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Library of Congress

In his Ethruscarum Antiquitatum Fragmenta, Curzio Inghirami provided copper-plate engravings of the “Scarith,” an Etruscan-like word he invented to refer to small bundles containing scrolls with pseudo-Etruscan prophesies. Conclusive proof that Curzio’s “finds” were forgeries did not come until 1700, 45 years after Curzio’s death, when someone noticed that a 17th-century watermark was impressed on the Scarith paper.