Katherine Brown states that the purpose of her study is to examine the nature of images of Veronica and the ways in which early modern artists adopted her character and cloth relic as subject matter. Chapter 1 is dedicated to Veronica in legend and literature. Brown starts by explaining the meaning of Veronica as both the name of a saint and a swath of cloth. In the first century, Eusebius of Caesarea mentioned her in his Historia Ecclesiastica; in the fourth century, one Byzantine and one Western legend connected Jesus's healing an unnamed bleeding woman with Bernice, which in Latin is Veronica (a medieval hybridization of the Latin and Greek words for her attribute, the vera icon).

The second chapter is devoted to the veronica or sudarium relic as material object in the West. The sudarium from a secondary or contact relic around 1200 became an imprint of Jesus's features. As physical object it is mentioned for the first time in the late tenth century. The first extant description of the relic was made by the pilgrim Gervase of Tilbury in his Otia imperialia (ca. 1210–15). The relic has allegedly been housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome since 1506.

Chapter 3 is devoted to the Via Crucis. Brown discusses the opinions on the origin of the stations in Jerusalem and prefers the view that the West had greater influence on the development of the constructed pilgrim's path. She proposes that the house of Veronica had been moved eastward by the end of the sixteenth century in order to bridge a gap and join the two segments of the Via Crucis. Franciscans inserted the character of Veronica into the Via Crucis at the end of the fifteenth century to help achieve their own evangelical goal of meeting the spiritual and physical needs of pilgrims under their aegis in Jerusalem and across Europe, and to help them connect the Passion to Saint Francis of Assisi. As an eyewitness, Veronica proved historical authenticity.

The fourth chapter compares pilgrims’ experiences with Passion devotion in Rome and Jerusalem. Veronica as a character was widely revered as a saint who could offer intercession. The Holy Face imprinted on the veil provided a point of mediation with Christ, while as a subject in art it complemented scenes from Christ's life, from the Incarnation to the Resurrection, and reinforced the significance of accompanying liturgical celebrations.

Brown approaches the character of Veronica through the lens of gender in chapter 5 and addresses possible links to the second and third Franciscan orders. Veronica may have attracted the patronage and viewership of women during the early modern period due to her proximity to Christ during his walk toward death. The main difference between the Byzantine and the Western versions of the Holy Face legend is that in the East the connection between King Abgar and the healing image of Christ was a male emissary painter, while in the West it was an empathetic woman with a cloth.

The sixth chapter approaches the iconography of Veronica in works of art from north and south of the Alps in the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The five main types of iconography are explained. The subject of Veronica with the Holy Face veil is an image within an image, and it is also the end-of-time vision, Brown notes. She suggests the iconographic study of Veronica in early modern art starts with Matthew Paris in 1240 in England. Later Veronica motifs in Western works of art show Christ without the neck and shoulders.

This book makes an important contribution to the scholarship of true images of saints and relics. It successfully elaborates the topic of the apocryphal character of Veronica and its placement by the Franciscans into the Via Crucis as the Sixth Station. Brown even gives a date to the end of this process, around the turn of the fifteenth century. She relates the influence of Franciscan interest in religious theatrical performances with the institution of the Crib at Greccio: this stimulated the appearance of the iconographic scene of Veronica's meeting with Christ. Brown notes that the Franciscans’ reason for incorporating the legend of Veronica is related to their evangelical goals. The author proposes plausible reasons for the subsequent proliferation of works of art depicting Veronica both within and independent of the Stations of the Cross within the early modern period. It coincides with the popularity of the Meditationes vitae Christi, and the relic being included among the Mirabilia Urbis Romae and as arma Christi.