Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: He's then described as quote perhaps the cleverest forger on record.
Speaker 2: Some historians believe he may have produced as many as
Speaker 2: six hundred forgeries of letters, music, manuscripts, and other documents
Speaker 2: attributed to names like Mozart and Galileo before he got caught.
Speaker 2: So let's meet Tobia Nikotra. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria
Speaker 2: Tremarki and I'm Holly Frye. Not much is known about
Speaker 2: this Italian forger's life. Nikotro once claimed to be the
Speaker 2: son of a botany professor. He also once wrote that
Speaker 2: he had graduated with a degree in music from a
Speaker 2: conservatory in Naples in nineteen oh nine. True or not,
Speaker 2: nobody actually knows. What historians do know is that he
Speaker 2: began selling his forgeries in the nineteen twenties. Nikotra produced
Speaker 2: inauthentic works of artists across many disciplines. One of his
Speaker 2: most notorious fakes that we'll talk about was mistaken as
Speaker 2: a genuine Mozart by the Library of Congress. He also
Speaker 2: forged signatures and documents by Christopher Columbus Leonardo da Vinci,
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln, Martin, Luther, Michelangelo, and George Washington. The list
Speaker 2: goes on. You'll see Nikotra really did forge a bit
Speaker 2: of a lot of things. He forged a poem he
Speaker 2: claimed was written by the Italian Renaissance poet Tasso. Some
Speaker 2: stories about him suggest he once nearly started a minor
Speaker 2: international incident when he created a fake Christopher Columbus letter
Speaker 2: in which Columbus identified his birthplace as Spain, not Italy,
Speaker 2: and that set off an uproar among Italians that prompted
Speaker 2: the mayor of Genoa to reaffirm Columbus's Italian ancestry.
Speaker 1: He forged musical manuscripts by well known composers, not just
Speaker 1: forging the signatures, but composing the works themselves. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi,
Speaker 1: an early eighteenth century composer who died shortly after his
Speaker 1: twenty sixth birthday, was a popular target for forgery, and
Speaker 1: Nikotra was one of his famous forgers. Begolesi's popularity grew
Speaker 1: after his death after a performance of his intermezzo La
Speaker 1: Serva Padrona That's the Servant Mistress, and that sparked the
Speaker 1: Carelle de Bauffon in Paris, a controversy over musical philosophies.
Speaker 1: Begolesi's small canon is small, and it is still today
Speaker 1: debated that in itself opened the door to all kinds
Speaker 1: of inauthentic works being passed as genuine. With a small
Speaker 1: catalog of known compositions from a fairly young composer, it's
Speaker 1: been difficult for experts to verify what was and wasn't
Speaker 1: his original work. It's thought that Nikotra forged at least
Speaker 1: four Pargolesi compositions. It was a piece called Agnes's Day
Speaker 1: that wound up in the collection of the Metropolitan Opera
Speaker 1: and ultimately was determined to be an authentic Christie's auction
Speaker 1: House described it in June of twenty seventeen as quote
Speaker 1: an intriguing forgery once thought to belong to the hotly
Speaker 1: debated Pergolesi cannon, clearly cited as quote created by the
Speaker 1: prolific forger to be a Nicotra. The known fake sold
Speaker 1: for three hundred and seventy five dollars.
Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty eight, the Library of Congress purchased an
Speaker 2: alleged Mozart manuscript in Aria called Bacchi Amarosi Ekari, supposedly
Speaker 2: composed by the famous maestro at age fourteen, and they
Speaker 2: paid sixty dollars for it, believing it was authentic. In fact,
Speaker 2: though Nikotra composed the piece himself, but it would be
Speaker 2: years before library officials knew they were housing a fake.
Speaker 2: According to Paul Alan Summerfeld, a music reference specialist at
Speaker 2: the Library of Congress, quote, it was so special because
Speaker 2: first of all, it was unknown, so it wasn't reported
Speaker 2: in any of the thematic catalogs of Mozart at the time.
