Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

by John Wilson Ross

He gave this booby monk a long list of books that he was to hunt out for him on the library shelves of the Abbey of Fulda, including in the catalogue the works of Tacitus; and as he wanted a copy of the latter in the very oldest writing that could be procured, he enjoined the monk to give him a full description of certain books that were carefully put down in a list; these being very numerous, the monk could not possibly divine that the book particularly wanted was a Tacitus in the oldest characters that could be found.

III. These instructions were given in May, 1427; and, notwithstanding the care and wisdom shown in the matter, something before the close of the summer that year oozed out which seemed to menace a disclosure of the imposture: rumours had got abroad evidently about what was transpiring between Niccoli and Bracciolini, which greatly alarmed the former; but he was quieted by his bolder friend assuring him that "when Tacitus came, he would keep it a secresy; that he knew all the tittle- tattle that was going on,—whence it came,—through whom, and how it was got up; but that he need have no fear, for that not a syllable should escape him."—"Cornelium Tacitum, cum venerit, observabo penes me occulte. Scio enim omnem illam cantilenam, et unde exierit, et per quem, et quis eum vendicet. Sed nil dubites, non exibit a me ne verbo quidem."

These words occur in a letter that bears date Rome, the 25th of September, 1427; and whatever interpretation the reader may feel disposed to put upon them, he must admit, after considering all that has been said, that they seem to confirm wonderfully the truth of our theory, pointing, as they unquestionably do, to some mysterious and deep secret about Tacitus that existed only between Niccoli and Bracciolini; and what could that secret be? It could not be about the recovery of a rare and valuable copy of the works of Tacitus. There would be no necessity of keeping that by one secretly; on the contrary, the proper thing to do was to noise it abroad immediately, and as publicly as could be, so that it might be known to a wide circle of book-collectors, and as large a sum got for it as could be obtained; but if it were a Tacitus in the oldest characters that were to be found in order that it should be made use of as a copy for the letters in a figment, one can then easily understand the cause for all this secresy. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." In fact, forgery, and nothing else than forgery, seems to be the easiest as well as the most feasible explanation of these remarks, which, were it not for this theory, would, instead of being very clear, be quite nebulous.

IV. The Tacitus that was to have come from Germany did not, however, arrive. "I hear nothing of the Tacitus that is in Germany," he observes towards the close of the letter. "I am expecting an answer from the monk."—"De Cornelio Tacito qui est in Germania nil sentio; expecto responsum ab illo monacho." (Ep. III. 14.)

Towards the close of September, then, 1427, what Bracciolini had written had not yet been given to the transcriber: time was passing; and Niccoli sent him in the following month what must have been the oldest copy of Tacitus he had in his collection. Bracciolini thanked him for it, but complained that the Lombard characters, in which it was written, were half effaced; and that if he had only known what he was about to do, he would have spared him the trouble. He went on to say that he remembered having read a copy of Tacitus in antique characters which Niccoli had in his possession, and which he had purchased at the sale of the library of his old friend Coluccio Salutati, or some other large book collector. He was desirous of having that or some other that could be read; for it would be difficult to find a transcriber who, without making mistakes, could read the manuscript that he had sent him:—"Misisti mihi librum Senecae, et Cornelium Tacitum, quod est mihi gratum; et is est litteris longobardis, et majori ex parte caducis, quod si scissem, liberassem te eo labore. Legi olim quemdam apud vos manens litteris antiquis; nescio Colucii ne esset, an alterius. Illum cupio habere, vel alium, qui legi possit; nam difficile erit reperire scriptorem qui hunc codicem recte legat" (Ep. III. 15).

