Books and Bookmen [22]
ago some one published a book to show that the 'Annals of Tacitus'
were written by Poggio Bracciolini. This paradox gained no more
converts than the bolder hypothesis of Hardouin. The theory of
Hardouin was all that the ancient classics were productions of a
learned company which worked, in the thirteenth century, under
Severus Archontius. Hardouin made some exceptions to his sweeping
general theory. Cicero's writings were genuine, he admitted, so
were Pliny's, of Virgil the Georgics; the satires and epistles of
Horace; Herodotus, and Homer. All the rest of the classics were a
magnificent forgery of the illiterate thirteenth century, which had
scarce any Greek, and whose Latin, abundant in quantity, in quality
left much to be desired.
Among literary forgers, or passers of false literary coin, at the
time of the Renaissance, Annius is the most notorious. Annius (his
real vernacular name was Nanni) was born at Viterbo, in 1432. He
became a Dominican, and (after publishing his forged classics) rose
to the position of Maitre du Palais to the Pope, Alexander Borgia.
With Caesar Borgia it is said that Annius was never on good terms.
He persisted in preaching "the sacred truth" to his highness and
this (according to the detractors of Annius) was the only use he
made of the sacred truth. There is a legend that Caesar Borgia
poisoned the preacher (1502), but people usually brought that charge
against Caesar when any one in any way connected with him happened
to die. Annius wrote on the History and Empire of the Turks, who
took Constantinople in his time; but he is better remembered by his
'Antiquitatum Variarum Volumina XVII. cum comment. Fr. Jo. Annii.'
These fragments of antiquity included, among many other desirable
things, the historical writings of Fabius Pictor, the predecessor of
Livy. One is surprised that Annius, when he had his hand in, did
not publish choice extracts from the 'Libri Lintei,' the ancient
Roman annals, written on linen and preserved in the temple of Juno
Moneta. Among the other discoveries of Annius were treatises by
Berosus, Manetho, Cato, and poems by Archilochus. Opinion has been
divided as to whether Annius was wholly a knave, or whether he was
himself imposed upon. Or, again, whether he had some genuine
fragments, and eked them out with his own inventions. It is
observed that he did not dovetail the really genuine relics of
Berosus and Manetho into the works attributed to them. This may be
explained as the result of ignorance or of cunning; there can be no
certain inference. "Even the Dominicans," as Bayle says, admit that
Annius's discoveries are false, though they excuse them by averring
that the pious man was the dupe of others. But a learned Lutheran
has been found to defend the 'Antiquitates' of the Dominican.
It is amusing to remember that the great and erudite Rabelais was
taken in by some pseudo-classical fragments. The joker of jokes was
hoaxed. He published, says Mr. Besant, "a couple of Latin
forgeries, which he proudly called 'Ex reliquiis venerandae
antiquitatis,' consisting of a pretended will and a contract." The
name of the book is 'Ex reliquiis venerandae antiquitatis. Lucii
Cuspidii Testamentum. Item contractus venditionis antiquis
Romanorum temporibus initus. Lugduni apud Gryphium (1532).'
Pomponius Laetus and Jovianus Pontanus were apparently authors of
the hoax.
Socrates said that he "would never lift up his hand against his
father Parmenides." The fathers of the Church have not been so
respectfully treated by literary forgers during the Renaissance.
The 'Flowers of Theology' of St. Bernard, which were to be a
primrose path ad gaudia Paradisi (Strasburg, 1478), were really, it
seems, the production of Jean de Garlande. Athanasius, his 'Eleven
Books concerning the Trinity,' are attributed to Vigilius, a
colonial Bishop in Northern Africa. Among false classics were two
comic Latin fragments with which Muretus beguiled Scaliger.
Meursius has suffered, posthumously, from the attribution to