Speaker 1: Just the very next year, Nikotra became an author when
Speaker 1: he wrote a biography of New York Philharmonic Orchestra conductor
Speaker 1: Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini would have been around sixty two years
Speaker 1: old when this biography was published. It turned out, though,
Speaker 1: to be a story that was more fiction than fact.
Speaker 1: We don't know Toscanini's reaction to it, although we sure
Speaker 1: would like to.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor. When we return, we'll talk about the one
Speaker 2: and only time Nikotra went to prison for selling his
Speaker 2: forged work and how his Galileo forgery ended up at
Speaker 2: the University of Michigan.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminaliam. Let's talk about what happened when
Speaker 1: a Nikotra forged Galileo manuscript was discovered at the University
Speaker 1: of Michigan.
Speaker 2: Nikotro was arrested in Milan, Italy, in November of nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty four, after he sold a fake mozart autograph to
Speaker 2: the son of Arturo Toscanini, Walter Tuscanini. When Walter discovered
Speaker 2: the autograph he'd purchased for twenty seven hundred lira was
Speaker 2: not authentic, he tipped off milanaise A detective Giorgio Florita,
Speaker 2: about the forgery and the identity of the forger. Police
Speaker 2: raided Nikotra's Milan apartment and he was arrested in court,
Speaker 2: they testified they had found him in his workshop busy
Speaker 2: working on forged autographs of Christopher Columbus and Lorenzo de Medici.
Speaker 2: He was also accused of composing historically plausible documents, musical
Speaker 2: manuscripts and letters supposedly written by the same people whose
Speaker 2: signatures he forged.
Speaker 1: According to his trial coverage, as reported by The New
Speaker 1: York Times, Nikotre relied on the Milan Library for his
Speaker 1: forging work, but not for reasons you might initially think
Speaker 1: he wasn't visiting to learn or research more about historical figures.
Speaker 1: The library was his source for paper. He ripped blank
Speaker 1: pages and fly leaves from old books and created many
Speaker 1: of his forgeries on that authentic paper. In fact, later
Speaker 1: librarians in Milan testified that yes, Nikotra had destroyed dozens
Speaker 1: of books doing this.
Speaker 2: The master forger testified that he had sold the counterfeit
Speaker 2: autograph to Toscanini quote to support his seven loves. Now
Speaker 2: take it with a grain of salt. But as reported
Speaker 2: in some coverage of the trial, investigators did testify that
Speaker 2: they found what they described as a kind of alter
Speaker 2: to seven women. An article about the trial printed in
Speaker 2: the American Weekly Hurst Publication in early nineteen thirty five
Speaker 2: described a room with quote, black velvet covered walls, with
Speaker 2: seven panels featuring paintings, sketches, and photographs of seven women,
Speaker 2: one of whom was said to be a novelty dancer
Speaker 2: and another an expert swimmer, with fresh flowers in front
Speaker 2: of each. The pictures, in some cases, displayed their physical
Speaker 2: attractions with startling frankness but they were in general highly artistic.
Speaker 2: The American Weekly also noted in their coverage that quote, incidentally,
Speaker 2: he also had a wife.
Speaker 1: There are no known photos of Nkotra. The best we
Speaker 1: have is a glimpse of him from a courtroom sketch
Speaker 1: that appeared alongside the story published by The American Weekly.
Speaker 1: In that sketch, he is portrayed as a thin, balding
Speaker 1: man with glasses, a mustache, and a goatee. Some accounts
Speaker 1: say that he was fifty three at the time of
Speaker 1: his trial, but a birth certificate suggests that he may
Speaker 1: have been only four. When you're talking about a forger, though,
Speaker 1: it can be hard to know what's real and what's not.
Speaker 2: In addition to the signature forgery accusation, Walter Tuscanini also
Speaker 2: included in his testimony that Nikotra had visited the United
Speaker 2: States in nineteen thirty two posing as the musician Ricardo Drigo,
Speaker 2: and that while in the States, he was quote widely feded.
Speaker 2: It's unclear whether or not either man knew Drigo, who
Speaker 2: was an Italian composer of ballet music and opera, had
Speaker 2: died in nineteen thirty two years prior. To when this
Speaker 2: ruse may have happened. Regardless, no one seemed to care.