It is clear from these words that the copy of Tacitus which Bracciolini received in October 1427 from his friend Niccoli so very badly written in Lombard letters as to be for the most part indistinguishable, could not have been for his own reading, nor for his making a copy of it as he was in the habit of doing with the ancient classics, but from his saying that it could not be correctly read by a transcriber, it must have been for the purpose of placing it in the hands of such a person. But why should he put such a Tacitus in the hands of a transcriber? Let the reader ask himself that question; and his reply will be, that it could have been with no other object than that the History and the other works of Tacitus should be copied into the oldest characters that could be obtained by Bracciolini; with this further and more important motive in view, to add to the acknowledged works of Tacitus the new portion that had just been forged, all uniformly transcribed in the same equally old letters in order to deceive the world as to the very great antiquity, and, consequently, the implied authenticity of the fabrication. Bracciolini is, accordingly, most anxious to get a very old copy of Tacitus. "Take care, therefore," he continues in his letter to Niccoli, "that I have another, if it can be done; but you can do it, if you will strive your utmost":—"ideo cura ut alium habeam, si fieri potest; poteris autem, si volueris nervos intendere" (ibid). His anxiety also is very great for the transcriber to set to work at once by his adding: "You have, however, sent me the book without the parchment. I know not the state of mind you were in when you did this, except that you were as mad as a March hare. For what book can be transcribed, if there be not the parchment? Have a care to it, then, and, also, to a second manuscript, but, above all, keep in mind the vellum."—"Tu tamen misisti librum sine chartis, quod nescio qua mente effeceris, nisi ut poneres lunam in Ariete. [Endnote 303] Qui enim potest liber transcribi desint Pergamenae? Cura ergo de eis, et item de altero codice, sed primum de chartis confice" (ibid).

The parchment came in good time, as well as a second old copy of
Tacitus that could be read by a transcriber.

V. This was the 2lst of October, 1427. Exactly eleven months and ten days elapsed, during the whole of which time nothing more is heard about old copies of Tacitus and transcriptions on calfskin; all again went on in profound silence and secresy till the llth of September, 1428, when the mountain again laboured; and a little bit of news that dropped from Bracciolini bore a close resemblance to the appearance of a small mouse: "Not a word," says he, "of Cornelius Tacitus from Germany; nor have I heard thence any further news of his works," showing that this must have been in reply to some remark in a letter of Niccoli's expressing surprise, it may be, at the very long time that was being taken in the transcription of the works of Tacitus with the additional new bit:—"Cornelius Tacitus silet inter Germanos, neque quicquam exinde novi percepi de ejus operibus" (Ep. III. 19).

Evidently the needy, ignorant, stupid monk of Hirschfeldt was not over busy in the Abbey of Fulda transcribing the forgery of Bracciolini and incorporating it with the works of Tacitus in closely copied Lombard characters of great antiquity. The monk was not only slow at his work; he was also negligent; for when he went to Rome in the winter following, and should have taken his transcript to Bracciolini, he had left it behind him at the abbey. "The Hirschfeldt monk has come without the book," writes Bracciolini angrily to Niccoli on the 26th February, 1429; "and I gave him a sound rating for it; he has given me his assurance that he will be back aoain soon for he is carrying on a suit about his abbey in the law-courts, and will bring the book. He made heavy demands upon me; but I told him I would do nothing for him until I have the book; I am, therefore, in hopes that I shall have it, as he is in need of my good offices":—"Monachus Hersfeldensis venit absque libro; multumque est a me increpatus ob eam causam; asseveravit se cito rediturum, nam litigat nomine Monasterii, et portaturum librum. Rogavit me multa; dixi me nil facturum, nisi librum haberemus; ideo spero et illum nos haberemus, quia eget favore nostro " (Ep. III. 29).

VI. As he anticipated, the book ultimately turned up; it might have been in a week or two, or it might not have been till two or three months after; for in a letter that bears the date of neither the year nor the day,—(which I think was sometime in March 1429, though the Chevalier de Tonelli, in his Collection of the Letters of Bracciolini, conjectures must have been in the first week in May,—some time before the 6th of that month,)—a passage occurs in which Bracciolini informs his friend Niccoli that, as far as himself was concerned, everything was "now complete with respect to the 'Little Work,' concerning which he would on some future opportunity write to him, and at the same time send it to him to read in order to get his opinion of it": "Ego jam Opusculum absolvi, de quo alias ad te scribam, et simul legendum mittam, ut exquirendum judicium tuum" (Ep. III. 30). I take it that he is here alluding in his customary jesting manner (from his writing "opusculum" with a big O, to his "great" undertaking, the Annals. If he is not joking, but serious, he must, then, of course, be referring to his treatise, "De Avaritia," which is, certainly, a "little affair," and which he wrote in 1429. However, the monk in the Abbey of Fulda, who had taken a very long time in his transcription of the forgery, had finished his work by the 26th of February, 1429, and must have placed it in Bracciolini's hands a little before or after the month of March in that year.