This work is the fruit of one of the greatest impostures in the history of books. Ferdinando Stocchi, a Calabrian monk, reported to Calà that he had found in the archives the news of the existence of two of his ancestors, Giovanni and Enrico of the Calà family, relatives of the Swabian Emperor Henry VI, who had participated, as valiant warriors, in the Swabian conquest of Kingdom of Naples. Subsequently, one of the two, Giovanni, retired to a convent and was subsequently also declared Blessed. Therefore, research was necessary both in Italy and abroad to find confirming news and documents. At Calà's expense, Stocchi went around Europe falsifying documents, manuscripts and even two printed books dated 1473 and 1509, which he hid in important libraries, one even in the Vatican Library, and cleverly had them found. At that time no one doubted the discovery of documents from which sufficient material was drawn for the publication of two volumes. After the release, under the name Calà, of the first volume containing the history of the Swabian conquest of the kingdom, some doubts began to spread in the circles of the Curia which did not prevent the publication of the second volume containing the life of Blessed Giovanni Calà and a second edition in Latin in 1665. The story ended badly in 1680, when the imposture was condemned by a decree of the Holy Office which put the work on the index and which brought "great pain to the Lord Duke of Diano" (Confuorto ). Biographers and chroniclers of the time believed that Calà was not entirely unrelated to the affair. Among these, Fuidoro already claimed in 1672 that Calà himself had "had many news written in a Lombard hand, and on smoked paper, by a certain ingenious Farinello... to use it to unfold his history".Ferdinando Stocchi or Ferrante Stocchi (Taverna, 16 July 1611 – Cosenza, 1663) was an Italian priest and man of letters, known for having falsified documents aimed at proving the ancient nobility of Carlo Calà. In life, Ferrante Stocchi was a presbyter, belonging to a patrician family originally from Scigliano, an expert in the physical and astrological sciences, an esteemed man of letters so much so that he was welcomed into the Cosentina Academy at a young age and enjoyed the esteem and friendship of illustrious men of letters , such as Pirro Schettini, who always defended Stocchi without reservations. Negative judgments on his person were expressed after in 1678 Angelo Matera, a gentleman from Scigliano, confessed to the bishop of Martorano on his deathbed that he had helped Stocchi in the falsification of documents aimed at proving the nobility of Carlo Calà, president of the Royal Chamber of the Summary. Since in Matera's confession some grotesque details had attracted the intervention of the Holy Office on people who were still living (Matera revealed that an individual who had never existed had been ascribed among the blessed, thanks to false evidence and who had been exposed to the veneration of the faithful bones of animals in a consecrated place) Ferrante Stocchi was declared responsible for all the accusations, no longer punishable because he had been dead for several decades. Carlo Calà's desire to ennoble himself by purchasing titles was known (purchase of the fiefdom of Diano with the attached title of "duke" for the sum of 50,000 ducats, purchase of the title of marquis of Ramonte and Villanova, etc.). According to most chroniclers, Ferdinando Stocchi told Carlo Calà's father, Giovanni Maria Calà, "tax lawyer" of Cosenza, that he could reconstruct the events of two brave Kalà brothers, Enrico and Giovanni, who, related in the 12th century to the royal families of England and Burgundy, would have followed Henry VI of Swabia in Calabria, leading the conquest of the kingdom. Furthermore, Giovanni Kalà, after a meeting with the abbot of Corazzo Gioacchino da Fiore, retired to a convent where he would spend the rest of his life in holiness. Convinced that the two were his ancestors, Carlo Calà commissioned Ferrante Stocchi to search for documents relating to the two brothers. Ferrante Stocchi created false parchment manuscripts which he had accomplices place in various libraries. He then wrote two books, printed in Calabria, but which he pretended to have found abroad, reporting facts in agreement with the manuscripts: the first dated 1478 (Processus vitae Joannis Colà, authore Martinus Schener ejus contubernale, Ovaldo Schener fratri Brittannica lingua descripta, de mun. ab Aureliano Kerklen ad latinum idioma translata. Datum Tifer 1478) the second with the date of 1509 (De rebus fortiter gestis a Ioanne Calà, pront retulit mihi Ioanni Bonatio Florensi Martinus Schener ejus discipulus, Heduae 1509). He subsequently wrote other works which he had accomplices discover in some important libraries: "Vita gestaque Ioannis Cala descripta a D. Angelo primo Cisterciensi ad patrem Faustum Eremitam", discovered at the Angelica in Rome on 20 January 1636; "De Mundi contemptoribus", signed by Ezio Mangerio, found in the Vatican Library; “Tractatus Lucii de Donato de spiritu prophetiae, quem tradidit Altissimus B. Patri Ioanni Calà” found in the Monastery of the Pietà of Cosenza on 25 June 1656; two manuscripts, entitled “Opusculum Ioannis de Bonatio de prophetis sui temporis ex occasion cujusdam oraculi ad instantiam Henrici Imperatoris peracli and De visionbus et vaticiniis” found in Martirano and Scigliano. On 22 May 1654, following the indications of the manuscripts, in the presence of a court official and the vicar general of Martirano, bones were found attributed to a tall individual who an inscription on silk indicated was the blessed Giovanni Kalà; the explanation of the silk support for an inscription dating back to the year 1255, that is, before trade with China had been undertaken in Europe, was attributed to a miracle. The relics, which eventually turned out to be donkey bones, were transported and deposited in the church of the Minimi of Castrovillari. Thanks to Stocchi's documentation, in 1660 Carlo Calà wrote a "History of the Swabians" in two volumes, the second of which was dedicated to the life of Blessed Giovanni Calà, later translated into Latin. After Matera's confession, the apocryphal material produced by Stocchi and the various "Stories of the Swabians" by Calà were placed on the index on 27 June 1680 by Pope Benedict with 24,000 ducats from Carlo Calà. Calà's ignorance regarding counterfeiting is less certain; Innocenzo Fuidoro claims that Carlo Calà himself had "many information written in a Lombard hand, and on smoked paper, by a certain ingenious Farinello [...] to use it to unfold his history". Some false writings by Gioacchino da Fiore are also attributed to Ferdinando Stocchi.