Speaker 1: Of the trial. Walter stated that he quote wanted to
Speaker 1: restore the faith of foreign collectors in Italian dealers. On
Speaker 1: November ninth, Nikotra was convicted, primarily on Walter's testimony. He
Speaker 1: was sentenced to two years in jail and fined twenty
Speaker 1: four hundred lire. It was his only conviction for forgery.
Speaker 1: It's believed Nikotre didn't serve much of his sentence. Some
Speaker 1: accounts suggest he may have been paroled early on behalf
Speaker 1: of Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party, who wanted him
Speaker 1: to forge the signatures of their enemies during the Second
Speaker 1: World War, and then, unlike his forgeries, he just kind
Speaker 1: of faded into obscurity. Much of his work is believed
Speaker 1: to have gone undetected, but from time.
Speaker 2: To time Nikotra pops up with possibly hundreds of forgeries
Speaker 2: in circulation. It's bound to happen, and he did recently
Speaker 2: show up at the University of Michigan. We can now
Speaker 2: add Galileo to the list of people he forged. Galileo
Speaker 2: was an Italian physicist, engineer, and notable astronomer. Though he
Speaker 2: wasn't the first to look through a telescope, he was
Speaker 2: the first to document the phases of Venus and the
Speaker 2: stars of the Milky Way. So when a new Galileo
Speaker 2: manuscript appeared centuries after his death, it was of course
Speaker 2: really exciting.
Speaker 1: It was a single sheet of paper. The top half
Speaker 1: of the manuscript was a draft of a letter Galileo
Speaker 1: sent to the Doge of Venice on August twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: sixteen oh nine, regarding a new telescope that was built
Speaker 1: that year. The bottom half of the document included notes
Speaker 1: and sketches allegedly made by Galileo when he used the
Speaker 1: telescope to observe Jupiter's moons. Plotted from January seventh through
Speaker 1: January fifteenth, sixteen ten, it was the first time observational
Speaker 1: data showed celestial objects orbiting a body other than Earth.
Speaker 1: The manuscript debunked the theory held in Galileo's era that
Speaker 1: everything in the universe orbited our planet. It helped substantiate
Speaker 1: Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric theory and laid the foundation for modern astronomy.
Speaker 2: The first appearance of the alleged Galileo document was in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty four, when the American Art Anderson Galleries auctioned
Speaker 2: the library of Roderick Tis, a wealthy manuscript collector. It
Speaker 2: was part of his collection, but the origin story died
Speaker 2: with him. According to the auction catalog, it was authenticated
Speaker 2: by Cardinal Pietro Maffi, the Archbishop of Pisa, who had
Speaker 2: compared the writing against documents signed by Galileo. He compared
Speaker 2: them to letters in his own personal collection. It passed
Speaker 2: the visual test, and the document was sold with a
Speaker 2: note of authentication. Tracy McGregor, a businessman from Detroit who
Speaker 2: had collected books and manuscripts, purchased it in May of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty four. Following his death, McGregor's trustees bequeathed the
Speaker 2: manuscript to the University of Michigan at ann Arbor in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty eight in recognition of Hebrew Curtis, a professor
Speaker 2: of astronomy at the school, and it's been there ever since,
Speaker 2: said officials from the University of Michigan in regard to
Speaker 2: their Galileo Manuscript quote. It reflects a pivotal moment in
Speaker 2: Galileo's life that helped to change our understanding of the Universe.
Speaker 1: I'm going to pause here for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and when we're back we will talk about how a
Speaker 1: professor at Georgia State University debunked the authenticity of the
Speaker 1: Galileo manuscript.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how the provenance
Speaker 2: of this document unraveled and how it began with a
Speaker 2: simple watermark.
Speaker 1: Not everyone agreed the Galileo document was genuine. Enter Nick Wilding.
