ReceptioGate: Academic Defamation, Manuscript Dismemberment, and the Documentation of a Digital Smear Campaign

This review assesses ReceptioGate: Academic Defamation and the Dismemberment of Manuscripts (Expanded Edition, Bibliothèque de l'OProM, Paris, 2025; ISBN 978-2-488512-00-8) by Jordi Puig, a publication that documents the coordinated defamation campaign targeting Professor Carla Rossi and the broader scholarly programme centred on the reconstruction of dismembered manuscripts. Through meticulous documentation, legal references, and full bibliographic transparency, the volume brings to light the intersection of reputational assault, institutional complicity, and the illicit trade in medieval manuscript leaves. Positioned at the crossroads of scholarly ethics, biblioclasm, and academic harassment, Puig's work stands out as both a testimonial archive and a critical intervention. Far from being a memoir or a polemic, the book constitutes one of the most rigorously evidenced accounts to date of a sustained campaign of reputational destruction–one that simultaneously reveals the entanglement of biblioclastic actors, self-styled manuscript bloggers, and segments of the academic establishment whose authority thrives on opacity, collusion, or deliberate inaction. Keywords: ReceptioGate; academic defamation; manuscript dismemberment; biblioclasm; scholarly ethics; cultural heritage; provenance fabrication; palaeography; manuscript reconstruction; illicit trade; digital humanities; reputational violence; Jordi Puig; manuscript dealers.