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IMAGE: The manuscripts include arias that were foundational in the history of opera a genre that emerged in the early seventeenth century. view more
Credit: Michel Garrett, Penn State
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. In 1916 and 1917, a musician and book dealer named Giovanni Concina sold three ornately decorated seventeenth-century songbooks to a library in Venice, Italy. Now, more than 100 years later, a musicologist at Penn State has discovered that the manuscripts are fakes, meticulously crafted to appear old but actually fabricated just prior to their sale to the library. The manuscripts are rare among music forgeries in that the songs are authentic, but the books are counterfeit.