WEBVTT - The Nicotra Forgeries 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:06.559 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:13.920 with iHeartRadio. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:20.079 He's then described as quote perhaps the cleverest forger on record. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.239 Some historians believe he may have produced as many as 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.240 six hundred forgeries of letters, music, manuscripts, and other documents 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.720 attributed to names like Mozart and Galileo before he got caught. 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:35.720 So let's meet Tobia Nikotra. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.560 Tremarki and I'm Holly Frye. Not much is known about 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.559 this Italian forger's life. Nikotro once claimed to be the 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.800 son of a botany professor. He also once wrote that 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.320 he had graduated with a degree in music from a 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.880 conservatory in Naples in nineteen oh nine. True or not, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.040 nobody actually knows. What historians do know is that he 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:03.120 began selling his forgeries in the nineteen twenties. Nikotra produced 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:08.080 inauthentic works of artists across many disciplines. One of his 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.400 most notorious fakes that we'll talk about was mistaken as 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.480 a genuine Mozart by the Library of Congress. He also 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.040 forged signatures and documents by Christopher Columbus Leonardo da Vinci, 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:25.720 Abraham Lincoln, Martin, Luther, Michelangelo, and George Washington. The list 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:31.319 goes on. You'll see Nikotra really did forge a bit 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.560 of a lot of things. He forged a poem he 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.319 claimed was written by the Italian Renaissance poet Tasso. Some 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.200 stories about him suggest he once nearly started a minor 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.280 international incident when he created a fake Christopher Columbus letter 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.080 in which Columbus identified his birthplace as Spain, not Italy, 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.040 and that set off an uproar among Italians that prompted 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.080 the mayor of Genoa to reaffirm Columbus's Italian ancestry. 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:03.160 He forged musical manuscripts by well known composers, not just 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:09.400 forging the signatures, but composing the works themselves. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.760 an early eighteenth century composer who died shortly after his 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.560 twenty sixth birthday, was a popular target for forgery, and 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:21.680 Nikotra was one of his famous forgers. Begolesi's popularity grew 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.200 after his death after a performance of his intermezzo La 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.959 Serva Padrona That's the Servant Mistress, and that sparked the 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.560 Carelle de Bauffon in Paris, a controversy over musical philosophies. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.800 Begolesi's small canon is small, and it is still today 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.480 debated that in itself opened the door to all kinds 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.600 of inauthentic works being passed as genuine. With a small 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.840 catalog of known compositions from a fairly young composer, it's 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.320 been difficult for experts to verify what was and wasn't 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.440 his original work. It's thought that Nikotra forged at least 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.560 four Pargolesi compositions. It was a piece called Agnes's Day 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.320 that wound up in the collection of the Metropolitan Opera 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:12.160 and ultimately was determined to be an authentic Christie's auction 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.320 House described it in June of twenty seventeen as quote 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.920 an intriguing forgery once thought to belong to the hotly 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:24.120 debated Pergolesi cannon, clearly cited as quote created by the 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.680 prolific forger to be a Nicotra. The known fake sold 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:30.960 for three hundred and seventy five dollars. 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.960 In nineteen twenty eight, the Library of Congress purchased an 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:41.400 alleged Mozart manuscript in Aria called Bacchi Amarosi Ekari, supposedly 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.360 composed by the famous maestro at age fourteen, and they 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.760 paid sixty dollars for it, believing it was authentic. In fact, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.120 though Nikotra composed the piece himself, but it would be 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.160 years before library officials knew they were housing a fake. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.360 According to Paul Alan Summerfeld, a music reference specialist at 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.760 the Library of Congress, quote, it was so special because 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.400 first of all, it was unknown, so it wasn't reported 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.360 in any of the thematic catalogs of Mozart at the time. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.680 Just the very next year, Nikotra became an author when 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.280 he wrote a biography of New York Philharmonic Orchestra conductor 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:23.080 Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini would have been around sixty two years 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.719 old when this biography was published. It turned out, though, 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.239 to be a story that was more fiction than fact. 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.360 We don't know Toscanini's reaction to it, although we sure 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:33.960 would like to. 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.040 We're going to take a break for a word from 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.440 our sponsor. When we return, we'll talk about the one 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.520 and only time Nikotra went to prison for selling his 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.440 forged work and how his Galileo forgery ended up at 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:47.880 the University of Michigan. 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.400 Welcome back to Criminaliam. Let's talk about what happened when 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.680 a Nikotra forged Galileo manuscript was discovered at the University 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:11.320 of Michigan. