Who Made the Praeneste Fibula?
History is rewritten when
archaeologist Wolfgang Helbig teams up with a forger
MANIOS MED FHE FHAKED NUMASIOI
The inscription, likely forged by Helbig, on the Praenetse fibula
L'iscrizione, probabilmente falsificata da Helbig
Viene fatta corrispondere, in latino classico, a MANIUS ME FECIT (pro) NUMERIO, ossia « Manio mi fece per Numerio ».
Gli argomenti linguistici a favore dell'antichità dell'iscrizione sono i seguenti:
Gli argomenti linguistici a favore dell'antichità dell'iscrizione sono i seguenti:
- la redazione da destra a sinistra
- la trascrizione arcaica della consonante latina f per mezzo di vh
- la morfologia arcaica, con un nominativo in –os, un dativo in –oi, il pronome personale di prima persona all'accusativo med, il perfetto del verbo facere formato con un raddoppiamento
- la forma arcaica delle lettere, paragonabili a quelle delle iscrizioni greche di Cuma.
- il testo è anteriore al "rotacismo", vale a dire alla trasformazione in -R- di -S- intervocalico (numaSioi).
- il testo è anteriore anche agli "indebolimenti" che colpiscono le vocali delle sillabe successive alla prima (per cui A passerà a E in sillaba chiusa)
Ciononostante, la fibula è stata a lungo menzionata nelle pubblicazioni su Roma antica. Nel 1977, la spilla venne esposta a Parigi ad una mostra al Petit Palis sulla nascita di Roma. Il catalogo dell'esposizione ne presentava due foto e la inseriva tra gli oggetti della tomba Bernardini. Le foto, prese dall'alto e dalla faccia posteriore, evitavano di mostrare l'iscrizione, che veniva tuttavia menzionata nei testi introduttivi al catalogo.
Nel 1980, l'epigrafista italiana Margherita Guarducci sostenne pubblicamente che non solo l'iscrizione, ma la stessa fibula era un falso, frutto della collaborazione tra Wolfgang Helbig e l'antiquario Francesco Martinetti.
Quella della Guarducci fu la presa di posizione più netta a sfavore dell'autenticità del monile, ma non raccolse unanimità di consensi in seno alla comunità scientifica, e il dibattito rimase aperto fino al 2011, quando la controversia fu risolta grazie ad un'indagine condotta da Daniela Ferro dell'Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (Ismn) del CNR e da Edilberto Formigli, restauratore e docente presso l'Università 'La Sapienza' di Roma e quella di Firenze.
L'analisi della superficie della fibula, effettuata tramite un microscopio elettronico a scansione e una microsonda elettronica con spettrometro a raggi X in dispersione di energia, ha permesso di stabilire la congruenza tra l'età ipotizzata del manufatto (VII secolo a.C.) e le tecniche orafe etrusche dell'epoca, sia per il monile che per l'incisione. Si è inoltre scoperto che la fibula era stata riparata anticamente con una lamina a foglia d'oro per nascondere una piccola frattura che si era formata nella staffa.
At a meeting of the German Institute
in Rome on January 7, 1886, Wolfgang Helbig described an engraved gold fibula
or dress pin found at Palestrina, ancient Praeneste, in 1871. Helbig had a good
reputation in the archaeological community and had been second secretary
(assistant director) of the Institute since 1865, so there was no reason to
doubt his account or the fibula's authenticity.
About 4.5 inches long, the fibula
was not unique, but its Latin inscription was. The text was mundane, reading
"Manios has made me [or, had me made] for Numasios." However, the use
of the characters FH for the sound F made it linguistically earlier than any
other known Latin inscription. Helbig dated it to the 6th century B.C., the
date then given to the Barberini and Bernardini tombs at Palestrina. Known as
the Manios or Praeneste fibula, it remained a chronological benchmark for study
of the development of Latin for nearly a century.
But Helbig hadn't told the Institute
audience all he knew. He said a friend owned it, and that friend was Francesco
Martinetti, a seller of antiquities, faker, and smuggler. And there were signs
that something was wrong with Helbig's tale. The fibula was later said to be
from the Bernardini Tomb, which was excavated in 1876. That contradicted
Helbig's story, but he didn't challenge it. The few who raised questions about
the fibula, such as archaeologist Giovanni Pinza in 1905, were ignored. Helbig
said it was genuine and if the exact circumstances of its discovery were murky,
so what.
Books by Wolfgang Helbig, a scholar gone bad over a century ago, are still in print today.
