Document supposedly written by Galileo is a fake

The University of Michigan has announced that a document thought to be written by Galileo Galilei is a forgery.

According to a statement from the library, the single piece of paper was a gem. An internal investigation by a professor of history shows that the paper is a fake and dates back to the 18th century.

Donna L. Hayward, the interim dean of Michigan's libraries, told the New York Times that it was "gut-wrenching" to learn Galileo wasn't actually a man.

The manuscript has been in the university's possession since 1938, when it was donated by the trustees of the school. According to the University of Michigan Library, the 1934 auction catalog claimed that Cardinal Pietro Maffi, the Archbishop of Pisa, had verified the manuscript by comparing it with other Galileo letters.

There is a draft of a letter written by Galileo to the Doge of Venice in 1609. A final draft of the astronomer's letter is in the State Archive in Italy. The lower half of the document has a set of notes on the moons of Jupiter. There is a final draft of those notes located in Italy.

Physicists are determined to prove that Einstein is not right.

Nick Wilding, a historian at Georgia State University, was suspicious when he saw an image of the document. He told the New York Times that the document looked odd. The University of Michigan launched an internal investigation after Wilding sent an email to the library's curator. The university said that Wilding was correct. The document is most likely written by Tobia Nicotra, an Italian forger who worked in the 1920s and 1930s.

The paper had a mark on it. According to the University of Michigan Library, watermarks on old paper identify the paper's maker. The paper maker's initials are written on the Galileo paper. The document cannot be older than 1770 because it is the earliest known one.

There was no proof that the Galileo document existed before the 1930s. The two documents that Maffi claimed to have compared the manuscript to were actually fakes. Wilding discovered a forgery of a letter from 1607 in the collections of The Morgan Library.

The Galileo document is being reconsidered by the University of Michigan library. The hoax may become a lesson.

It may come to serve the research, learning, and teaching interests in the area of fakes, forgeries, and hoaxes, a timeless discipline that's never been more relevant.

It was originally published on Live Science