The RECEPTIO-Rossi Affair VII: More Clear Evidence of "Quoting"?

My impression is that many people who have been on this roller coaster have been very interested in how the apparent copying was originally revealed. I'll give another example here.

In my "Part IV" blogpost I wrote 

"[...]  it is notable that Rossi admits that in her book she is quoting the Sotheby's catalogue. And yet she does not cite it as a source."

The context was the question of whether the text she was "quoting" (her word) came from a 2017 Sotheby's catalogue, or from my blogpost. The context was not a discussion about where she got the images: this distinction will be important in a moment.

The RECEPTIO-Rossi Affair VI: The Backstory

Anyone who has read my Part IV "Accusations" blogpost may have wondered about this paragraph, quoting from an email I wrote:

"I was previously unable to find your email address, so I have sent a series of messages to [ name removed ] who contacted me in August, and to the general address at info@receptio.eu, to which Noemi De Santis responded."

Perhaps it looks as if I might be hiding something, so in the interests of transparency I'll provide the backstory.

The RECEPTIO-Rossi Affair, Part V: "Alleged Plagiarism"

 

The last couple of days have been a bit crazy, and I now realise that I have not written anything here about the first PDF added to her Academia.edu page by Prof. Rossi, entitled "Alleged Plagiarism". 

When I first read it, I tweeted that:

"It would take considerable time and effort -- and would probably  be pointless -- to write an item-by-item commentary on this document, but if people have specific questions that it raises, I will do my best to answer them."

What follows may seem a bit pedantic and nit-picking, but for those with the stamina to read it, it may help explain why I have absolutely no worries about a legal threat.

Before anything else, I invite her, or any other reader, to show me where I have "alleged plagiarism": I have simply provided evidence and allowed readers to draw  their own conclusions. If she believes I am alleging plagiarism, that is itself quite revealing.

Of course it is true that I might be taking her words (or mine) out of context to distort the true situation. According to Rossi, I "started sending to members of the research centre I run various e-mails, containing a series of offensive, intimidating messages, with the aim of discrediting my work."

If she would like me to publish the full email correspondence, I would be very willing to; she only has to ask.

In return, I think it would be reasonable for me to ask for:

• evidence that Noemi De Santis exists
• evidence that her book on the De Roucy Hours received proper scholarly peer-review, as required by the rules of the body that provided 20,000 CHF funding for its Open Access publication:

(I am not suggesting that this should be made public, only that it should be made available to someone impartial, with an adequate knowledge of medieval manuscripts and Fragmentology, and in a position to assess its scholarly value and rigour.)

Let us assume for now that peer-review did take place. I will write a separate blog with a list of some of the things that the peer-reviewer apparently failed to notice, or if they were noticed by the peer-reviewer, Prof. Rossi failed to incorporate into her text.

Back to the "Alleged Plagiarism" document (from which quotations are in bold). In explaining why she did not acknowledge or cite the main sources she used, she writes:

"I would have had no reason to mention that blog, which provided no different information from what one gets from the websites of German antiquarian galleries or the catalogues of British auction houses."

Auction catalogues are often written by highly regarded scholars. In the world of medieval manuscripts, Christopher de Hamel is the best known [Wikipedia]: he wrote most descriptions of manuscripts sold at Sotheby's from 1975 to 2000. Kay Sutton worked at Christie's full time from 2000 until her untimely death a few years ago [Obituary on my blog]. One is, the other was, a scholar of international reputation.

Auction catalogues often contain original research, and often contain descriptions and images of manuscripts that are otherwise completely unpublished. Their value  to scholarship is immense. Prof. Rossi appears not to know this.

"Also, perhaps worth remembering, blog posts do not have a DOI number and it can happen that the information provided is scientifically unreliable."

Whether or not one or the other has a DOI is rather irrelevant, in my opinion. Information provided in peer-reviewed academic publications (as she has abundantly demonstrated) can also be "scientifically unreliable".

"The blogger, for instance, misidentified the manuscript in an eighteenth-century auction catalogue, thus making unlikely assumptions."

In the 18th-century auction catalogue, Rossi identifies the manuscript as lot 36. In my 2016 blog, by contrast, I wrote: "there are at least two lots, 36 and 40, whose descriptions might very well refer to the present manuscript". Lot 36 is certainly the more obvious match, but not necessarily the correct one. I do not see what "unlikely assumptions" result from my caution.

