The Scarith of Scornello: A Tale of Renaissance Forgery

by Ingrid D. Rowland

Bored teenager Curzio Inghirami staged perhaps the most outlandish prank of the seventeenth century when he hatched a wild scheme that preyed on the Italian fixation with ancestry by forging an array of ancient Latin and Etruscan documents. Stashing the counterfeit treasure in scarith (capsules made of hair and mud) near Scornello, Curzio reeled in seventeenth-century Tuscans who were eager to establish proof of their heritage and history. However, despite their excitement, none of these proud Italians could actually read the ancient Etruscan language, and they simply perpetuated the hoax. Written with humor and energy by Renaissance expert Ingrid Rowland, The Scarith of Scornello traces the career of this young scam artist whose "findings" reached the Vatican shortly after Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition, inspiring participants on both sides of the affair to clash again—this time over Etruscan history. In her investigation of this seventeenth-century caper, Rowland captivates readers with her obvious delight in Curzio's far-reaching prank.

"Rowland reconstructs the whole story with flair and zest."—Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Rowland skillfully weaves her way through this long-forgotten controversy, framing it within the cultural and political struggles between Rome and Tuscany, and the larger intellectual debates of the period. At every turn she provides fascinating detail about the workings of the scholarly world. . . . In a mere 150 pages . . . she summons up a world and an age."William Grimes, New York Times

"A remarkable book . . . Rowland's account . . . has the verve of a good detective story."Joseph Connors, New York Review of Books

"A fascinating, erudite book."— Spectator

Genres: History, Renaissance, Nonfiction, Art, Italy

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Ingrid Drake Rowland is a professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Based in Rome, Rowland writes about Italian art, architecture, history and many other topics for The New York Review of Books. She is the author of the books Giordano Bruno: Philospher/Heretic (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008); The Place of the Antique in Early Modern Europe; The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth Century Rome; The Roman Garden of Agostino Chigi Horst Gerson Memorial Lecture, Groningen: University of Groningen, 2005; The Scarith of Scornello: a Tale of Renaissance Forgery (University of Chicago Press, 2004). Her essays in The New York Review of Books were collected in From Heaven to Arcadia: The Sacred and the Profane in the Renaissance (New York Review Books, 2005).

Reviews

[Melissa McCauley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love tales of the bizarre, especially bizarre history or archaeology - so I surprised by how bored I was with this book. I found myself skimming great numbers of pages of errata or background information, and I just kept hoping the author would get to the meat of the story.

Fans of detailed descriptions of 17th century Italian society are probably cursing my ancestry now (that’s ok, I curse them all the time). Just too much academic historical arcana for me - it seemed like this story could have been told with a long-ish magazine article.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book - it seemed to offer everything I liked: historical drama, a clever hoax, and according to the reviews, a compelling writing style.

I was bored with it. If it had been more than 155 pages, I wouldn't have finished at all.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An archaeological and art historical whodunnit.