Barbara Frale

In 2001 she published for the scientific publisher Viella of Rome part of the results of her doctoral thesis, developed from the documents of the process against the Templars (Lʼultima battaglia dei Templari. Dal codice ombra dʼobbedienza militare alla costruzione del processo per eresia): her theory is that in the bill of indictment brought by the King of France Philip IV the Fair, which was quoted in the trial, and consequently was preserved, there was a series of real facts suitably distorted by the current affairs direction in order to build up an indictment of heresy, the only kind of crime for which the order did not enjoy total immunity. The Templars' fault, according to the author, was not the heresy but a secret ritual of admission as a military obedience test, containing vilification acts against religion. In 2002 she published for Viella of Rome the essay Il Papato e il processo ai Templari. L’inedita assoluzione di Chinon alla luce della diplomatica pontificia, where she analysed and debated the content of a parchment kept in the Secret Vatican Archives and neglected for a long time by historians, which keeps the acts of an inquiry held by three plenipotentiary cardinals of Pope Clement V into the last Great Master of the Templars Jacques de Molay and other members of the Staff of the order, who were shut in the Castle of Chinon by King Philip the Fair. Consequently, the chiefs of the Templars having begged the Church's forgiveness, the Pope granted them absolution. The study of the parchment of Chinon attracted some international historians' attention. The results of this research were then shown in the essay edited by Il Mulino, I Templari, Bologna 2004, which received positive remarks on the cultural pages of different Italian and foreign newspapers and was translated in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Czech. The book got a positive review by Umberto Eco, who called the author to draw up a chapter on the Templars for the Encyclopaedia about the Middle Age, of which he was the editor. Some theories supported by Frale are welcomed by experts of history of the Templars, among them Malcolm Barber, Alain Demurger, Franco Cardini and Simonetta Gerrini, pupil of Alain Demurger. On 25 October 2007, the Vatican decided to publish a valuable reproduction of some of the most important documents of the process against the Templars, among those the famous parchment of Chinon, in the collection of Exemplaria Praetiosa; Frale wrote the historical introduction to the edition of the documents. In June 2009, Frale published, always for Il Mulino, another essay dedicated to the Templars, I Templari e la sindone di Cristo, where she debates some documents concerning the mysterious idol, which was cited during the process as a charge against the order to accuse the order itself of idolatry, being actually a particular image of the dead Christ, which has similar characteristics to the Shroud of Turin. In November of the same year another essay, La sindone di Gesù Nazareno, Il Mulino (historical Library) followed the above-mentioned volume, where Frale examines some presumed sketches of writing discovered on the shroud in 1998 by a team of French scientists, experts in the analysis of marks of the Institut Superieur d’Optique d’Orsay – Paris; comparing them with other ancient documents and inscriptions. This essay received the national prize "Torre di Castruccio" for the year 2010, the section of Letter, and the National Cultural Prize "Brava Barbara!” promoted by the Cultural Association "Santa Barbara nel mondo" of Rieti. It has been translated in French (Bayard, Paris 2010) and in English (Maveryck house publishers). In April 2010, Frale published for the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the historical essay La Sindone e il ritratto di Cristo, and on 2 May she carried out the historical commentary broadcast live from Turin Cathedral, linked up to the Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of his pilgrimage to the shroud.