Though he was intellectually gifted,
Helbig's personality did not impress everybody. Archaeologist Otto Jahn had
thought him lacking in self-discipline, and the great classicist Theodor
Mommsen said he was "a lightheaded fly" and a "loafer." In
fact, things were worse, and the real story of Helbig and the Praeneste fibula
is one about "the world of the salon, of the collector, of the rich and
famous, of the dealer, of the masterpiece and the fraud" (Holloway 1994).
A comprehensive study by Margherita
Guarducci in 1980 showed that suspicions about the fibula were well founded. In
La cosiddetta Fibula Prenestina. Antiquari, eruditi e falsari nella Roman
dell' Ottocento,
Guarducci, a University of Rome Greco-Latin epigraphist, pointed out that the
inscription was rather poorly executed, compared to genuine ones, as though
engraved by an amateur. She noted how, compared to ancient gold, which can be
brittle, the fibula could bend quite easily. Chemical analysis showed that the
gold was unlike specimens known to be from Palestrina. Finally, examination of the
inscribed area showed that the surface had been treated with acid to look old.
Guarducci knew of Helbig's involvement with Martinetti, who could have made the
fibula, basing it on real ones from Palestrina. But analysis shows the
inscription matches Helbig's handwriting.
Why would Helbig, with his
reputation and position, do this? Perhaps the ambitious scholar thought a
brilliant "discovery" would aid him in being appointed head of the
Institute. Indeed, shortly after Helbig presented the fibula, the first
secretary (director) Wilhelm Henzen died. Helbig was made acting director, but
did such a poor job that he was sacked, leaving October 1, 1887. Helbig then
began what has been called a Jekyll and Hyde existence (Gordon 1982):
On the one hand, the life of a much respected scholar,
much honored by the Italians and the French; on the other...[an] unscrupulous
businessman, who with his collaborator Martinetti made a fortune out of
illegal, fraudulent activities--illegal in acquiring antiques as well as in getting
them transported out of Italy by bribery, not to mention the fraud involved in
embellishing genuine antiques to get higher prices and in creating fake
antiques.
Helbig's contemporary philologist
Ulrich von Wilamowitz Moellendorf described him as "swimming in the thick
of society, well known to both the Roman and Piedmontese aristocracy, to the
connoisseurs of art and to dealers."
Martinetti's motive for selling
fakes and smuggling was money. Like Helbig, he made a fortune, much of which he
hid in his home. Caches of valuables--ancient and modern gold coins, and
ancient gems--were found when it was torn down after his death. But why did
Helbig, married to a wealthy Russian princess, need to sell forgeries?
With the fibula, self-advancement
seems likely. Tom Hoving, who devotes an entire chapter to Helbig in False
Impressions (1996),
attributes the faking simply to needing more cash to support a lavish
lifestyle. In his review of Bachelors of Art: Edward Perry Warren & the
Lewes House Brotherhood (1992), William Calder speculates about Helbig's "frequent
appearance" in Warren's circle. Born into a wealthy Massachusetts family,
Warren lived in Oxford with his partner John Marshall at Lewes House,
"where women were not welcomed." A collector, Warren also purchased
for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where his brother chaired the board. The
authenticity of number of antiquities he bought is now doubted. Calder
speculates that paying blackmail, perhaps to hide sexual indiscretions, was a
reason Helbig dealt in forgeries.
The Helbig-Martinetti collaboration
continued until the latter's death in 1895, and then some (Gordon: 1982). When
Martinetti was dying, Helbig went to his warehouse and took a statue of a
youth, supposedly an ancient copy of a masterpiece by the Greek sculptor
Polykleitos. He sold it to Carl Jacobsen, the Danish brewer and founder of the
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The next year it was exposed as a fake (its
"patina" washed off). The "Boston Throne" may be a genuine
ancient marble relief or may be another Helbig-Martinetti fake, possibly carved
in Rome in the early 1890s. Warren bought it for the Museum of Fine Arts from
Helbig in 1896.
For nearly a century, the Praeneste
fibula was seen as a key artifact. Now it has been revealed not as an ancient
piece, made for or by Manios, but as a modern testament to self-promotion and
an unholy alliance of scholarship and fraud, made for and by Helbig. It shows
that artifacts with no documented findspot must be treated skeptically, no
matter who presents them. Even great scholars can be wrong, misled, or,
sometimes, go bad.
Come si vede, esiste una costante: chi s'accompagna disinvoltamente a falsari, o sostiene essere autentiche quelle opere che sono solamente falsi, prima o poi è smascherato come falsario anch'egli.
Ammesso che esista anche solo qualche analogia, che cosa si può pensare di persone che basano la propria costruzione ideologica sui falsi di Glozel e sui falsi di Trzicottu?
© 2009 by the Archaeological Institute of America
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