Adriano Prosperi’s new book examines some famous cases of historical forgeries: the donation of Constantine to the Pope of Rome, the forgeries of Annio da Viterbo, the ‘Lead Books of Sacromonte’ and the Immaculate Conception in 17th century Spain, and the ‘Protocols of the Elder Saviours of Zion’. 

A careful review of the documentation of these cases shows that the discovery of the truth has never completely erased the historical effectiveness of the forgery. 

In the case of donation of Constantine, Lorenzo Valla’s ringing demonstration of its falsity did not prevent a deafening persistence of the Church’s claim to its validity, which made possible the historical permanence of the Vatican State within Rome. 

The long fascination with the false antiquities fabricated by the Dominican Annio da Viterbo prompted the first European historian of indigenous peoples of the Americas to reconstruct their origins on that basis and even influenced Giambattista Vico.

The affair of the fake ‘Plomos’ (Los Libros Plúmbeos del Sacromonte) fabricated and uncovered by the Moriscos to make themselves the heirs of a very ancient settlement of Arab proto-Christians in Spain has had the sole effect of igniting a Spanish devotional flare-up of the Immaculate Conception that has become fixed as a feature of Spanish national devotion.  

As for the ‘Protocols’, the discovery of their falsity has not at all limited their worldwide dissemination: far from being discredited as the fakes they are, the Protocols began to be seen by many as nonetheless ‘reliable’, even if historically false.