Speaker 1: Wilding is a historian and professor of history at Georgia
Speaker 1: State University and is often called in to verify the
Speaker 1: authenticity of rare manuscripts. He's also famous for his work
Speaker 1: uncovering Galileo forgeries, including exposing a forge draft of the
Speaker 1: Siderius Nuncius, which was galileo first publication of his celestial observations,
Speaker 1: as being an authentic.
Speaker 2: According to Wilding, he quote got a little spidey sense
Speaker 2: when he heard about the document in Michigan, suspecting it
Speaker 2: could be a forgery. He emailed Pablo Alvarez, curator at
Speaker 2: the University of Michigan's Special Collections Research Center. Said Alvarez,
Speaker 2: who recognized Wilding for his work on covering forgeries, quote,
Speaker 2: I had a sinking feeling when I saw Nick Wilding's
Speaker 2: name on an email. Wilding first asked to see an
Speaker 2: image of the document's watermark. Amy christ Book and Paper
Speaker 2: Concertor at the library used a special light table to
Speaker 2: locate the mark. It was a circle with a three
Speaker 2: leaved clover and the monogram read as slash BMO.
Speaker 1: Experts can date paper by its watermark because often the
Speaker 1: watermark is linked to a particular paper mill that manufactured
Speaker 1: during a particular period. For instance, the watermark on the
Speaker 1: alleged Galileo manuscript contains monograms for the paper maker's initials
Speaker 1: that's the AS and then the site of production that's
Speaker 1: the BMO. The watermark caused Wilding to have quote serious doubt.
Speaker 1: As he researched the watermark, he found another example. Another
Speaker 1: Galileo document at the Morgan Library and Museum in New
Speaker 1: York had a slightly different watermark, but the same monogram,
Speaker 1: said Wilding of the find quote. When that document in
Speaker 1: the Morgan Museum in New York revealed similar AS and
Speaker 1: BMO monograms, I realized that the ann Arbor and the
Speaker 1: Morgan document were siblings and both must be forgeries. Part
Speaker 1: of the monogram the BMO that he discovered was a
Speaker 1: reference to the Italian city of Bergamo. He also discovered
Speaker 1: that no document with that mark exists before the year
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy, more than one hund undred and fifty years
Speaker 1: after Galileo had supposedly written the manuscript. Though it was
Speaker 1: commonly used after seventeen seventy two, paper experts independently dated
Speaker 1: the paper to the end of the eighteenth century Galileo
Speaker 1: he died in sixteen forty two.
Speaker 2: When it came to clues about the forgery, Wilding also
Speaker 2: noted the handwriting quote. The document was supposed to be
Speaker 2: a draft, but in this draft Galileo had on his
Speaker 2: Sunday best a formal hand. At that time in Europe,
Speaker 2: most people had different styles of handwriting to suit different purposes.
Speaker 2: There were other anomalies that only a Galileo scholar would see,
Speaker 2: including even how he crossed his t's and dotted his eyes. Literally,
Speaker 2: According to handwriting experts, Galileo had a habit of letting
Speaker 2: the crossbow of his t's dip into the letter E
Speaker 2: if an E followed. That detail was missing in the
Speaker 2: forged document. Also were the pen and ink that were
Speaker 2: used the ink was not right, and the quill was,
Speaker 2: as Wilding explained, quote, a quill that Galileo never used.
Speaker 1: And then there was the content. So the bottom half
Speaker 1: of the one page manuscript included Galileo's signature along with
Speaker 1: five watercolor paintings charting Jupiter's moons. That was notable because
Speaker 1: Galileo had only used etchings in other known versions.
Speaker 2: And then there was the cardinal's examination of the manuscript.
Speaker 2: He compared it to two documents that were believed to
Speaker 2: be genuine Galileo works. But long after his death in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty one, it was Wilding who tracked them to
Speaker 2: the cardinals archives in Pisa, and from there he discovered
Speaker 2: that they too were fakes, donated to the archbishop by
Speaker 2: a man named Tobia Nikotra. Ni Kotra was a name
Speaker 2: Wilding was familiar with his forgeries. According to Wilding filled
Speaker 2: gaps quote they are things that might have existed and
Speaker 2: now do of him. Wilding has said, quote, he seemed
Speaker 2: to have sold directly to individual collectors rather than to dealers,
Speaker 2: and this cut down on the chance of being caught,
Speaker 2: as dealers talk to each other a lot.
