Forgery, Fraud, Mystification. A Perspective on Italian Renaissance Literature and Art

The international workshop promoted by the Graduate Campus of the University of Zurich aims at being, both, a meeting point to examine the procedures underlying the material falsification of art and literary works, and an opportunity to share, discuss and find new approaches to thoroughly study the influence that forgeries and similar practices exercised on the Renaissance culture, with special focus on the Italian context.
Significant authors and artists of the Italian Renaissance, as well as falsification practices implemented by the forgers of historical sources, genealogies and other types of handwritten and printed texts, will be carefully investigated. In this context, an essential role is played by the use of fakes in debates and controversies between artists and writers, including the accusation of forgery as a rhetorical tool to discredit the opponent in the context of an intellectual dispute.
The interdisciplinary approach of the workshop also envisages extending the analysis to the cases of fakes studied by art historians, with the aim of investigating substantial issues relating to the production, circulation and fortune of fake works of art in the Italian Renaissance. Overall, the workshop will be designed according to a multidisciplinary perspective and will provide an important opportunity for dialogue between expert scholars and young researchers.

Workshop Schedule

THURSDAY 6 MAY

PANEL 1

10:00 Greetings

10:30 Carla Rossi (Universität Zürich): “Il falso che non c’è e il «Tosco»: De tribus impostoribus”

11:00 Johannes Bartuschat (Universität Zürich): “Il De Vulgari Eloquentia del Trissino”

11:30 Diletta Gamberini (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, München): “Di Cupidi dormienti e altre contraffazioni dell’antico: l’Antologia Planudea come catalizzatore di falsi artistici rinascimentali”

12:00 Discussion and short break

PANEL 2

14:00 Jonathan Schiesaro (Universität Zürich): “I falsi storiografici di Annio da Viterbo nell’Accademia Fiorentina”

14:30 Stefano Pierguidi (Sapienza Università di Roma): “La fraude d’alcuni professori: mercanti, antiquari e falsi”

15:00 Joris van Gastel (Universität Zürich): “Luca Giordano «Falsario»: Reappropriating the Renaissance”

15:30 Discussion

FRIDAY 7 MAY

PANEL 3

10:00 Giovanni Maria Fara (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia): “Venezia 1530 - 1590: la ricezione delle carte celesti di Albrecht Dürer nelle traduzioni grafiche di Eufrosino Della Volpaia, Giovanni Andrea Valvassori e Matteo Pagano, e nei commenti vitruviani di Daniele Barbaro e Giovanni Antonio Ruscon”

10:30 Sara Ferrilli (Universität Zürich): “Un umanista sconosciuto e plagiato. Profilo di Giovanni Michele Alberto Carrara”

11:00 Marco Nava (Universität Zürich): “Alfonso Ceccarelli: anatomia di un falsario”

11:30 Andrea Torre (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa): “Apocrifi tassiani tra veglie e disperazioni”

12:00 Discussion and closing remarks

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Zoom Link (for both days)
https://uzh.zoom.us/j/4869986781?pwd=ZUwyb0RSdG1BSmp2MDdtRjJnK0JSZz09

No registration required.
Info: marco.navauzh.ch