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.200 Nikotro was arrested in Milan, Italy, in November of nineteen 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.479 thirty four, after he sold a fake mozart autograph to 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.560 the son of Arturo Toscanini, Walter Tuscanini. When Walter discovered 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.880 the autograph he'd purchased for twenty seven hundred lira was 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:32.560 not authentic, he tipped off milanaise A detective Giorgio Florita, 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.640 about the forgery and the identity of the forger. Police 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.839 raided Nikotra's Milan apartment and he was arrested in court, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.839 they testified they had found him in his workshop busy 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.760 working on forged autographs of Christopher Columbus and Lorenzo de Medici. 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.960 He was also accused of composing historically plausible documents, musical 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:57.280 manuscripts and letters supposedly written by the same people whose 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:58.760 signatures he forged. 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.600 According to his trial coverage, as reported by The New 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.680 York Times, Nikotre relied on the Milan Library for his 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.560 forging work, but not for reasons you might initially think 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.880 he wasn't visiting to learn or research more about historical figures. 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.600 The library was his source for paper. He ripped blank 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.039 pages and fly leaves from old books and created many 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.920 of his forgeries on that authentic paper. In fact, later 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:33.520 librarians in Milan testified that yes, Nikotra had destroyed dozens 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:34.599 of books doing this. 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.200 The master forger testified that he had sold the counterfeit 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:44.239 autograph to Toscanini quote to support his seven loves. Now 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.480 take it with a grain of salt. But as reported 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.520 in some coverage of the trial, investigators did testify that 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.880 they found what they described as a kind of alter 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.680 to seven women. An article about the trial printed in 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:03.279 the American Weekly Hurst Publication in early nineteen thirty five 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.400 described a room with quote, black velvet covered walls, with 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.560 seven panels featuring paintings, sketches, and photographs of seven women, 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.600 one of whom was said to be a novelty dancer 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.840 and another an expert swimmer, with fresh flowers in front 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.000 of each. The pictures, in some cases, displayed their physical 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:28.280 attractions with startling frankness but they were in general highly artistic. 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.080 The American Weekly also noted in their coverage that quote, incidentally, 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.000 he also had a wife. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.320 There are no known photos of Nkotra. The best we 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.800 have is a glimpse of him from a courtroom sketch 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.040 that appeared alongside the story published by The American Weekly. 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.960 In that sketch, he is portrayed as a thin, balding 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.440 man with glasses, a mustache, and a goatee. Some accounts 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.320 say that he was fifty three at the time of 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.480 his trial, but a birth certificate suggests that he may 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.440 have been only four. When you're talking about a forger, though, 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.280 it can be hard to know what's real and what's not. 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.679 In addition to the signature forgery accusation, Walter Tuscanini also 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.280 included in his testimony that Nikotra had visited the United 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:19.200 States in nineteen thirty two posing as the musician Ricardo Drigo, 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.000 and that while in the States, he was quote widely feded. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.000 It's unclear whether or not either man knew Drigo, who 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.440 was an Italian composer of ballet music and opera, had 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.800 died in nineteen thirty two years prior. To when this 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.000 ruse may have happened. Regardless, no one seemed to care. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.640 Of the trial. Walter stated that he quote wanted to 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.840 restore the faith of foreign collectors in Italian dealers. On 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:52.959 November ninth, Nikotra was convicted, primarily on Walter's testimony. He 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.079 was sentenced to two years in jail and fined twenty 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.880 four hundred lire. It was his only conviction for forgery. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.439 It's believed Nikotre didn't serve much of his sentence. Some 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.400 accounts suggest he may have been paroled early on behalf 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.080 of Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party, who wanted him 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.880 to forge the signatures of their enemies during the Second 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:19.520 World War, and then, unlike his forgeries, he just kind 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.200 of faded into obscurity. Much of his work is believed 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.520 to have gone undetected, but from time. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:32.360 To time Nikotra pops up with possibly hundreds of forgeries 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.359 in circulation. It's bound to happen, and he did recently 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.120 show up at the University of Michigan. We can now 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:43.119 add Galileo to the list of people he forged. Galileo 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.440 was an Italian physicist, engineer, and notable astronomer. Though he 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.640 wasn't the first to look through a telescope, he was 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.320 the first to document the phases of Venus and the 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.400 stars of the Milky Way. So when a new Galileo 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.720 manuscript appeared centuries after his death, it was of course 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:00.239 really exciting. 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.000 It was a single sheet of paper. The top half 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.679 of the manuscript was a draft of a letter Galileo 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.600 sent to the Doge of Venice on August twenty fourth, 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.280 sixteen oh nine, regarding a new telescope that was built 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:18.240 that year. The bottom half of the document included notes 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.360 and sketches allegedly made by Galileo when he used the 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.959 telescope to observe Jupiter's moons. Plotted from January seventh through 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:31.000 January fifteenth, sixteen ten, it was the first time observational 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.080 data showed celestial objects orbiting a body other than Earth. 