Speaker 1: And as if we really needed more evidence there was
Speaker 1: no record of such a Galileo document ever existing prior
Speaker 1: to the nineteen thirties. At least, there's no record of
Speaker 1: such a thing in the extremely thorough twenty volume National
Speaker 1: Edition of Galileo's Works, published between eighteen ninety and nineteen
Speaker 1: oh nine. That's a work that is still today considered
Speaker 1: the reference material for all things about Galileo.
Speaker 2: University of Michigan Library Director of Communication and Marketing Alan
Speaker 2: Pignon said of the work, quote, anybody who looked at
Speaker 2: it since it's been around has just been looking at
Speaker 2: other known Galileos. The handwriting matches because Kotro was good.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until actually looking at the paper itself that
Speaker 2: something started to maybe not make sense.
Speaker 1: According to Wilding, quote, were it not for the mistake
Speaker 1: with the paper, it would be quite hard to prove.
Speaker 1: The main thing it lacks is a good backstory. But
Speaker 1: that's true of a good many genuine documents too. Donna Hayward,
Speaker 1: interim Dean of the University of Michigan's libraries, told The
Speaker 1: New York Times at the time of discovery, quote, it
Speaker 1: was pretty gut wrenching when we first learned our Galileo
Speaker 1: was not actually a Galileo. The university did not hide
Speaker 1: the mistake. Instead, they decided to announce their findings to
Speaker 1: the public as an act of transparency, stating, quote, after
Speaker 1: an internal investigation of the findings of Nick Wilding, the
Speaker 1: library has concluded that its Galileo manuscript is, in fact
Speaker 1: a twentieth century forgery. After our own experts studied his
Speaker 1: most compelling evidence about the paper and providence and re
Speaker 1: examined the manuscrit, we agreed with his conclusion. The statement continued, quote,
Speaker 1: We're grateful to Professor Wilding for sharing his findings and
Speaker 1: are now working to reconsider the manuscript's role in our collection.
Speaker 2: It can be really easy and it can be really
Speaker 2: difficult to expose a forgery, according to wild In, quote,
Speaker 2: hindsight makes most forgeries look shoddy, but there's nothing obviously
Speaker 2: wrong materially or texturally with most of Nikotra's forgeries. The
Speaker 2: Michigan document is good because it's so presentable, so photographable.
Speaker 2: It's a made for reproduction image, possibly because it was
Speaker 2: made from photographic facsimiles.
Speaker 1: Ultimately because the forgery was based on actual works by Galileo.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for the real deal, you can see them.
Speaker 1: The genuine letter from Galileo to the Doge of Venice,
Speaker 1: that's the top part of what Nikotri used in his
Speaker 1: forged manuscript, is today held in the Archivio de Stato
Speaker 1: di Vini. The genuine notes and drawings from the bottom
Speaker 1: of the document are part of the Sidarius Nunkius dossier
Speaker 1: at the Biblioteca. And as you're now Centrali di ferenze
Speaker 1: to give Wilding the final word quote, now we can
Speaker 1: get on with what we know to be true. You
Speaker 1: know what I know to be true A good drink.
Speaker 1: I love a cocktail. That's the truth. There's no getting
Speaker 1: around it. The thing that stuck out to me in
Speaker 1: this particular story, it echoes a thing that's come up
Speaker 1: several times now, is the stealing of paper from books.
Speaker 2: That to me has really stuck out as well. I
Speaker 2: didn't realize until we started this season that this was
Speaker 2: a thing. Capital t.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very common. So that made me think of
Speaker 1: an existing cocktail called a paper plane. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with it. It's a fairly recent cocktail.
