Forgotten Ages Research

The So-Called ”Lost” Book of Nostradamus—When Seeing is Not Believing

Report Topics:

• The manuscript claimed to be the "lost" book of Nostradamus, found in a public library in Rome in 1994, is really a forgery that has nothing whatsoever to do with the famed sixteenth century French prophet
• Report Update—Two Wrong Documentaries Do Not Make a Hoaxed Prophecy Right (Especially One Made Up of Badly Painted Pictures)

Full Report:

One of the most poorly made forgeries to appear in recent years is presently being foisted onto the international reading public in the form of a book purported to have been authored by the famed sixteenth century French prognosticator, Nostradamus. To anyone who has done even the least amount of background study of the prophet and his legitimate prophecies, this fraudulent new work is nothing less than a travesty and an insult against his name and reputation. In the final analysis, the so-called “lost” book of Nostradamus has absolutely nothing to do with the great seer’s real works that have come down to us from almost five centuries ago.

The media hype for this false manuscript began when in October, 2007 the History Channel devoted a very unconvincing two-hour program trying to promote the book as being authentic. This was followed with a second special more than a year later, “Nostradamus—2012.” A large portion of the second show was again focused on the alleged “lost” work, this time attempting to connect it with the supposed Mayan doomsday prophecy of December 21, 2012.

The actual original volume is somewhat small, measuring 8 inches high and 6 inches wide, with a thickness of about half an inch. It is hard-bound and composed of a total of 80 watermarked pages, 72 of which have crudely drawn pen-an-ink sketches that are also water-colored. Even though a postscript includes a date of 1629 as the date of authorship, the pages are nearly perfectly preserved with no frayed edges—which is the primary indication that the manuscript is not anywhere as old as it is claimed to be.

The work has a lengthy Latinized title, Vaticinia Michaealis Nostradami de Futuri Christi Vicarii ad Casarem Filium D. I. A. Interprete. This translates as: The Prophetic Work of Michael Nostradamus of the Future Vicars (Popes) of Christ, Given to Cesar his Son, as Interpreted by D. I. A. (presumably the designated initials for an obscure Church official known simply as Lord Abbot Joachim—who is not to be confused with Joachim di Fiore, who died in 1202, several centuries before Nostradamus was alive). Some modern scholars, who have studied the manuscript in detail, suspect this off-handed reference to a later successor of Joachim in the title indicates that he may have been the real author and painter of the document.

The title also initiates the first somewhat confusing elements regarding the fabricated history of the manuscript. Supposedly this is the work of Nostradamus, who presumably passed it on to his son, Cesar. It was to this son that the seer wrote a Preface in his Prophecies, at the time of his birth. But Nostradamus died in 1566, when Cesar was only twelve years old, which means that if the “lost” book was really an inheritance from his father, it would not have had much value to him until his later years. According to othe postscripted entries in the document, in 1629 Cesar sent the book to Rome, to one Brother Beroaldus, who in turn presented it to Cardinal Maffeo Barbarini, later to become Pope Urban VIII. The first page of the document claims it then finally wound up in the secret depths of the Vatican Library, and was subsequently lost in obscurity.

At this point the historical continuity for the book gets very hazy. One unsubstantiated claim is that, in 1888, through the efforts of a man named Pavoli, the work somehow miraculously made it out of the hidden Vatican archives and was purchased by the Central National Library in Rome, which is today still a public library. This story is very likely spurious, especially in light of how the “lost” document was eventually “re-discovered” in modern times.

In 1994, an Italian journalist named Enza Massa is credited with having “found” the manuscript. However, there are a number of conflicting scenarios of just how she came across it. One version is she received a phone call from unidentified staff members working in the Central National Library, who supposedly happened upon the volume sitting on a bookshelf. Another story has it that Enza herself personally located the book on a visit to the Library, and brought it to public attention as a news item. Still another version has her “discovering” the document at a rummage booksale sponsored by the Library.

