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Renaissance Forgeries
Collecting classical artifacts became all the rage during the Renaissance. Wealthy merchants and princes scrambled to build magnificent collections of Greek and Roman statues and sculptures. Scholars pored over ancient manuscripts that had been lost to Europeans for centuries.
Much of this activity represented genuine excitement at the rediscovery of lost knowledge and art. But some of the activity was driven by the fact that the acquisition of classical artifacts had simply become the new fad, the new way of displaying power and status. Instead of collecting the bones and body parts of saints, towns and wealthy rulers now collected fragments of the ancient world. And just as with the relic trade, demand far outstripped supply. Therefore, the forgers once again stepped in to fill the gap.
But this time there was a difference. It was not very important if the relic sitting in the local church actually was or was not the thigh-bone of St. Peter, as long as people believed that it was performing miracles. By contrast, it did make a difference if a classical artifact was an ancient original or a modern copy (though good copies were valued in their own right).
The flood of classical fakes placed scholars on their guard. It put them under pressure to improve their critical skills in order to be able to separate the authentic from the inauthentic. In this sense, forgery paradoxically played a prominent role in promoting scholarly inquiry (and it continues to play this role up to the present day).
Curiously, the greatest scholars and artists often simultaneously turned out to be the most notorious forgers. During the fifteenth century a high church official named Giovanni Nanni (a.k.a. Annius) produced elaborate ancient texts and inscriptions showing that his native town of Viterbo had been an important center of culture during the Etruscan period. All of his texts were soon proven to be fakes. But at the same time Annius articulated much of the methodology that lay the groundwork for the development of more rigorous historical scholarship. So he is remembered as a father of critical tradition, as well as a subverter of it.
More examples of Renaissance forgery appear below.
Much of this activity represented genuine excitement at the rediscovery of lost knowledge and art. But some of the activity was driven by the fact that the acquisition of classical artifacts had simply become the new fad, the new way of displaying power and status. Instead of collecting the bones and body parts of saints, towns and wealthy rulers now collected fragments of the ancient world. And just as with the relic trade, demand far outstripped supply. Therefore, the forgers once again stepped in to fill the gap.
But this time there was a difference. It was not very important if the relic sitting in the local church actually was or was not the thigh-bone of St. Peter, as long as people believed that it was performing miracles. By contrast, it did make a difference if a classical artifact was an ancient original or a modern copy (though good copies were valued in their own right).
The flood of classical fakes placed scholars on their guard. It put them under pressure to improve their critical skills in order to be able to separate the authentic from the inauthentic. In this sense, forgery paradoxically played a prominent role in promoting scholarly inquiry (and it continues to play this role up to the present day).
Curiously, the greatest scholars and artists often simultaneously turned out to be the most notorious forgers. During the fifteenth century a high church official named Giovanni Nanni (a.k.a. Annius) produced elaborate ancient texts and inscriptions showing that his native town of Viterbo had been an important center of culture during the Etruscan period. All of his texts were soon proven to be fakes. But at the same time Annius articulated much of the methodology that lay the groundwork for the development of more rigorous historical scholarship. So he is remembered as a father of critical tradition, as well as a subverter of it.
More examples of Renaissance forgery appear below.
Categories: Forgery, Before 1700
sub-topics
Michelangelo’s Cupid, 1495 (1496)
In 1496, when he was a young man, Michelangelo sculpted a sleeping cupid. He, or an accomplice, then buried it in acidic earth to give it an appearance of great age. The plan was to pass it off as an antiquity, which would allow it to fetch a higher price. The artificially aged sculpture was sold through a dealer to Cardinal Raffaello Riario of San Giorgio. Eventually the Cardinal learned of the forgery, and he demanded his money back from the dealer. However, the Cardinal was so impressed by Michelangelo's obvious talent that he didn't press charges against the young artist. To the contrary, he allowed him to keep his percentage of the sale.
Michelangelo’s cupid eventually came into the possession of the d’Este collection in Mantua, where it was reportedly displayed side by side with a genuine antique sleeping cupid. But it is believed that the statue was destroyed in a fire in 1698. Even though it was a "fake", it would be considered priceless today, if it still survived. More→
Cicero’s Consolatio (1583)
Carlo Sigonio was a highly respected Italian scholar who specialized in the history of Rome. Around 1583 he claimed that he had discovered a new complete work by the great Roman orator Cicero. It was titled De Consolatione or the Consolation. In it Cicero grieved for his daughter's death. Only small fragments of this work had ever been found before. The discovery of this manuscript caused great excitement. But when other scholars read it, the general consensus was that it had to be a fake. It contained numerous anachronistic phrases and Italian mannerisms that Cicero would never have used.
Sigonio stubbornly defended the work, but today it is still regarded as being a forgery. Sigonio might have written the book himself, perhaps to display his mastery of Ciceronian scholarship.
The Voynich Manuscript, c.1500 (circa 1500)
The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious book consisting of approximately 240 pages of hand-written text and crudely drawn illustrations that depict plants, astrological diagrams, and naked women. The text is written in an unknown alphabet that has defied all attempts at translation. It is not certain exactly how old the manuscript is, but it appears to date to around the late fifteenth century. It is named after Wilfrid Voynich, who acquired it in 1912 from the library of Villa Mondragone, a Jesuit college in Frascati, Italy. More→
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