Speaker 1: It was invented in either two thousand and seven or
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. By named Sam Ross and it's
Speaker 1: variation on another cocktail called the Last Word. But I
Speaker 1: thought it would be fun to make something that looks
Speaker 1: like a paper plane but is not, and since it's
Speaker 1: not as commonly known as some of the others we've
Speaker 1: talked about, even though it's very popular right now and
Speaker 1: a delicious cocktail. A paper plane is three quarters of
Speaker 1: an ounce each of the following four ingredients. So amorrow
Speaker 1: nonino apparol, wild turkey, one O one bourbon, and fresh
Speaker 1: lemon juice. It's a bourbon and bitter orange drink and
Speaker 1: that's normally shaken and served in a chilled cocktail glass.
Speaker 1: And it's very pretty.
Speaker 2: How do I not know about this drink? Because this
Speaker 2: is right up my alley.
Speaker 1: It is so up your alley. It's so up your alley.
Speaker 1: But I made something that looks like it, but it
Speaker 1: does not taste at all like and I'm calling it
Speaker 1: stolen paper. I wanted to do equal measures for it,
Speaker 1: but it didn't quite work, so we had to twist
Speaker 1: things around a little. So it's half an ounce of
Speaker 1: raspberry liqueur, an ounce of passion fruit liqueur, three quarters
Speaker 1: of an ounce of gin, and then three quarters of
Speaker 1: an ounce of fresh limon juice. This looks very much
Speaker 1: like a paper plane. You shake it and with ice
Speaker 1: and then you strain it into a chilled cocktail glass.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things where I made it
Speaker 1: trying to match the color, and then I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is going to taste like.
Speaker 1: And then I took a sip and was like, real good.
Speaker 1: I think the exact words were hot damn right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: the stolen paper in honor of.
Speaker 2: The librarians of Milan.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, and everywhere else that have had their
Speaker 1: books ruined by people trying to forge things. If you
Speaker 1: would like to make a mocktail version of this, I
Speaker 1: will say for the mocktail, we're diverging a little bit
Speaker 1: because often what I sub for gin is like a
Speaker 1: flat tonic water or something along those lines. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do this time, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: What you're going to use for thetail is syrup. So
Speaker 1: you're gonna use half an ounce of raspberry syrup, an
Speaker 1: ounce of passion fruit syrup. You're gonna use that three
Speaker 1: quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice. Then you're
Speaker 1: gonna just put like two ounces of ice cold club
Speaker 1: soda in it. Okay, this is the peppiest, yummiest. It's
Speaker 1: still got the sweetness of the fruit because there is
Speaker 1: a lot of syrup, but the club soda just makes
Speaker 1: it simpable. And you can even add more. If it's
Speaker 1: too sweet for you. Still, you can up the club
Speaker 1: soda and get something really nice. I will say the
Speaker 1: lemon juice is high enough in volume to the rest
Speaker 1: of it that it cuts that sugariness quite a bit,
Speaker 1: so it's not for me. It didn't taste cloying, but
Speaker 1: it was just the most refreshing, crisp, delightful, super yummy.
Speaker 1: Raspberry and passion fruit together are always very yummy anyway,
Speaker 1: And for this one, I just so that's stolen paper.
Speaker 1: Don't steal paper, don't tear leaves out of books, particularly
Speaker 1: old books.
Speaker 2: Goodness.
Speaker 1: This is where I tell you that one of my
Speaker 1: jobs many moons ago, was repairing old books in a library,
Speaker 1: not with an eye towards conservation, but just towards getting
Speaker 1: them back into circulation, because they were books that needed
Speaker 1: to be available to students. So I often encountered poor,
Speaker 1: sad books, not necessarily that had been used for forgery purposes,
Speaker 1: but just that just didn't get treated very nicely. You
Speaker 1: got to save those other people need that information potentially,
Speaker 1: So we hope if you make a stolen paper it's delicious.
Speaker 2: It's such a strange sentence to him her.
Speaker 1: Drink a stolen paper. Drink a stolen paper yum and
Speaker 1: numb and numb is. We will be right back here
Speaker 1: next week with another forgery and more drinks that look
Speaker 1: like other drinks that hopefully are delicious. Is a production
Speaker 1: of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.