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"Ancient" Inscriptions in the Moravian Library Brno and Their Forgers

Publication at Faculty of Education |
2012

Abstract

Maps collected in the mid 18th century by diplomat, cartographer, and collector Bernard Paul Moll are now housed in the Moravian Library in Brno and all digitalised. The attached drawings of landscapes, inscribed monuments, town maps, mines and fortresses are very simple and monotonous.

The inscriptions shown on the drawings of ancient monuments are bad imitations of ancient texts, whose originals were never found. The author found out that they were produced from a manuscript written in minuscule and inspired by collections of that time.

She supposes that this source could come from a historian and personal physician of Ferdinandus I, Wolfgang Lazius, whose library has been integrated into the court library at Vienna. The falsifier could have destroyed it not to be revealed.

Also the drawings and plans of landscapes and towns are inaccurate and false and the author(s) had probably never been to the site. Nevertheless, the maps are very good and valuable, some of them being the only specimen in their field.