ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the centrality of the Shroud of Turin to Marino's Dicerie Sacre in order to shed light on a facet of the Council of Trent's legacy that is not commonly encountered in art history scholarship—the interrelation of art and relics. However "Baroque" Marino's artistic philosophy may have been, his text bears the imprimatur of a Tridentine artistic culture that fostered an appreciation for certain objects, like the Shroud of Turin, as sites of convergence for categories frequently considered mutually distinct. However, in deference to the Shroud, such icons painted by St. Luke achieve only the status of a "secondary relic" and anyway maintain a distinct prototype. The Shroud of Turin, then, stands apart in the artistic and devotional culture of post-Tridentine Italy because it could substantiate the authority of images and relics simultaneously. It is this legacy, at least as much as its "Baroque" characteristics, that distinguishes Giambattista Marino's Dicerie Sacre.
