The greater part of Fake? is devoted to a Chronological survey suggesting that faking feeds on the many different motives people have for collecting
(15) art, and that, on the whole, the faking of art flourishes whenever art collecting flourishes. In imperial Rome there was a widespread interest in collecting earlier Greek art, and therefore in faking it. No doubt many of the seulptures now exhibited as "Roman copies" were
(20) originally passed off as Greek. In medieval Europe. because art was celebrated more for its devotional uses than for its provenance or the ingenuity of its creators the faking of art was virtually nonexistent. The modern age of faking began in the ltalian Renaissance, with
(25) two linked developments a passionate identification with the world of antiquity and a growing sense of individual artistie identity A patron of the young Michelangelo prevailed upon the artist to make his Seulpture Sleeping Chpld look as though it had been
(35) before resulting in a wholly original work. Soon his genius made him the object of imitators.