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.840 The manuscript debunked the theory held in Galileo's era that 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.760 everything in the universe orbited our planet. It helped substantiate 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:50.079 Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric theory and laid the foundation for modern astronomy. 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.840 The first appearance of the alleged Galileo document was in 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.840 nineteen thirty four, when the American Art Anderson Galleries auctioned 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.040 the library of Roderick Tis, a wealthy manuscript collector. It 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.640 was part of his collection, but the origin story died 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.640 with him. According to the auction catalog, it was authenticated 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.959 by Cardinal Pietro Maffi, the Archbishop of Pisa, who had 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:18.360 compared the writing against documents signed by Galileo. He compared 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.080 them to letters in his own personal collection. It passed 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.360 the visual test, and the document was sold with a 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:30.000 note of authentication. Tracy McGregor, a businessman from Detroit who 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.800 had collected books and manuscripts, purchased it in May of 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.440 nineteen thirty four. Following his death, McGregor's trustees bequeathed the 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.280 manuscript to the University of Michigan at ann Arbor in 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.800 nineteen thirty eight in recognition of Hebrew Curtis, a professor 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.199 of astronomy at the school, and it's been there ever since, 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.480 said officials from the University of Michigan in regard to 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:54.560 their Galileo Manuscript quote. It reflects a pivotal moment in 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.319 Galileo's life that helped to change our understanding of the Universe. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.319 I'm going to pause here for a word from our sponsor, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.760 and when we're back we will talk about how a 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:09.240 professor at Georgia State University debunked the authenticity of the 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:22.240 Galileo manuscript. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.880 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how the provenance 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.440 of this document unraveled and how it began with a 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:33.440 simple watermark. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:40.880 Not everyone agreed the Galileo document was genuine. Enter Nick Wilding. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.040 Wilding is a historian and professor of history at Georgia 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.200 State University and is often called in to verify the 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:52.760 authenticity of rare manuscripts. He's also famous for his work 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:57.680 uncovering Galileo forgeries, including exposing a forge draft of the 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:03.160 Siderius Nuncius, which was galileo first publication of his celestial observations, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.520 as being an authentic. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.800 According to Wilding, he quote got a little spidey sense 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.959 when he heard about the document in Michigan, suspecting it 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.000 could be a forgery. He emailed Pablo Alvarez, curator at 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:24.079 the University of Michigan's Special Collections Research Center. Said Alvarez, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.880 who recognized Wilding for his work on covering forgeries, quote, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.320 I had a sinking feeling when I saw Nick Wilding's 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:35.480 name on an email. Wilding first asked to see an 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:40.080 image of the document's watermark. Amy christ Book and Paper 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.160 Concertor at the library used a special light table to 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.439 locate the mark. It was a circle with a three 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.880 leaved clover and the monogram read as slash BMO. 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.640 Experts can date paper by its watermark because often the 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.240 watermark is linked to a particular paper mill that manufactured 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:03.160 during a particular period. For instance, the watermark on the 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.920 alleged Galileo manuscript contains monograms for the paper maker's initials 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.920 that's the AS and then the site of production that's 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:17.240 the BMO. The watermark caused Wilding to have quote serious doubt. 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.880 As he researched the watermark, he found another example. Another 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.240 Galileo document at the Morgan Library and Museum in New 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.400 York had a slightly different watermark, but the same monogram, 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.480 said Wilding of the find quote. When that document in 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.920 the Morgan Museum in New York revealed similar AS and 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:41.480 BMO monograms, I realized that the ann Arbor and the 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:46.760 Morgan document were siblings and both must be forgeries. Part 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.680 of the monogram the BMO that he discovered was a 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.960 reference to the Italian city of Bergamo. He also discovered 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.480 that no document with that mark exists before the year 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.080 seventeen seventy, more than one hund undred and fifty years 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.120 after Galileo had supposedly written the manuscript. Though it was 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:11.920 commonly used after seventeen seventy two, paper experts independently dated 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.720 the paper to the end of the eighteenth century Galileo 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.400 he died in sixteen forty two. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.440 When it came to clues about the forgery, Wilding also 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.040 noted the handwriting quote. The document was supposed to be 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.560 a draft, but in this draft Galileo had on his 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.960 Sunday best a formal hand. At that time in Europe, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.760 most people had different styles of handwriting to suit different purposes. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.440 There were other anomalies that only a Galileo scholar would see, 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:47.040 including even how he crossed his t's and dotted his eyes. Literally, 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.960 According to handwriting experts, Galileo had a habit of letting 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.240 the crossbow of his t's dip into the letter E 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.880 if an E followed. That detail was missing in the 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.920 forged document. Also were the pen and ink that were 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.560 used the ink was not right, and the quill was, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.760 as Wilding explained, quote, a quill that Galileo never used. 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.720 And then there was the content. So the bottom half 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.880 of the one page manuscript included Galileo's signature along with 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:24.840 five watercolor paintings charting Jupiter's moons. That was notable because 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.960 Galileo had only used etchings in other known versions. 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:34.080 And then there was the cardinal's examination of the manuscript. 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.640 He compared it to two documents that were believed to 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.400 be genuine Galileo works. But long after his death in 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.200 nineteen thirty one, it was Wilding who tracked them to 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.680 the cardinals archives in Pisa, and from there he discovered 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:52.240 that they too were fakes, donated to the archbishop by 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:56.720 a man named Tobia Nikotra. Ni Kotra was a name 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.840 Wilding was familiar with his forgeries. According to Wilding filled 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:05.040 gaps quote they are things that might have existed and 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.080 now do of him. Wilding has said, quote, he seemed 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.760 to have sold directly to individual collectors rather than to dealers, 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:14.679 and this cut down on the chance of being caught, 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.520 as dealers talk to each other a lot. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.480 And as if we really needed more evidence there was 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.800 no record of such a Galileo document ever existing prior 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.879 to the nineteen thirties. At least, there's no record of 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:33.680 such a thing in the extremely thorough twenty volume National 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:38.080 Edition of Galileo's Works, published between eighteen ninety and nineteen 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.240 oh nine. That's a work that is still today considered 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.880 the reference material for all things about Galileo. 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.480 University of Michigan Library Director of Communication and Marketing Alan 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.399 Pignon said of the work, quote, anybody who looked at 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.520 it since it's been around has just been looking at 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.879 other known Galileos. The handwriting matches because Kotro was good. 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.919 It wasn't until actually looking at the paper itself that 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:07.760 something started to maybe not make sense. 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.200 According to Wilding, quote, were it not for the mistake 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.600 with the paper, it would be quite hard to prove. 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.040 The main thing it lacks is a good backstory. But 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:22.840 that's true of a good many genuine documents too. Donna Hayward, 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.960 interim Dean of the University of Michigan's libraries, told The 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.760 New York Times at the time of discovery, quote, it 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.600 was pretty gut wrenching when we first learned our Galileo 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.920 was not actually a Galileo. The university did not hide 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.320 the mistake. Instead, they decided to announce their findings to 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.040 the public as an act of transparency, stating, quote, after 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.720 an internal investigation of the findings of Nick Wilding, the 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.800 library has concluded that its Galileo manuscript is, in fact 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:55.119 a twentieth century forgery. After our own experts studied his 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.879 most compelling evidence about the paper and providence and re 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:04.680 examined the manuscrit, we agreed with his conclusion. The statement continued, quote, 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.199 We're grateful to Professor Wilding for sharing his findings and 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.880 are now working to reconsider the manuscript's role in our collection. 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:15.920 It can be really easy and it can be really 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.879 difficult to expose a forgery, according to wild In, quote, 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:24.320 hindsight makes most forgeries look shoddy, but there's nothing obviously 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:29.800 wrong materially or texturally with most of Nikotra's forgeries. The 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.840 Michigan document is good because it's so presentable, so photographable. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.639 It's a made for reproduction image, possibly because it was 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.920 made from photographic facsimiles. 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.560 Ultimately because the forgery was based on actual works by Galileo. 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.720 If you're looking for the real deal, you can see them. 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.400 The genuine letter from Galileo to the Doge of Venice, 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.919 that's the top part of what Nikotri used in his 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.560 forged manuscript, is today held in the Archivio de Stato 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.480 di Vini. The genuine notes and drawings from the bottom 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.760 of the document are part of the Sidarius Nunkius dossier 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.040 at the Biblioteca. And as you're now Centrali di ferenze 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.160 to give Wilding the final word quote, now we can 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:21.159 get on with what we know to be true. You 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.600 know what I know to be true A good drink. 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.440 I love a cocktail. That's the truth. There's no getting 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.679 around it. The thing that stuck out to me in 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.560 this particular story, it echoes a thing that's come up 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.960 several times now, is the stealing of paper from books. