Veronica

(Lat. vera, true; Gr. icon, image), a napkin or handkerchief with which a Jewish woman, named Prounice or Berenice (Lat. Veronica), who had been cured of the issue of blood (Mt 9:20-22, and parallels), is said to have wiped the face of our Lord when going to the crucifixion by the Way of Sorrows. Wet with blood and other fluids, his likeness was stamped upon its triple folds, and the napkin was brought in a wooden coffer from Palestine to Rome, and eventually placed by Urban VIII in an upper chapel adjoining one of the great piers in St. Peter's Church, where it is still preserved under the charge of the canons. It is exhibited in a silver case ten times in the year to the pope, cardinals, and faithful who are placed in the nave. As early as the 14th century, painters represented a woman holding a linen cloth, on which is a radiating face. surrounded by a halo, with the cross. Since that time the attribute has become the subject. The inanimate substance has taken life, and the woman is only known as Veronica. There were icons, or veils, preserved at Laon, Cologne, and Milan. See Walcott, Sacred Archaeol. s.v.; Barnum, Romanism As It Is, p. 491.