Forged Inscriptions in Early Epigraphic Corpora

The phenomenon of epigraphic forgeries, which is connected to the history of epigraphy and the rediscovery and reuse of antiquity in the Middle Ages, has aroused the interest of scholars all over Europe since the fifteenth century. However, it was only in the middle of the sixteenth century that humanists seriously started to meditate on the criteria to be followed to identify fakes. This study aims to trace the development of increasingly rigorous criticism, which ultimately led to the first categorisations of epigraphic forgeries. Furthermore, a methodological approach is proposed for the analysis of Jan Gruter’s Corpus, the first comprehensive publication in which forged inscriptions were collected and isolated in a dedicated section.