lp66 - Paolo Ciulla the forger artist MAGNANTE FRALLEONE Giuseppe

Paolo Ciulla was an artist in the late 19 th and early 20 th century who devoted himself to the counterfeiting of banknotes. His life was spent between art studies and counterfeiting. He hoped that, by moving to Paris, he would be able to live from his artistic work, but he only succeeded in copying the great works of the Louvre. Therefore, like many Italians, he went to seek his fortune in Latin America. In Buenos Aires, he worked in the printing office of an Argentinean newspaper but resumed forgery, this time of Argentinean pesos and American dollars, suffering the consequences.
He was convicted and locked up in a judicial asylum, as he was recognised as suffering from ‘delusions of grandeur’. His family managed to have him repatriated after almost seven years of detention, in the hope that he could start a new life in Sicily but, having set foot in Catania again, Ciulla returned to making and printing lira banknotes, in competition with the Bank of Italy. His desire for redemption from multiple disappointments, and his extraordinary skills as a painter-copyist, photographer, draughtsman and engraver, made him one of the most skilled and dangerous counterfeiters in Italian history, with many repercussions abroad, so much so that the US Government sent the Chief of the Italian Police in New York to Palermo to investigate. It was only after a fortuitous raid on his home that his real masterpiece was discovered, the 500 lire banknote, the perfect forgery that was supposed to represent recognition of his ‘artistic excellence’. He addressed the King’s Procurator, who had come to interrogate him immediately after his arrest, memorably: ‘You, when you speak to an artist, to a great artist, take off your hat, most illustrious Mr Procurator of the King!’ However, his fame did not end with his death because, more than a century later, careful analysis of the court file revealed that the ‘forger artist’ had also reproduced and put into circulation other banknotes, up to the last one that remained unfinished.
Paolo Ciulla was an artist in the late 19th and early 20th century who devoted himself to the counterfeiting of banknotes. His life was spent between art studies and counterfeiting. He hoped that, by moving to Paris, he would be able to live from his artistic work, but he only succeeded in copying the great works of the Louvre. Therefore, like many Italians, he went to seek his fortune in Latin America. In Buenos Aires, he worked in the printing office of an Argentinean newspaper but resumed forgery, this time of Argentinean pesos and American dollars, suffering the consequences.
He was convicted and locked up in a judicial asylum, as he was recognized as suffering from 'delusions of grandeur'. His family managed to have him repatriated after almost seven years of detention, in the hope that he could start a new life in Sicily but, having set foot in Catania again, Ciulla returned to making and printing lira banknotes, in competition with the Bank of Italy. His desire for redemption from multiple disappointments, and his extraordinary skills as a painter-copyist, photographer, draughtsman and engraver, made him one of the most skilled and dangerous counterfeiters in Italian history, with many repercussions abroad, so much so that the US Government sent the Chief of the Italian Police in New York to Palermo to investigate. It was only after a fortuitous raid on his home that his real masterpiece was discovered, the 500 lire banknote, the perfect forgery that was supposed to represent recognition of his 'artistic excellence'. He addressed the King's Procurator, who had come to interrogate him immediately after his arrest, memorably: 'You, when you speak to an artist, to a great artist, take off your hat, most illustrious Mr Procurator of the King!' However, his fame did not end with his death because, more than a century later, careful analysis of the court file revealed that the 'forger artist' had also reproduced and put into circulation other banknotes, up to the last one that remained unfinished