Posted on 08/23/2022 4:16:16 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The university announced on Tuesday that the so-called “Galileo manuscript” – a one-page document that includes a letter accompanying the astronomer’s presentation of his telescope and his supposed notes observing Jupiter’s moons through his telescope in 1610 – was crafted by Tobia Nicotra, a well-known forger from Italy who was fined and sentenced to two years in jail for crafting fake Galileo documents in 1934. He also infamously produced fake autographs of Christopher Columbus and Mozart.
The possibility came to light in May when the Georgia State University professor Nick Wilding expressed “serious doubts about its authenticity”. Wilding found while researching Nicotra – who had a “forgery factory” in his Milan apartment – that the counterfeiter had “reportedly started selling fake letters and musical manuscripts to support seven mistresses”, the New York Times reported.
The university said the auction firm American Art Anderson Galleries sold the library of Roderick Terry, a wealthy collector, in May 1934, which contained the manuscript. It had been authenticated by Cardinal Pietro Maffi, who “compared this leaf with a Galileo autograph letter in his collection”, the university noted. Then a prominent Detroit businessman and philanthropist Tracy McGregor obtained the letter and his trustees gave it to the university after his death in 1938.
More than 80 years later, Wilding alerted university curator Pablo Alvarez about the manuscript’s watermark and provenance. The watermark on the paper featured the letters “BMO” for Bergamo, where the paper was supposedly produced. But the university found that “no other BMO watermarked papers” had been dated before 1770, roughly 160 years after the notes featured in the supposed Galileo manuscript.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
ping
Well...at least he didn't waste the money...
... so the letter is from a famous forger then. Cool.
Galileo a forgery!??
So the Earth is the center of the solar system!
I wonder how many forgeries are part of museum collections.
The forgery itself is valuable and I hope they put it on display as such.
A 20th century forgery? Worth exhibiting as a curiosity.
Genuine one says “I now have learned the Sun indeed revolves around the Earth. My findings were in error.”—Galileo.
A Democrat???</s>
When people are authenticating a forgery the first thing I ask is what font did Galileo use?
Times New Roman, of course.
Nabbed after 88 years! Must have been a real Pisa work.
Tobia didn't make a good name for himself.
Galileo was right. Where we're going we don't need rwds..
Neil even sang that famous song!
"Climb up, way up high, Climb up, way up high, Climb up, way up high..."
I knew it.
The Earth is flat, and all the planets and sun circle it.
Seven Frauds for Seven Floozies.
Well done! :)
Thanks BenLurkin. The forgery was discovered when this manuscript and another, larger manuscript, were both dropped, and the larger one hit the ground first. Yes, that should have a rimshot.
As I learned watching the TV show Lovejoy, a number of great painters started out as forgers, so who knows what may be a forgery that is accepted as the real thing.
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