Holy ambassadors and false Epistles. From Savonarola’s Florence to Messina?

Abstract

«A forgery may speak the truth […]. But to establish the fact of forgery is not enough. It is further necessary to discover its motivations». Thus Marc Bloch invites the aspiring historian who is approaching the study of a forgery to search for the reasons behind its creation.

A genre of historical forgery which was profoundly widespread throughout the ages, but very important in the Middle Ages and still in the Modern Age, was the “missives”, some of which related to the sphere of sacred. One need only think of the wide circulation, from the first centuries of the Christian Era, that the apocryphal letter written by Jesus to Abgar of Edessa had, in the East and West. Similarly, sacred missives were attributed to the Mother of God. Under the heading ‘Marie’ in the Dictionnaire des Apocryphes there are four instances in which the Virgin is said to have written to the faithfuls.