A series of emails exchanged in 2014 between two heads of the technical direction of the National Library of Spain (BNE) indicate that the director, Ana Santos, was informed at that time of the disappearance of the
Sidereus nuncius
, the printed book by Galileo Galilei in Venice in 1610. Among the messages that EL PAÍS has had access to are phrases such as "Informed Director of Galileo case", "Yesterday I was looking at this issue with the director" or "I am passing you the first conclusions of the study to pass on to the director".
Santos, who says he was unaware of the case at the time, reported the theft in 2018, four years and five months after the case was discovered.
The clue of the 'galileo' stolen from the National Library leads to Buenos Aires
The emails that the technical director, Mar Hernández, crossed at that time of vacation, and the deputy director of the department, AV, showed the steps that were launched after the disappearance of the astronomical treaty and how all the work of several departments had the sole purpose of informing Santos.
In one of the messages, Hernández says to his
number two
: "Take the opportunity to show it to the director."
Asked the day before yesterday, Tuesday, about these new emails, Santos declined to respond to EL PAÍS, arguing that there is an investigation underway.
Indeed, the Ministry of Culture opened an information file on Monday 15 to clarify what happened after this newspaper uncovered the case.
In previous statements, Ana Santos, who has held the position since 2013, assures that she was not informed of the theft by her subordinates in 2014 and that she found out in September 2018 (51 months after it was discovered), through the email she sent her. Professor at the University of Georgia (USA) Nick Wilding.
This Galileo expert warned that the
Sidereus nuncius
that appeared in the Library's digital catalog was a forgery similar to those of Massimo De Caro, the famous Italian forger.
At the same time, Professor of History of Science at UNED Carlos Solís asked the Library where the original of the work was.
But the story of this mysterious disappearance had started many years before.
On May 19, 2014, heads of the Department of Conservation and Preservation of Funds notified the Technical Directorate and the Department of Manuscripts, Incunabula and Rare the appearance of the specimen suspected of having replaced the original.
The
Sidereus nuncius
was analyzed in the restoration workshop and under the microscope it was confirmed that it was a fake.
Pages of the false copy of Galileo's astronomical treatise 'Siderius Nuncius' NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SPAIN
Galileo Galilei's work had been stolen much earlier, in 1987, along with 413 other volumes;
and recovered two years later.
In 2007 there was the theft of the
Ptolemies
, the maps stolen by the Uruguayan César Ovilio Gómez.
That same year it was already verified that the only work consulted by the thief at the time, on June 4, 2004, was the
Sidereus nuncius
.
Due to these antecedents, César Ovilio Gómez is also the main suspect for the police in the disappearance of the
Galilean.
The author of the theft extracted the body of the BNE book, placed a copy in its place and later made forgeries that have appeared in a New York bookstore and at a Sotheby's auction.
The analysis of the emails sent between those responsible for the technical direction at the time offers an image of how the case was managed.
On the same May 19, 2014, the date on which the suspicions about this specimen were reported, Mar Hernández, technical director, requested a report "as quickly as possible, even if it is not complete."
The following day a meeting was held in which 11 department directors participated and in which they communicated their suspicions that the book 2/40418
Sidereus nuncius
had been falsified;
and that same day Hernández wrote an email to his team asking for discretion.
Hernández now explains it like this: “I asked for it from the people of the BNE and from the outside.
I had to inform the director, initiate the investigation and see its magnitude ”.
On May 28, the technical deputy director AV again requested discretion in another email, and one of her recipients suggested that the case be communicated to the Civil Guard, which was rejected pending the gathering of more data.
Hernández points out: "Informing the Civil Guard was something that we had to pass on to Santos for her to assess it."
On June 7, 2014, a preliminary report was made on the work where it was claimed that it was a forgery and it was highlighted that the book had been consulted by the author of the
Ptolemaic
thefts
.
Santos points out, however, that this report was not sent to him, nor was he informed of its existence.
On August 1, when Mar Hernández was already on vacation, AV, the technical deputy director, sent her boss an email with the first inquiries: “Things are clear.
At the moment, a single false, the already known and several fouls, although these fouls are old.
When I have everything, I will finish our table and pass the incidents to a report so that we can write to Ana [in reference to the director, Ana Santos] ”.
The following day the two heads of this unit continued to communicate by mail about the lists of missing works and the advisability of continuing to search.
The AV deputy director wrote to her boss at 11.31 am: “I also believe that what has been done so far is enough, I have continued with it because it is not clear to me if Ana [again refers to Ana Santos] what she wants is to know that we have reviewed and after a tasting everything is fine, or a detailed report with the verification of each work and the incidents of those that have something ”.
An hour later, at 12:36 p.m., AV sent a new email to Hernández: “I will give you information regarding the checks carried out with respect to the geography books subject to theft ('Galileo case') after detecting that one of them was fake.
First conclusions of the study to pass them on to the Director ”.
At 19:09 Hernández replied to her subordinate: "Ana, take the opportunity to show it to the Director."
On August 4, two days later, AV sent an email to Hernández with 30 points on different subjects.
And, among them, he included the following sentence: "Informed Galileo case manager."
The communication to Santos, according to Hernández, was verbal.
Until 2016 no emails appear in which this case is discussed again.
This void is explained, according to Hernández's version, because Santos did not adopt any initiative, nor did he ask for more information.
The Galileo affair was stopped until September 7, 2016, when a meeting was held between the director of the Library and Mar Hernández to discuss the situation in the catalog of problematic copies.
The first of the three books they were going to analyze was the
forged
Sidereus nuncius
.
The next day, Hernández sent an email to four people from the manuscripts department to ask for a complete report and added: “Yesterday I was looking at this issue with the director… The director asks if the migration was done with the book in hand or from the own chips ”.
Until March 2018, the
Sidereus nuncius was
no longer a source of interest.
From that month until September of that same year, Galileo's work appeared in the
Cosmos
exhibition
at the National Library.
It was visited by 53,000 people and it was already listed in the catalog as "counterfeit."
A person who participated in the production of the catalog affirms that "at that time it was well known that it was a counterfeit work."
In September 2018, Santos received the email from investigator Nick Wilding.
That is when the director wrote to those responsible and asked for information.
Among them to Javier Docampo, at that time director of the Department of Manuscripts, Incunabula and Rare: “Please, Javier, can you tell us something about what this man has?
Do we have information about the origin of the specimen? ”.
"As you can see, Mar did speak with Ana Santos"
On October 10, 2018, the same day that Santos reported the case to the Police, Pilar Egoscozabal, former head of the service, sent an email to her boss, Javier Docampo, and two other colleagues from her department under the heading "In defense de Mar "(Mar Hernández).
The letter read like this: "I just found this printed email. As you can see, Mar did speak with Ana Santos in 2016."
From the management the version had already been transferred that it had never been informed of the theft of the 'Sidereus nuncius'.
"Upon receiving it, Docampo told me: well, you're right, it had to be informed," says Egoscozabal now.
This former library worker assures that the director "was informed of everything."
Two days before, Santos had telephoned Hernández, now retired, recriminating that he had not informed him of the theft of the Galilelo.
And she responded by email in which she described her call as "unpleasant and offensive" for doubting her "professionalism", and reminded her that she had been warned of the theft.