The first obvious sign that something is terribly amiss with this manuscript is that this supposedly seventeenth century work was not found in an antiquarian rare book collection—of which there are hundreds scattered throughout Rome—but rather in a modern public library, free and open to the general masses. How such a volume—alleged to be over three centuries old, and written by such a well-known historic figure—could have remained unnoticed and unrecognized on a bookshelf in plain view for perhaps more than a hundred years, seems highly suspicious. Add to this the fact that the Central National Library has had for the last two decades a constantly expanding computer file that keeps track of every book, disk and tape—yet there is no record whatsoever of the “lost” book ever having been processed, to be used as reference material or to be checked out.

What becomes painfully clear from all this is the document in question was most likely “planted” as a hoax fairly recently inside the Library (or at the booksale), waiting for someone gullible enough to find it and publicize its existence to the world.

Soon after the volume’s “re-appearance” was announced in the Italian press, it came to the attention of Ottavio Ramotti, a retired program analyst for the Interforce Electronic Center of the Italian National Police. He had just begun to try his hand at speculative writing, and within a very short time he cranked out a book about the “lost” document that became very popular in the European reading markets. It was later expanded by Destiny Books into an American edition in 2002. Unfortunately, Ramotti died before the television airing of the History Channel version of his work in 2007, leaving behind a number of unanswered questions of where the manuscript had really come from.

When we turn to making an internal evaluation of the authenticity of the original document, we immediately run into some serious obstacles. Tests of the watermarked paper show that it was of a type that was not used until the eighteenth century—more than a hundred years after Nostradamus died. The pages also appear to have been cut from portfolio end-sheets, which means they could have been utilized a century or two later still. The ink employed, especially in the last few pages, has a high zinc content that was a writing media only from 1800 on. If the original ink bottle was well sealed, the ink could have been preserved a century or more beyond, and its usage in a forgery made even as late as 2000 would not be distinguishable for its age in modern chemical tests. In addition, the book cover and binding is not of leather or of a type typically utilized in the seventeenth century, but made like those which appeared in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Then there is the real problem that the document’s handwriting is definitely not that of Nostradamus, or even of his son, Cesar. We have quite a quantity of the seer’s papers posthumously preserved in his museum in Salon-en-Provence where he lived out his last years, as well as good samples of Cesar and several other members of the immediate family. None of any of them can be accused of trying to forge their patriarch’s prophetic writings. Adding to the difficulties is that not one but three distinctive handwritings have been detected in the manuscript, indicating that the forgery had been a group effort.

Supporters of the genuineness of the volume explain that the reason why so many writing styles appear, and that later forms of paper and ink were employed, is because the document was copied and re-copied over and over through the centuries by later expositors of the original work in order to help preserve it. But if this was the case, one would expect the transitions between styles to parallel with a progression of datings for paper and ink usage. Instead, they form a patchwork of mismatched transitions throughout the document, all of which better agrees for it being a deliberately manufactured hoax that was put together in piecemeal fashion.

Then there are the questions regarding the artwork and artistic styling. The Vaticinia Nostradami is an obvious imitation of a far older work, the fourteenth century Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibis, another Prophecy of the Poes containing its own set of illustrations, only far different from the later forgery. The “lost” book in fact includes the date 1343 among its pages—perhaps in an attempt to connect it with the older authentic medieval manuscript, even though it predates Nostradamus by two hundred years.

Some art scholars have tried to associate the fabricated artwork with the watercolor pantings of Paracelsus from the early 1500’s, while other critics see a better parallel among the pen-and-ink drawings of William Blake in the early 1800’s.

The main sticking point is that the “lost” book attributes all its artwork to Nostradamus—yet nowhere among all of the seer’s extant papers do we discover the slightest suggestion that he ever had any artistic talent whatsoever. We find a few geometric squares with linear patterns sketched in, which was his way of comnposing horoscope charts. But we can locate absolutely no drawn human figures—not even an idle doodle.

