The Origin of the Carla Rossi Plagiarism Accusations

A couple of weeks ago I said on social media that I would blog about the very earliest origin of the  plagiarism accusations against Carla Rossi, so here it is.

In several of her many attempts at self-defence, Rossi says that the only basis for my accusation of plagiarism is the borrowing of a few lines (describing the Office of the Dead in the manuscript she calls the De Roucy Hours), e.g. here:

[Click to enlarge] [Source]

But let's look at the context in which I first mentioned plagiarism. (At the time I had no idea that it would turn out to be such a small tip of a very large iceberg!). Note that I was writing to Nancy Impellizzeri, who had emailed me and introduced herself as "research fellow at the Research Centre for European Philological Tradition, based in Switzerland (www.receptio.eu/mainproject)", i.e. RECEPTIO.

Here is the start of my email to her:

What I want to highlight today is the second paragraph:

"Considering how often you use the "©" symbol on the website, I find it extremely ironic that you have now taken Erik Drigsdahl's intellectual property (which, since his death, is only available because I host it on my website: e.g. this page has material taken from here or the archived copy here) -- but you have removed his copyright statement from the bottom of the page, and have not acknowledged it as his work!"

Of course the RECEPTIO page has now been deleted, and someone (we all know who) has also had all trace of it removed from the Wayback Machine a.k.a. The Internet Archive, so the first link above does not work, but the other two links are still live, so you can see what I am referring to in my email.

Erik's pages all have a copyright notice at the bottom, as shown at the top of this post, like this: 

Rossi had taken a screenshot of this page, removed Erik's name and copyright notice, and put the image on her own RECEPTIO page for the De Roucy Hours. 

This is a large part of the reason I wrote in my email, "I have never seen such a blatant example of plagiarism."

[For the sake of transparency I reproduce the whole email message below]

 

 

 

 

Hello again!

An Italian colleague alerted me to the article at https://www.aboutartonline.com/manoscritti-medievali-europei-a-prezzi-stracciati-sul-web-un-appello-per-la-tutela-di-beni-culturali-tra-i-piu-preziosi/ a couple of days ago, which caused me to look again at your website.

Considering how often you use the "©" symbol on the website, I find it extremely ironic that you have now taken Eriks Drigsdahl's intellectual property (which, since his death, is only available because I host it on my website: e.g. this page has material taken from here or the archived copy here) -- but you have removed his copyright statement from the bottom of the page, and have not acknowledged it as his work!

I also note that in the studies of the Roucy Hours here and the "Rosenbaum" Psalter-Hours here, there is no acknowledgement of the fact that both are heavily dependent on my work, and both use images from my blog without permission or acknowledgement.

I have never seen such a blatant example of plagiarism. Quite apart from failing to cite my work, compare passages like these:

"the first lesson of the Office of the Dead, "Milicia est vita hominis" (on the leaf with the miniature of Job) is extremely rare and, according to K. Ottosen, The Responsories and Versicles of the Latin Office of the Dead, 1993, p.74, is only found in sources from Châlons, so this is one possible origin." (Kidd)

"the first lesson of the Office of the Dead Milicia est vita hominis (fol. 105r), included in our BoH is extremely rare and, according to K. Ottosen [4], is only found in manuscript sources from Châlons-en-Champagne." (Rossi)

and:

"The only two other saints who are identifiable are St Catherine, to the left, holding a fragment of a wheel, and St Lawrence, to the right, more obviously holding his grid-iron." (Kidd)

"The two other identifiable saints in the miniature are Catherine, to the left of Stephen, holding a fragment of her instrument of martyrdom, the wheel, and Lawrence, holding his grid-iron." (Rossi)

I intend to share some comparisons such as these on my blog, but first I will give you and Dr Rossi an opportunity to explain/apologise.

Yours,

Peter