On the contrary, in her book she writes:

"I believe this BoH lost its initial miniature very early on, probably along with the handwritten calendar (which had become obsolete), in the 17th century. This calendar was later replaced with a printed one. With this structure, the manuscript it is listed under number 36 in the 18th century catalogue."

So she has made a series of assumptions (expressed as beliefs), based on the assumption that the manuscript was lot 36.

She next writes:

"He considered the coats of arms in some of the miniatures to be retouched [...]"

I cannot find anywhere in my text where I suggested that any of the heraldic arms are retouched. I challenged Twitter to find such a statement, and as yet no one has done so. Rossi's assertion therefore appears to be invention or error. (But I am still willing to be corrected).

"He has only identified around twenty folia fugitiva, while I have recovered over a hundred [...]"

In this context "folia fugitiva" is just a fancy way of saying single leaves (unnecessary Latin always sounds more impressive, doesn't it?). Rather than "around twenty", the actual numbers I found are: 36 leaves, represented by 59 images. (You can count them for yourself, here). My limited aim, as stated at the top of that page, was to locate images of the leaves with miniatures, not every leaf, and I succeeded in finding images of all except 3 of them.

"through a historical and philological study, I have proposed to identify the manuscript's addressee and the possible atelier where the codex was produced."

Rossi may have identified the "the manuscript's addressee" correctly: I do not know, because I have not checked the evidence. I can confidently say, however, that she has not identified the "atelier where the codex was produced": she is not an art historian, and the politest way I can describe her attempt at stylistic analysis is "naive".

"Nevertheless, distorting the evidence of the facts, he attempted, in the Christmas post, to slander me (https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/nobody-cares-about-your-blog.html), going so far as to claim that I had 'stolen' some images from his blog without his permission and had even plagiarised him"

If anyone can find evidence of "slander", please point it out to me. Note that the word " 'stolen' " used by her here is in inverted commas: if anyone can find me using this word, please point it out to me. If I did not use that word, then who is slandering whom?

"the blogger's unjustified anger towards me, who turned to a handful of his friends and associates, who began sending me intimidating anonymous emails"

You will have to take my word for it that this is not true. If anyone sent "intimidating anonymous emails" it was not as a result of me turning to a "handful of friends and associates".

"Moreover, he informed of the alleged offense in not being quoted, a US professor of fragmentology [...]"

Rossi then reproduces a (private) email from the relevant "professor of fragmentology" -- you can read it for yourself and see if you agree with Rossi's characterisation that it is written in "a rather threatening way [...] trying to intimidate me [...]". Personally, I think it seems factual and more polite than it needed to have been.

Rossi then reproduces more "anonymous e-mails" in which the names and email addresses are clearly visible!

Look at the evidence, and draw your own conclusions.

The RECEPTIO-Rossi Affair IV: My "Accusations"

Continuing from this morning's post, the second part of the PDF recently uploaded to Prof. Rossi's Academia.edu page is titled: "Response to Mr Kidd's accusations on his blog".

If I fail to adequately address her claims below, please let me know. Again, I follow her numbering:

"1. In his blog post, Peter Kidd quotes two passages from the introductory part of your book that are very similar to passages from his blog. How do you explain this similarity?"

[Answer:] "We are both quoting Sotheby's 2017 sale catalogue"

First, it is notable that Rossi admits that in her book she is "quoting" the Sotheby's catalogue. And yet she does not cite it as a source.

Second, the Sotheby's description ends: "More than 20 of the miniatures are reproduced online as 'The Courtanvaux-Elmhirst Hours'": this refers to my page here, titled "The Courtanvaux-Elmhirst Hours", as would be immediately obvious to anyone who attempted to Google it. So although the Sotheby's description does not name me, it does allow "credit where credit is due".

Third, one reason that I am not named in the Sotheby's description, is because I wrote it. I thought it would be immodest to implicitly praise my own work by explicitly citing myself as its author.

"2. Did you consult Mr Kidd's blog during your research?"

This question does not get its own answer, but is covered by the answer to the next question:

"3. In a journal article on the same manuscript (TCLA 6/1, Aug. 2022, p. 25), you mention the blogger and his work in relation to the Roucy manuscript. Why is the reference to the blog missing in the book?"