We do know, however, that the prophet’s son, Cesar, was an artist and a portrait painter. In fact, one of the most famous images we have today of Nostradamus himself was made by Cesar. But these were oil paintings—there is no evidence he dabbled in ink and watercolors. Among the contemporary writings of the Renaissance French scientist, Fabri de Peirese, mention was made of several miniatures painted by Cesar that were placed together in a portfolio, which was later given as a gift to King Louis XIII. However, this work was totally unrelated to the much cruder artwork depicted in the “lost” manuscript that supposedly was sent not to Paris, but to Rome instead.

Without a doubt the most bizarre aspect of the forged document is the nature and subject matter of the artwork itself. Some of the images depict popes threatened with death or are decapitated; popes who are half-human and half-animal; popes who are slaying common people, women popes, black popes, Islamic popes—all portraits that would have been highly offensive to traditional and arch-conservative Catholics in any century past or present.

In fact, even thought the original document has 72 painted images, Ramotti saw fit to have published—and the History Channel has shown on its two programs—only 32 of them to the public. Ramotti handpicked only the least objectionable of the portraits—the rest are still held in secret because of their outlandish nature.

Overall, the images contain a strange mixture of sacred objects, letters, numerals, real and fantastic creatures, suns, moons, stars, pillars, towers, banners, cups, candles, weapons, skulls, everyday people, Church officials of various hierarchial rank including a number of popes, as well as a hodgepodge of intermittent astrological, alchemical, Templar-Masonic and Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols.

One of the most obvious sources of influence that was missed by most of the early examiners of the “lost” book is that a good deal of the images are from various forms of the Tarot divination cards that have come down to us through the ages, including traditional archetypal symbols, with a heavy mix of zodiacal signs and planetary rulership signets.

From a purely aesthetic point of view, one art historian, after viewing Ramotti’s book, commented: “The style, color and perspective shouts modern day forgery to me.” Another contemporary art scholar likewise noted: “So what is the motive in creating this stur? If it is for awareness, that is one thing. If it is to make a buck, that is another. This makes me want to check out who is profiting from all this.”

Far worse than how this document’s mixed bag of nebulous symbolism has been presented is the way a host of would-be modern alarmists have desperately tried to interpret what the symbolism means, especially in light of today’s growing collective apocalyptic fervor. A single burning castle tower is somehow transformed into the Twin Towers collapse of 9/11/01; a pope riding on a dragon doing battle with a large black dog (not a bear as some have misinterpreted it) is seen to represent the Cathoic Church’s stand agains Russian Communism during the Cold War; another pope with a sword held to his throat is supposed to have prophesied the two assassination attempts against the former Pontiff, John Paul II; even a small banner swirled by the wind is taken to be a dire warning of the Sun’s crossing the Galactic Center (which in reality has already happened) and the coming Mayan doomsday on 12/21/12.

Such flagrantly speculative attempts to match specific events with such vague and vacuous artistic symbols borders on the pathetic and the ludicrous. And when we also remember that the symbols themselves were meant to be nothing more than a hoax, then the whole futile attempt at searching for hidden meanings becomes that much more absurd.

Yet, based on the popularity of the two History Channel programs, and the many follow-up videos and written spinoffs that are also being offered these days, it would appear that the majority of people are willing to accept such wild interpretations as gospel truth. This is in reality a fraud based on a fraud, that has built itself upon a foundation of fear and gullibility.

What is needed most in today’s world is a good dose of discernment—the ability to see what is really true and what is false, and to look beyond prophecy and its many diverse meanings, in order to determine what is the true motivation behind the creation of prophecy and its anticipated outcome. If there is any exchange of money for profit involved, you can be certain that some form of prophetic “sting” that dupes everyone, is not far behind.

Can we ever hope to create a vision of the future that has as its basis a series of lies?

Report Update—Two Wrong Documentaries Do Not Make a Hoaxed Prophecy Right (Especially One Made Up of Badly Painted Pictures)

Once again the History Channel has promulgated a second travesty of a poorly made documentary dedicated to the so-called “lost book” of Nostradamus. This time around both the writers and featured commentators on this second piece of drivel have made yet another series of flagrant blunders.