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.480 That to me has really stuck out as well. I 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.560 didn't realize until we started this season that this was 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:45.119 a thing. Capital t. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.399 Yeah, it's very common. So that made me think of 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.240 an existing cocktail called a paper plane. I don't know 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.200 if you're familiar with it. It's a fairly recent cocktail. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.280 It was invented in either two thousand and seven or 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.760 two thousand and eight. By named Sam Ross and it's 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.080 variation on another cocktail called the Last Word. But I 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.440 thought it would be fun to make something that looks 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.000 like a paper plane but is not, and since it's 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.080 not as commonly known as some of the others we've 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.399 talked about, even though it's very popular right now and 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.800 a delicious cocktail. A paper plane is three quarters of 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.880 an ounce each of the following four ingredients. So amorrow 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.600 nonino apparol, wild turkey, one O one bourbon, and fresh 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.399 lemon juice. It's a bourbon and bitter orange drink and 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.359 that's normally shaken and served in a chilled cocktail glass. 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:35.200 And it's very pretty. 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:36.680 How do I not know about this drink? Because this 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:37.520 is right up my alley. 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.600 It is so up your alley. It's so up your alley. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.280 But I made something that looks like it, but it 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.959 does not taste at all like and I'm calling it 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:50.480 stolen paper. I wanted to do equal measures for it, 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:52.919 but it didn't quite work, so we had to twist 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.959 things around a little. So it's half an ounce of 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:01.479 raspberry liqueur, an ounce of passion fruit liqueur, three quarters 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.080 of an ounce of gin, and then three quarters of 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.720 an ounce of fresh limon juice. This looks very much 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.520 like a paper plane. You shake it and with ice 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.680 and then you strain it into a chilled cocktail glass. 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.200 And it's one of those things where I made it 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:16.879 trying to match the color, and then I was like, 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:18.199 I don't know what this is going to taste like. 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.080 And then I took a sip and was like, real good. 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:29.400 I think the exact words were hot damn right now. Yes, 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.560 the stolen paper in honor of. 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:35.720 The librarians of Milan. 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.760 Oh my goodness, and everywhere else that have had their 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.680 books ruined by people trying to forge things. If you 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.359 would like to make a mocktail version of this, I 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.280 will say for the mocktail, we're diverging a little bit 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.720 because often what I sub for gin is like a 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.840 flat tonic water or something along those lines. I don't 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:58.400 want to do this time, and I'll tell you why. 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:02.560 What you're going to use for thetail is syrup. So 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:05.560 you're gonna use half an ounce of raspberry syrup, an 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.240 ounce of passion fruit syrup. You're gonna use that three 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.880 quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice. Then you're 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.399 gonna just put like two ounces of ice cold club 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:19.320 soda in it. Okay, this is the peppiest, yummiest. It's 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.760 still got the sweetness of the fruit because there is 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:26.560 a lot of syrup, but the club soda just makes 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.120 it simpable. And you can even add more. If it's 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:31.440 too sweet for you. Still, you can up the club 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:33.840 soda and get something really nice. I will say the 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.080 lemon juice is high enough in volume to the rest 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:39.800 of it that it cuts that sugariness quite a bit, 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:42.520 so it's not for me. It didn't taste cloying, but 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:47.520 it was just the most refreshing, crisp, delightful, super yummy. 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.920 Raspberry and passion fruit together are always very yummy anyway, 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.200 And for this one, I just so that's stolen paper. 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.320 Don't steal paper, don't tear leaves out of books, particularly 0:23:58.400 --> 0:23:59.040 old books. 0:23:59.320 --> 0:23:59.840 Goodness. 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:01.960 This is where I tell you that one of my 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:06.280 jobs many moons ago, was repairing old books in a library, 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:10.480 not with an eye towards conservation, but just towards getting 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.200 them back into circulation, because they were books that needed 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:17.480 to be available to students. So I often encountered poor, 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.600 sad books, not necessarily that had been used for forgery purposes, 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.760 but just that just didn't get treated very nicely. You 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:27.480 got to save those other people need that information potentially, 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:30.760 So we hope if you make a stolen paper it's delicious. 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:33.880 It's such a strange sentence to him her. 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:40.840 Drink a stolen paper. Drink a stolen paper yum and 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:43.600 numb and numb is. We will be right back here 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:47.880 next week with another forgery and more drinks that look 0:24:48.000 --> 0:25:00.959 like other drinks that hopefully are delicious. Is a production 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:05.320 of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:09.720 from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:11.760 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.