Document supposedly written by Galileo is a fake



The University of Michigan has shown that a handwritten document purportedly written by Galileo Galilei was a fraud.

The University of Michigan Library described the one document as a gem in its collection in a statement that appears in a new tab. However, an internal inquiry by a history professor revealed that it is a forgery: watermarks in the paper date only as far back as the 18th century, more than a century after the famous astronomer's passing.

According to Donna L. Hayward, the interim dean of Michigan's libraries, "it was very gut-wrenching when we first found that Galileo was not actually a Galileo," she told the New York Times(opens in new tab) last week.

The manuscript has been in the possession of the university since 1938, when Tracy McGregor's trustees donated it. Tracy McGregor is a Detroit industrialist who bought the manuscript at an auction held by another collector in 1934. According to the University of Michigan Library, the document was allegedly validated by Cardinal Pietro Maffi (1858-1931), the Archbishop of Pisa, by comparing it to other Galileo letters(opens in new tab) in his possession, as stated in the auction catalog from 1934.

A draft of a letter that Galileo wrote before presenting a new telescope to the Doge of Venice in 1609 can be seen at the top of the document. The State Archive in Venezia, Italy holds the final draft of the letter that the eminent astronomer actually wrote. A set of notes about the moons of Jupiter that are also based on actual notes Galileo took may be found in the lower half of the paper. The Florence National Central Library in Italy houses the final version of those notes.

Why scientists are so adamant about disproving Galileo and Einstein

A historian at Georgia State University named Nick Wilding noticed a picture of the paper and thought something wasn't right. He told the New York Times that the document was unusual for the 17th century in terms of the ink, the calligraphy, and some of the word choices. In May 2022, Wilding sent Pablo Alvarez, curator of the University of Michigan Library, an email outlining his concerns. As a result, the university opened an internal investigation. The university declared that Wilding was correct three months later. The document was most likely written by Tobia Nicotra, a prominent Italian forger who worked in the 1920s and 1930s; it was not written by Galileo.

The watermark on the paper sealed the discovery. According to the University of Michigan Library, watermarks on old paper often reveal who made it and where it was made. The paper's maker's initials, "AS," and the abbreviation "BMO," which stands for Bergamo, Italy, are imprinted on the Galileo paper. The document cannot be older than 1770, as the earliest known papers bearing the BMO monogram do.

Unique copy of Galileo's work that challenged the Earth-centric understanding of the universe was a hoax, according to related content (opens in new tab)

Furthermore, the university was unable to locate any proof that the Galileo document predated the 1930s. Even worse, the manuscript turned out to be a forgery by Nicotra when compared to the two manuscripts that Maffi claimed to have compared it to. A letter purported to be from 1607 was found by Wilding among the holdings of The Morgan Library in New York City, according to a university statement(opens in new tab).

The Galileo document will now be presented in a different way, according to the University of Michigan Library. The fake itself might end up serving as a lesson.

In the future, it "may come to serve the research, learning, and teaching interests in the realm of fakes, forgeries, and hoaxes, a timeless topic that's never been more relevant," according to the library statement.

Published first on Live Science.

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