Abstract
This essay focuses on famous conspiracies and cunning forgeries contained in Umberto Eco's Il cimitero di Praga. Its purpose is to bring to the reader's attention the central function conspiracies and forgeries acquire in the entire work, and specifically in connection with the personal gains of the main protagonist, Simonini, and how his attitude in outwitting people, motivated by personal gains, exhibits a sort of Nietzschean will to power. In addition to the historical vicissitudes and the entertaining appeal comparable to a classic 19th century feuilleton novel, which the reader may effortlessly perceive at an ordinary level of reading, Eco uses conspiracies and forgeries to address a deep, epistemic problem staged between linguistic lies and reality. Il cimitero di Praga is a useful tool which makes the reader aware of this epistemic problem flowing between fiction and reality and how such a problem incapacitates the human ability to distinguish the one from the other. It is certainly not the remedy for such a problem and the tragic events which can be directly linked to it. Nonetheless, it enables the reader to comprehend, in an amusing manner, the way in which fiction (lies) can influence and shape life.
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