Falsi e pie frodi: Ennio nel XX secolo

The article situates itself within the historical and philological debate on literary and documentary forgeries, proposing as an exemplary case study the alleged recovery of Ennius’ Thyestes by Father Pellegrino Ernetti. Following a comparative survey of well-known forgeries from antiquity to the modern period—from the Constitutum Constantini to the Poems of Ossian, and from the de situ Britanniae to the Carte d’Arborea—the article examines the cultural, ideological, and psychological mechanisms that foster the creation and temporary credibility of forged texts. The core of the discussion is devoted to Alessandro Russo’s meticulous investigation of the Thyestes of Ennius purportedly recovered by Father Pellegrino Ernetti. Russo’s analysis demonstrates that the “previously unknown” verses of the tragedy derive largely from translations and retroversions of Greek poetic and musical texts, mediated through twentieth-century anthologies, rather than from the authentic recovery of an archaic Latin text. The article further explores the personal and cultural motivations that led Ernetti to construct the forgery, relating them to the broader mythology of the chronovisor and to the relationship between philology, science-fictional imagination, and twentieth- century media culture. What emerges is a reflection on forgery as a historical product, capable of revealing both the vulnerabilities and the expectations of the scholarly community that receives it.