“After an internal investigation of the findings of a Georgia State University history professor, the University of Michigan Library concluded that hisGalileo’s manuscript‘, considered One of the jewels of the collection of the library for almost a century, is not a document written by Galileo himself in 1609 and 1610, but a 20th century forgerymost likely executed by the known forger Tobia Nicotra«. With these words published on its website, the fourth largest research library in the United States admitted bitter news. The single-page handwritten notes on the discovery of Jupiter’s four moons that until now were believed to be the work of Galileo Galilei were not written by the celebrated Italian Renaissance astronomer.
The document arrived at the University of Michigan in 1938, bequeathed after the death of Tracy McGregor, a Detroit businessman who collected books and manuscripts. He had acquired this in 1934, during the sale of the library of the late Roderick Terry, a wealthy collector of manuscripts and early printed books. According to the catalog of the auction firm American Art Anderson Galleries, the Galileo manuscript had been authenticated by Cardinal Pietro Maffi (1858-1931), Archbishop of Pisa, who compared this sheet with an autograph letter of Galileo in his collection.
The writing contains in its upper half the draft of a letter accompanying Galileo’s official presentation of a newly built telescope to the Doge of Venice on August 24, 1609, and in the lower part, draft notes recording Galileo’s telescopic observations. of the moons of Jupiter from January 7 to 15, 1610.
The final and original version of the letter is in the State Archives of Venice and the notes on the moons of Jupiter form part of the astronomical treatise ‘Sidereus Nuncius’ (‘The sidereal messenger’), of which five hundred and fifty copies were printed and of which barely a hundred are preserved today. One of them, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
Well-founded suspicions
For almost a century, the manuscript from the University of Michigan has been considered authentic, but last May the curator Pablo Álvarez received an email that was not reassuring. The historian Nick Wildingwho spotted a fake copy of the ‘Sidereus Nuncius’ in 2012, wanted to know details about the watermark and provenance of the manuscript because he had serious doubts about its authenticity.
The University of Georgia professor investigated the age of the paper and found that its watermark monograms date it no earlier than the 18th century. Back in the days of the manual press, papermakers used to use distinctive watermarks to identify their paper that now allow it to be dated to a particular period. That of the Michigan manuscript contains monograms with the initials of the manufacturer, ‘AS’, and of the place of production, ‘BMO’ (Bergamo) and «no other BMO watermarked paper has been dated before 1770«, explains the university.
In addition, Wilding came across a similar Nicotra forgery, a letter to “an anonymous person of rank” allegedly dated 1607, which is in the Morgan Library in New York City and has been securely dated to 1790.
«Wilding concluded that our Galileo manuscript is a 20th-century forgery executed by notorious forger Tobia Nicotra.”underlines the University of Michigan that, after its own experts studied the evidence provided and re-examined the writing, it agreed with its conclusion.
There is no trace of the Michigan document prior to 1930, despite the existence of a very complete National Edition of the Works of Galileo (1890-1909), and the Galileo documents in Pisa used by Archbishop Maffi to authenticate him in the note that accompanied the manuscript at the 1934 auction are forgeries donated by Nicotra, who was sentenced that same year to two years in prison and fined for forgery of documents.
The University of Michigan Library is updating the manuscript’s metadata and reconsidering its place in its collection. “In the future, may serve the interests of research, learning and teaching in the field of counterfeiting and deception, a timeless discipline that has never been more relevant“, highlights.
Wilding, who in 2018 alerted the National Library of Spain that Galileo’s ‘Sidereus Nuncius’ held by the BNE was not authentic, is currently checking the authenticity of other Galileo materials, the conclusions of which he will publish when the work is complete.