The first spring sun in the Special Collections Room @ubleiden and a desk full of 17th-century books and pamphlets: preparing my paper (about #thefakerepublic and our new special collection of fakes and forgeries) for next week's Contesting Authenticity conference in London. Join us: https://authenticity2023.wordpress.com/programme/ !

#earlymodern #earlymodons #forgerystudies @bookhistodons

As things are getting grimmer by the hour on Twitter (more Rossi sock puppets and a new attack on Peter Kidd), I wonder what Johann Burckhardt Mencke would have made of #Receptiogate and @CarlaRossi. To those who still have some popcorn left to finish, I thoroughly recommend De Charlataneria Eruditorum (1713/15), his two lectures on academic fraud. Happy New Year from #thefakerepublic! | #histodons #forgerystudies

Just before Christmas medievalist #PeterKidd discovered that another scholar probably plagiarized part of his blog. It took the Medievalist community on Twitter less than 24 hours to uncover what may well be a major academic hoax, including a fake institute with fake employees and some very real research grants. #ReceptioGate unfolding in real time: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-part-i-staff.html

|#histodons #forgerystudies #carlarossi

This week I have been working on false imprints, like this one. This is not the first edition of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which Jan Rieuwertsz published under a false imprint in Amsterdam in 1670. It is the second edition from 1672, made to look as if was left over from the first batch and intended to fool the censors twice in #thefakerepublic. #histodons #forgerystudies #earlymodern

Fake books, paintings and prints at RSA Virtual 2022! Join us for our panel ‘Narrating Forgery: The Stories and Voices Behind Fakes in Early Modern Culture’ on 1 December, with Paolo Sachet, Drew B. Thomas and Henry Keazor. #RSAvirtual2022 |
#earlymodern | #earlymodons | #histodons |#forgerystudies | #bookhistory | #culturalhistory |

Cave, cave, cave. I spent this morning with the Bibliotheca Thysiana's copy of Inghirami's Ethruscarum Antiquitatum Fragmenta (1637) @ubleiden.

It's absolutely pristine: perhaps Johannes Thysius bought it in the 1640s but then found out that it was a fake and decided against reading it? However fake it is, it remains a gorgeous book and this is by far the best copy I have seen.

#histodons #bookhistory #forgerystudies #thefakerepublic