[Answer:]

"Simply because the blog was brought to my attention when the drafts of the book were closed, but I mentioned it in the Journal. However, I must honestly say that as the blog did not add anything new or original to what was already being gleaned from the auction catalogues, I did not feel, in the Journal, to quote it on a particular issue. I regret that my secretary succumbed to Kidd's insistent and unpleasant e-mails, which left no room for dialogue, and responded rudely without questioning me. The whole thing happened while I was travelling for the Christmas holidays and she had permission to answer my mail. We never imagined that such squalor could happen."

I leave readers to make up their own minds about whether they find this credible.

Let's look at the second part of that statement: "I regret that my secretary succumbed to Kidd's insistent and unpleasant e-mails, which left no room for dialogue, and responded rudely without questioning me. The whole thing happened while I was travelling for the Christmas holidays and she had permission to answer my mail."

To provide some context, I will explain that in the days before Christmas, I tried to contact Prof. Rossi using the general RECEPTIO email address, info@receptio.eu, pointing out some apparent examples of text and images being re-used from my blog in her book. Someone claiming to be "Noemi De Santis" responded, and I exchanged a few messages with her. On 23 December I wrote to carla.rossi@receptio.eu as follows:

"Dear Prof. Rossi,

I was previously unable to find your email address, so I have sent a series of messages to [ name removed ] who contacted me in August, and to the general address at info@receptio.eu, to which Noemi De Santis responded.

Since I have not been able to contact you directly, I wanted to make sure that you are aware of the correspondence being conducted by Ms De Santis on behalf of Receptio, since she makes a number of legal threats and tells a number of untruths. 

Best wishes,

Peter Kidd"

Even using this email address I got a response from "Noemi":

"Dear Mr Kidd,

Please note: I am Professor Rossi's secretary, who is not aware of our correspondence. I manage this mail account.

Best,

Noemi"

Questions 4 and 5 do not concern "accusations" of mine, except insofar as I have already addressed the issue of Swiss funding.

"6. Peter Kidd states on his blog that he was the only one to include a colour scan and publication permission for a section of the manuscript ("miniature depicting St Mark"). He says you originally published this image in its coloured version (fol. 5r)."

[Answer begins:] "I obtained a bw image of St. Mark's miniature from the German dealer Hartung and not from Kidd’s blog.

I did NOT get a colour picture from Hartung, but we first worked with the publisher's graphic designer to colourise the black and white pictures using the "Colorize picture" application, as you can see on page 253 of my edition."

It is true that RECEPTIO had a black & white image of the leaf from the German auction house Hartung (as did I: I put it on my website several years ago, and it is still there). But I also later added a colour version of the image.

Does any reader really believe that a "Colorize picture" application can correctly guess all the colours -- including the figure's clothes, the areas of blank background, and the plumage of the bird in the border -- in an image like this?:

to produce this:

so accurately matching the original, which looks like this:

Personally, I think it stretches credibility beyond breaking point, especially as Rossi has now admitted that (despite earlier denials), she was aware of my blog site.

The RECEPTIO-Rossi Affair III: My "Vendetta"

Rossi has published another document on her Academia.edu page, in which she refers to my "unjustified vendetta" against her. I therefore take an opportunity to respond to her main points, using her own headings. If any readers think I have failed to respond adequately to any of the claims in her document, please let me know.

1. Swiss National Science Foundation

She states that I claim that she has "received or perhaps continue to receive astronomical amounts of money from the Swiss National Science Foundation".

I have merely added up the amounts as published on the Swiss National Science Foundation's website. If I have made a mathematical error, it was not deliberate; I invite readers to check for themselves. I will willingly make a correction to my blogpost and apologise if I have made a mistake.

She writes: "Your statements are frankly ridiculous, or better, they are fake news. You have not yet realised that no member of RECEPTIO receives any salary from the SNSF."

I have never suggested that any member of RECEPTIO receives a salary from the SNSF.

She writes: "you claimed that I even earned 20,ooo Swiss Francs with the De Roucy Book of Hours. The truth is that this money covered part of the Open Access publication, which cost the publishing house much more"

I stated that she received a grant for this amount, because that is what is says on the website of the Swiss National Science Foundation. I do not know how the money was spent, but I stand by my opinion that the publication is a shoddy piece of work.