First, the show’s advertizing promotions insist that the faked volume was found “hidden away in the Vatican Library in 1994.” This is a major stretch of the truth bordering on outright lying. The real fact is, in 1994 the book certainly was found in Rome, yet not in the Vatican Library but rather in a city public library—or, as some sources claim, at a library book sale. Not a very convincing source for proving its authenticity.

At least in their second version the programmers have now admitted that they have absolutely no verifiable proof that Nostradamus senior was the author—there are too many obvious problems with the ink, paper quality, binding and handwriting to make any more false claims that the book was the work of the renowned sixteenth century French seer.

But more pathetically, the filmers began the program by forthrightly stating that it was really his son, Cesar, who was the real perpetrator who made all the crude paintings the suspect book is composed of, that Nostradamus junior had prophetic powers no less than his famed father.

. However, as the show progressed, this initial pronouncement was slowly backed away from, claiming instead that Cesar was just trying to make money off his father’s work, or that he was attempting to overcome his rejection of not having any prophetic gift himself.

Then, toward the end of the program, the writers threw in a left curve by pointing out (without any proof whatsoever) that the book and its purported prophetic paintings were really the product of the Cathars, the rebellious heretics who were all but persecuted by the Church into extinction toward the beginning of the thirteenth century—a full three hundred years before the lifetimes of either Nostradamus or Cesar..

While leaving the viewers dangling on this highly dubious assertion, the show’s commentator then says with all sincerity that there is a need to establish the true source of where the “lost” book really came from, so that its authenticity as a true work of prophecy can be established.

The necessary proof can be found in carefully scrutinizing the badly drawn pictures themselves. Even from a purely symbolist viewpoint, the hodgepodge of disconnected imagery is not the mark of a true prophet, like Nostradamus senior, who crafted his prognostications using a large and clever variety of specifically designed subtley interrelated word plays and hidden anagrams.

The “lost” book’s symbolic depictions, in sharp contrast, are instead thrown together without rhyme or reason, without any internal organization that lends itself to eventual interpretation. This work is the product of someone who had no idea of what were the sophisticated meanings behind the symbols they were employing, or even what their sources were and how they had once been utilized.

In the final analysis, the composition is basically a phantasmagoric mess, made by an immature and incompetant student of the ancient mysteries, and the work of a person who was just as poor an artist as they were a scholar. Whoever its originator was, it becomes painfully obvious when looking closely at this work in its entirely that the hoaxer was desperately trying to create something they wanted to have the appearance of being esoteric and occult, but who failed miserably in their misguided attempt.

Add to this the many tell-tale signs of the book’s fairly recent origins in its crafting, and it easily exposes itself to be a modern fake.

What is utterly reprehensible is that a supposedly reputable film production company like the History Channel would promote such a piece of flagrant fabrication as being legitimate.

But behind the scenes, the producers’ real purpose has been to use it to promote their real agenda, which is to take every opportunity they can to make money off of scaring their viewing public into believing that this pseudo-work somehow contains proof that the world is going to end in 2012. In these troubled times there is certainly profit in panic, especially in advocating fear of imminent future disaster.

Just as pathetic is that this eschatophobic outreach for financial gain has willingly been adapted by the various Nostradamus commentators who appeared on this program, who by their complicity are equally guilty in becoming fearmongers. The fact is they have compromised their intregity as researchers by going along with this counterfeit charade.

Making matters worse, in all seriousness these featured so-called Nostradamian experts have attempted their own “interpretations” of the false book’s symbols that are at best laughable, if not totally inane. The overall ridiculousness of their pronouncements has been made very plain to viewers of the program, who are beginning to voice their criticisms on-line at various web sites. The credibility of these authors and researchers is now in serious question.

All this only goes to demonstrate just how low some people will go to uphold falsehood for their own promotional profiteering.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]