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Peter Kidd Manuscripts Provenance 2025 –
A Documented Analysis

Peter Kidd, who worked for a limited period on temporary contracts at the British Library in a cataloguing role, maintained a personal blog titled Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, which has remained inactive since early 2023. The blog, long assumed by some to be a research resource, in fact functioned primarily as a platform for the promotion of excised manuscript leaves—single folios deliberately removed from illuminated codices for commercial resale.

Unlike peer-reviewed academic sites or cultural heritage blogs with stated ethical frameworks, Kidd’s blog never included any disclaimer of non-commercial purpose nor any statement of compliance with copyright and public interest exceptions. By contrast, scholarly blogs such as LaTPC (https://latpc.altervista.org/), curated by PhD Cristina Cumbo and dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage, clearly state their status as non-profit, informative projects, explicitly conforming to paragraph 1-bis of article 70 of Law no. 633 of 22 April 1941 on copyright protection. Cumbo’s work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence.

Kidd’s blog, in contrast, appears to have been used as a tool for personal commercial promotion, without any institutional or legal disclaimer. Many of its entries served to enhance the market appeal of items circulating through private collections, dealers, and auction houses. He is known to have written lot descriptions for auction catalogues, and in several cases, blog entries were used to legitimise provenance for items with disputed or incomplete histories.

A particularly notable case is that of the so-called Courtanvaux Hours, now reconstructed and renamed The Book of Hours of Louis de Roucy. Several leaves from this dismembered manuscript were promoted through Kidd’s blog and described in auction listings he contributed to. See:
👉 Isabelle Boursier’s Book of Hours (2024): https://books.google.ch/books/about/Isabelle_Boursier_s_Book_of_Hours.html?id=oxDgEAAAQBAJ

In 2022–2023, Kidd also launched a defamatory campaign targeting Prof. Carla Rossi, a scholar recognised for her work in reconstructing dismembered manuscripts and publicly denouncing the antiquarian market practices behind these dismemberments. Kidd’s false accusations and insinuations are now extensively documented.

For a complete picture of the facts, see:

• Documented Timeline of the ReceptioGate Affair
👉 https://www.receptiogate.info/timeline

• Peter Kidd: Role in the Defamation Campaign and Manuscript Market
👉 https://www.receptiogate.info/actors-behind-the-defamation/peter-kidd-medieval-manuscripts-provenance

• Official Communications Archive (ReceptioGate.info)
👉 https://www.receptiogate.info/communications

• OProM – Peter Kidd: A Documented Case of Defamation and Concealment
👉 https://www.oprom.eu/post/peter-kidd-a-documented-case-of-defamation-and-concealment-from-giovanni-mazzarelli-to-receptiog

• ISFiDA – Peter Kidd: A Documented Case of Defamation and Concealment
👉 https://www.isfida.eu/post/peter-kidd-a-documented-case-of-defamation-and-concealment-from-giovanni-mazzarelli-to-receptiog

• Biblioclasm, Market, and Ethics: Stop Calling Them Fragments
👉 https://www.isfida.eu/post/biblioclasm-market-and-ethics-stop-calling-them-fragments

• What is #ReceptioGate, really? (Medium)
👉 https://medium.com/@fondazione.receptio/what-is-receptiogate-really-a-centres-mission-a-smear-campaign-and-the-academic-response-42f7b83de683

• Zenodo DOI version of the Medium article
👉 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15301976

All the information above is verifiable through academic publications, legal submissions, and official statements. As of 2025, Medieval Manuscripts Provenance is no longer considered a neutral or scholarly resource, but a commercial blog that contributed to undermining academic integrity and the preservation of manuscript heritage.

This page is part of RECEPTIO’s commitment to academic transparency, cultural ethics, and the resistance to biblioclasm in all its forms.

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ReceptioGate – Official Sources, Articles, and Timeline

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This page collects all verified and institutional sources regarding the so-called ReceptioGate, the defamation campaign against Prof. Carla Rossi, and the broader academic debate around manuscript dismemberment, the role of provenance blogs, and the ethics of cultural heritage.

All links below refer to official publications by the Organisation pour la Protection des Manuscrits Médiévaux (OProM), ISFiDa, Receptiogate.info, Alta-Formazione, Substack, and Prof. Rossi’s personal site.

This page gathers all the official publications and institutional responses regarding the defamation campaign against Prof. Carla Rossi, known as #ReceptioGate, and the broader ethical debate on manuscript dismemberment and provenance manipulation.

Below is a full list of sources, grouped by platform.

🔹 OProM – Official Articles

🔹 ISFiDa – Institutional Contributions

🔹 Receptiogate.info – Public Dossier

🔹 Alta-Formazione – Articles

🔹 Substack – Academic and Public Reactions

🔹 Blogger Archive

👉 Please feel free to share this page as the official public index of #ReceptioGate documentation.
All sources are peer-reviewed, institutionally supported, and permanently archived.

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Further Links:

https://sites.google.com/view/receptiogate
https://sites.google.com/view/carla-rossi/home-page
 

 ©2025 oprom.eu/receptio.eu

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Toutes les reconstructions et le matériel du site sont couverts par le droit d'auteur. Leur reproduction ou citation est interdite sans le consentement de notre organisation.

Il est strictement interdit d'utiliser l'image du logo sans notre permission 

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