The printed book, for centuries the most powerful medium for the circulation of ideas, is particularly central to this discourse, and it is no surprise that readers of all times as well as specialists are constantly challenged by the wealth of literary forgeries, fake imprints, fake authors, and material counterfeits. We are far, however, from an established definition of these notions, especially in their differences and overlaps. This two-day symposium aims to explore the topic at three different levels. Texts addresses textual forgeries and manipulations of authorship; editions concentrates on false imprints, ‘refreshed’ title-pages, and editorial piracy, including that of written and illustrated paratext; copies looks into the alteration of individual specimens of an edition.

Convenors

Geri Della Rocca de Candal and Paolo Sachet

Registrations

For General Admissions (£45), click here.

For Student Admissions (£25), click here.

Argument

From the spread of fake news to the rise of AI, in our everyday life as readers, scholars, and citizens, we are increasingly confronted with the slippery threshold separating reality and fiction. Yet on closer inspection it becomes clear that creating, altering, copying, and questioning the authenticity of information has always been at the very core of any intellectual, religious, political and economic activity.

The printed book, for centuries the most powerful medium for the circulation of ideas, is particularly central to this discourse, and it is no surprise that readers of all times as well as specialists are constantly challenged by the wealth of literary forgeries, fake imprints, fake authors, and material counterfeits. We are far, however, from an established definition of these notions, especially in their differences and overlaps.

This two-day symposium aims to explore the topic at three different levels. Texts addresses textual forgeries and manipulations of authorship; editions concentrates on false imprints, ‘refreshed’ title-pages, and editorial piracy, including that of written and illustrated paratext; copies looks into the alteration of individual specimens of an edition (sophistication, remboîtage, fabricated provenances, retouched decoration).

For further information, please e-mail geri.dellaroccadecandal@gmail.com

Programme

For the full programme of the conference, please click here.

Friday 10 May

• 9.30am Registration and Coffee
• 10.00am Opening Remarks 

10.15am - 12pm

Texts I: False Texts

• Georgijs Dunajevs (Würzburg – National Library of Latvia) ‘Faux Completeness over Textual Authenticity: A Case Study of the Taiping guangji’ 
• Avni Chag (VU Amsterdam) ‘Writing in the Name of God: Implications of Pseudepigrapha in the Śikṣāpatrī’
• Andrea Brondino (Warwick) ‘From Fiction to Fake, and Back Again: Reframing the Protocols of Zion in The Prague Cemetery of Umberto Eco’
• Enrico Emanuele Prodi (Cagliari) ‘The Artemidorus Papyrus between the Ivory Tower and the Public Arena’

1.30pm - 3.15pm

Editions I: Fake Imprints

• Paolo Sachet (IHR, Geneva) ‘“Ad Catacumbas”: Rome and its Historical Sites as Fake Imprints in Protestant Publications’
• Hadrien Dami (IHR, Geneva) ‘From Pierre Aubert to Pierre Marteau: Geneva as Fake Imprint and Hub for Fake Imprints in the Seventeenth Century’
• Jacqueline Hylkema (Leiden) ‘The Politics of Printing Forgery in the Dutch Republic, from the States Bible to Spinoza’
• Pierre Delseardt (Antwerp) ‘Paratext and Persuasion: Fake Imprints as Political Statements in the Habsburg Low Countries (1781–1793)’

3.15pm Coffee Break

3.45pm - 5.30pm

Copies I: Forgers and Forgeries

• Geri Della Rocca de Candal (Oxford) ‘Untangling a Case of Double Forgery: A Unique Copy of the 1499 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili’
• Katharina Mähler (Herzog August Bibliothek) ‘On Closer Inspection: Suspicious Details of Historic Bookbindings’
• Paul Needham (Princeton) ‘The Rome Editions of the Columbus Letter 1493: Collecting, Thieving, and Forging’
• Nick Wilding (Georgia State University) ‘Forging Print and Provenance: Deception and Detection in the Case of Galileo’ 

Saturday 11 May

9.30am Coffee

10.15am - 12pm

• Texts II: False Authorship
• Phillip Haberken (Boston University) ‘The Challenge of Verisimilitude and the “True Likeness” of Jan Hus in the German Reformation’
• Marco Spreafico (Warburg Institute) ‘Un autre est moi: Faking and Forging Self-Translations in Early Modern Italy and France’
• Giovanni Spalloni (CNR) ‘Lettere agli eretici: A Textual Forgery in the Turmoil of 1977’
• Anthony Grafton (Princeton) ‘Joseph Scaliger and the Case of the Doctor's Diploma’ 

1.30pm - 3.15pm

Editions II: Pirating and Workarounds

• Ester Camilla Peric (Scuola Superiore Meridionale) ‘Aldine Counterfeits: Reassessing the Lyon and Italian Imitations’
• John Bidwell (Morgan Library & Museum)‘Authorized Editions: Some Manuscript and Printed Authentication Statements’ 
• François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles (Independent)‘Counterfeiting Jansenist Bibles during the Reign of Louis XIV: The Brussels-Paris Connection’ 
• Pritha Mukherjee (Reading)‘Re-Evaluating Book Piracy and its Market in India’

3.15pm Coffee Break

3.45pm - 5.30pm

Copies II: Forgers and Forgeries

• Martyna Osuch (University of Warsaw Library)‘Falsifying a Book’s Past: Alteration of Ownership Marks in Early Modern Warsaw Collections’ 
• Nicolas Barker (independent)‘The Oath of a Freeman Revisited’
• Francesca Galligan (Bodleian Library)‘A ‘perfected’ Mirour, with Anne Clifford’s annotations’ 
• H.R. Woudhuysen (Oxford)‘“England’s Foremost Book-Collector and Supreme Bibliographical Pontiff”: Some Notes on T.J. Wise’s Bibliographies’