Forging the Moon; Or, How to Spot a Fake Galileo
Nick Wilding, Associate Professor of History, Georgia State University
Wed. 2/3, 12:30pm, Science Center 277
Co-sponsored by Book Studies, the CLCE’s Edwards Fund, and the Science Center. Open to all members of the Wellesley College community: RSVPs for lunch will be required closer to the date of the event.
The integrity of the historical record is a prime concern for any historian. It follows that the art of detecting forgeries is crucial to our craft. Early modern print materials have generally been held above suspicion as a technologically impossible, or at least unprofitable, subject for forgery. But the emergence in 2005 of a spectacular copy of Galileo’s cosmos-changing Sidereus Nuncius, furnished with an autograph inscription and hand drawn lunar illustrations, forced a reconsideration of this assumption. By reconstructing the recent history of the analysis of this single and singular object, Professor Wilding shows how, when viewed from different perspectives, within shifting contexts, and alongside a choice of control copies, a seemingly rigorous and secure authentication can gradually lose its certainty and eventually become proof of forgery.
To learn more about Dr. Wilding’s discoveries, please see “A Very Rare Book:The Mystery Surrounding A Copy of Galileo’s Pivotal Treatise” (The New Yorker, December 16, 2013).
To: Faculty, students, staff
From: Veronica Brandstrader, LTS, x2171
More info: Katherine Ruffin, LTS, x2130
