Archbishop of Turin.