There was a letter sent from the Monastery where Simonides studied on Mt Athos to a Russian newspaper called in English "The Orthodox Review" in 1863. It's very damning of Simonides and exposes his lies. Kevin MacGrane has some of it in English scattered in the text and footnotes below...
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"
Costantino Simonidis, o la pietas del falsario"
«Eikasmós» XXIV,
2013
Pages 491-503
By Federico Condello
“Constantine Simonides, or the Piety of the Forger”
Oak Moss XXIV
2013
Pages 491-503
By Frederick Condello
"From the Kefalonia of anti-British riots to the hyper-Orthodox Russia of Nicholas I and his adviser Aleksandr Sturdza, the step is short. And it is the step that Simonidis takes between 1850 and 1851, as exhaustively testified by the collection of documents which constitutes, edited by Ca., the second part of the volume. What is presented here is an updated, expanded and duly annotated version of the
dossier exhumed by Igor Medvedev three to ten years ago, in St. Petersburg, at the Kunik archive of the Academy of Sciences archive{14}. Once again we are dealing with an extraordinary example, so to speak, of literature potentielle: namely the list of ancient manuscripts (pp. 206-259) that Simonidis
sent, in January 1851, to the Russian scholar Andrej Nikolaevic Muravíev, figure of prominent figure of the time, perhaps approached through Sturdza, or perhaps already known to Simonidis from the time of his youth on Athos (see the well-founded reconstruction by Ca. on pp. 183-188). Such a sensational list - 81 titles, from Homer and Hesiod up to the later Byzantine age - as to induce Muravíev to involve first the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, in the person of its Director, and then the class of History and Philology of the Academy of Sciences Russian. The correspondence and expertise that followed are substantial, and are collected here, accompanying the book list, on pp. 260-284: the attitude of the Russian scholars was «prudent, but also ambiguous», observes Ca. (p. 197); so that the final verdict -
a resounding NEIT! - had to come from the Tsar himself,
in August 1851. The Russian list coincides only in part with the list attached to the ΚεφαλληνιακÌ, in turn related to the book inventions of Symais. Simonidis' fantasy certainly reveals his obsessive and recursive character: the geographical interest remains prevalent, with a marked predilection for epitomes, and authors of insular Greek origins abound; yet new and amazing manuscripts make their first appearance here: e.g. the Ἡσιıδου ἔπη in «ancient capital letters with boustrophedic writing» (p. 221 nr. 2), enriched with «some unknown signs (perhaps the ancient musical signs)», and with unpublished novelties such as the Ἡσιıδου σιγαλλıεντα (sic) ἔπη written «in ancient shorthand signs»; or an Iliad with a dedication by the Chii to none other than Hipparchus son of Pisistratus (p. 223 nr. 5), «written in the alphabet with 19 letters»; an Iliad plus Odyssey, a gift from Demade to Alexander (ibid. nr. 6), «in ancient Attic capital letters, on very thin parchment of remarkable transparency»; the ῾Ομήρου ἔπη «written in Pelasgian writing» and copied by Laostefano di Simi (p. 235 nr. 30); but there is also an epitome of the entire Diodorus Siculus drawn up by Marcus of Ithaca (p. 227nr. 11) or the Golden Verses of Pythagoras «written with the original alphabet of 16 letters» (p. 223 nr. 4)15. Given all this, on the part of the Commission charged with examining the offer 16, it is not so much the expressions of skepticism or open disbelief that are striking - this is the least that can be expected - but the positive credit openings towards Simonidis, and the moved astonishment in the face of a « such an unexpected discovery» that «it would be the only one of its kind since the Renaissance» (p. 263). The fluctuating and at times suffered attitude of the Academy is even better documented by the notes and minutes which accompany the drafting of the final report, and which are stratified, by the hand of Kunik,
also in the following years: until 1856, when the scandal of the false palimpsest of Uranio ‒ and the encore almost touches on, with the false Shepherd of Erma ‒ and when by now various newspapers in Europe and America denounce Simonidis's abuses in one voice. Also of these documents, in many respects revealing, the volume offers an accurate edition, introduced and commented
[Page 495] by Cu. (pp. 285-351). And there's no denying it: such a marked "suspension of disbelief" is still instructive, such an irrational tendency - one might say, dictated by a sincere love of antiquity - to consider authentic what everything denounces as false."
https://www.academia.edu/6178203/Costantino_Simonidis_o_la_pietas_del_falsario_Eikasm%C3%B3s_XXIV_2013_491_503?email_work_card=title
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