Shroud Museum (Museo della Sindone)

Can you see the Shroud at the Shroud of Turin museum?

No. The Shroud is kept in Turin Cathedral, in a conservation case in the last chapel of the left aisle, and it only comes out for public expositions. There were expositions in 2010, when more than 2 million people came, and in 2015, and the Shroud’s official site says there’s none in 2026.

As for whether it’s authentic, in 1988 radiocarbon tests at Oxford, Arizona and the ETH in Zurich dated the cloth to between 1260 and 1390, with 95% confidence. The Church doesn’t rule on it: in 1998 Pope John Paul II said that, as it isn’t a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to do so.

What the museum has is everything around the cloth: the photographs taken of it since 1898, the scientific studies, and the history of how it was kept and venerated since it passed to the House of Savoy in the 15th century.

Shroud Museum entry with the Torino+Piemonte Card

Show the Torino+Piemonte Card at the desk and the entry is included, for you and a child under 12, with nothing to book. The Turin Royal Pass covers the Royal Palace and its Chapel of the Holy Shroud, but this museum isn’t on its list.

Shroud Museum tickets: at the door, between 15:00 and 18:00

The museum opens every day from 15:00 to 18:00, with the last entry at 17:30. Without the card, tickets are sold only at its desk, with no online sale and no booking for individual visitors, so you simply turn up in the afternoon.

It’s closed at Christmas and New Year, and groups of more than 20 book by email or phone.

What you see in the Shroud Museum: the science, the history and the photographs

The visit starts with a video in five languages and then follows two routes. The scientific route starts with Secondo Pia’s first photograph in 1898 and ends with the three-dimensional image of the face that a team led by the engineer Giovanni Tamburelli made in 1978. In between come the analysis of the fabric, the microscopic traces found on it (pollen, blood, aloe, myrrh and aragonite), the forensic studies and the studies of its iconography.

The historical route follows the Shroud from the second half of the 15th century, when it came to the House of Savoy. Here are the wooden case from its last journey to Turin, in 1578, and the casket of silver and hardstone that held it until the fire in the chapel by the architect Guarino Guarini, on 11 April 1997.

There’s also the complete series of official photographs, from Pia’s in 1898 and those of the photographer Giuseppe Enrie in 1931 to the first in colour, in 1968, and the high-definition images of 2008.

The ticket also takes you into the church above the crypt, part of the visit since 2019, after a restoration finished in 2018 by the conservation centre at La Venaria Reale. The church went up in 1734 and 1735 as the oratory beside the Pazzerelli hospital, to a design by the architect Ignazio Mazzoni. On the vault is a Transfiguration by the painter Michele Antonio Milocco, framed in painted architecture by a second painter, Pietro Alzeri.

From Chambéry to Turin: the Shroud and its museum

The Shroud reached Turin in 1578, when Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, who had made Turin his capital, had it brought from Chambéry, where it had survived a fire in 1532. The museum came much later: the Confraternity of the Holy Shroud, founded in 1598, opened its first permanent exhibition about the cloth in 1936, and the museum moved into this crypt in 1998.

The Royal Palace tour that ends in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud

Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud, where the 1997 fire broke out, is a different visit, in the Royal Palace of Turin. Our guided tour of the palace, an hour and a half with a guide in English and Italian and priority entry, ends in the chapel, where the Shroud is no longer kept. It costs €49, and you can cancel up to 24 hours before.

The Shroud Museum entrance on Via San Domenico, and how to get there

The museum is at Via San Domenico 28, north of the historic centre, and bus 52 stops at San Domenico, with the Star 2 also running there. MAO, the museum of Asian art, is on the same street, at number 11, and opens from 10:00, so the two fit into one day: MAO in the morning and the Shroud after 15:00, on any day but Monday, when MAO is closed.