2. Your attempt to discredit me in the newspapers and at the University of Zurich

I have not attempted to contact any journalists, but several have contacted me. I have not given any of them an interview.

I have contacted a few email addresses at the University of Zurich, simply inviting them to read my original blogpost.

3. The picture of Andrea Murchio

She writes: "I find it sleazy that it was noticed by you or an associate or alter ego of yours that the name of Andrea Murchio, who died on Friday of a heart attack before a tennis match, was still listed on our site."

I have made no mention of Murchio on Twitter, in my blogs, or anywhere else, although I did re-tweet a thread written by someone else, whom I do not know. They (I do not even know their gender) are not "an associate or alter ego" of mine.

She ends: "I think that after all the falsehoods you have published, you should bring the discussion back to the level of adult and educated people."

If she can give me an example of a single falsehood I have published, I would be very willing to address it.

I will respond to the second part of Prof. Rossi's document, headed "Response to Mr Kidd's accusations on his blog", separately.

The RECEPTIO-Rossi Affair, Part II: The Premises

[This post has been removed by Google twice now, doubtless at the request of you-know-who, but both times Google reinstated it after checking that it does not break any of their rules]

This can be read independently of Part I. If you have an interest in medieval manuscripts, academic publishing, copyright and "fair use", etc., I suggest you read the original blogpost (which has now been updated) as well.

MANY people on Twitter have provided various kinds of expertise and sleuthing skills, but I think I was the first person to notice, before 8am on Christmas Day, something curious about the London address of RECEPTIO:

Here are the individual images I attached to that tweet:

   

  

 

Most of the images used on the RECEPTIO website are either fake or deliberately misleading. Here for example, is their business sign (the filename is "fotocasaeditrice_JPG", Italian for 'publishing house photo'):

But this is just an edited version of a stock photo; here are other variants:

 

Other bloggers then found much more. The address is used by some disreputable companies who appeared in the so-called Paradise Papers [Wikipedia]. Not every company that used this address was doing anything illegal, but it is probably safe to suggest that most of them wanted to hide behind a fake/misleading London address which they could use for registering their company and receiving "official government mail". As the owning company website states, using such an address allows you to avoid appearing "small-time or amateur". In other words, to represent yourself as something else if you are, in fact, small-time or amateur.

As far as I can determine from the website, it is not possible to actually run a business at this address. Meeting rooms are available at £35 per hour, although they are "currently unavailable due to Covid-19".

Here is the front door on Google Streetview:

It seems to consist of a reception area on the ground floor, below five floors of apartments:

[Source]

I was just about to add some misleading images from RECEPTIO's website showing their London Headquarters, but they seem to have been removed in the last few minutes. I'll add them here if they reappear ...

Ah! Here's one I had saved:

It's pretty different from the Meeting Rooms described above:

"Nobody cares about your blog!"

[Edit, 26 Dec. 2022, 9am: For anyone reading this for the first time, please note that a lot happened yesterday (Christmas Day) on Twitter, with many people contributing new information and insights concerning RECEPTIO. I will try to update the blog below later today [Edit: I have now done this], and will also aim to write another blog to document the reflect new revelations]

The title of my blog today is a quotation from an email I received yesterday from Noemi De Santis of RECEPTIO, the Research Centre for European Philological Tradition (website here).

It comes at a very opportune moment, because this week marked the 10th anniversary of the week I started blogging fairly regularly: since December 2012 I have posted an average of about 45 blogs per year, and I was wondering how to mark this milestone. I hope that the following blog will provide some entertainment for the Christmas holidays!

Another Leaf from the MdM and AdM Hours Found

Regular readers will know that I have been trying to trace leaves from a late 15th-century Book of Hours with unusual initials "MdM" and "AdM" in some of the margins (see here, here, and here).

One that has so far eluded me was reproduced in Maggs Bros., Catalogue 437: Books of Art and Allied Subjects (1923), no. 1159 plate LXI (of which a detail is shown above):

A Breviary Written at Lucca in 1464

For a few years I have been aware of leaves of a Breviary (of which an example is shown above) which had a colophon with the name of the scribe, and the place and date of completion: Lucca on 22 December 1464. But searches for the terms Breviary, Lucca, and 1464 produce surprisingly few hits for institutional websites: most of the search results are for online dealer listings. I hope this blogpost will make the manuscript better known and lead to new identifications.