Peter Kidd, Stolen Manuscript Leaves, Turin MS E.V.5, ReceptioGate
This page documents the history of three folios removed from Turin MS E.V.5, a manuscript preserved at the Biblioteca Universitaria di Torino, their appearance on the international antiquarian market, their sale through Sotheby's, and the role played by Peter Kidd in the description and promotion of the leaves.
The case became publicly relevant after the recovery of the folios by the Italian Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC) and after the emergence of the controversy known as ReceptioGate. The events documented here connect manuscript provenance research, the circulation of detached medieval manuscript leaves on the antiquarian market, the recovery of stolen cultural property, and a subsequent campaign directed against the scholar who investigated these issues.
Turin MS E.V.5 is an early sixteenth-century manuscript produced for the French court and preserved in the Biblioteca Universitaria di Torino. In 1979, three illuminated folios were removed from the codex. Their disappearance was officially recorded, and the leaves later resurfaced on the international manuscript market. In 2013 the three folios appeared in a Sotheby's sale in London. They reappeared in a second Sotheby's sale in 2015, where the catalogue descriptions were prepared by Peter Kidd, at that time responsible for the manuscript section of the auction catalogue.
The catalogue entries identified the leaves as belonging to a manuscript preserved in Geneva. The original foliation numbers, however, remained visible on the leaves. Subsequent investigations by Italian authorities established that the folios originated from Turin MS E.V.5 and had been removed from the manuscript decades earlier. Following an international investigation, the leaves were recovered and returned to the Biblioteca Universitaria di Torino in 2018.
The recovery of the Turin folios attracted particular attention because it raised broader questions concerning manuscript provenance, the responsibilities of auction houses and experts, and the circulation of detached leaves originating from public collections. These issues had already been central to the research conducted by Prof. Carla Rossi on manuscript dismemberment, biblioclasm for profit, and the digital reconstruction of dispersed codices.
Shortly after these activities became public, a campaign later known as ReceptioGate emerged online. The campaign sought to discredit both the scholar and the institutions associated with her research. The chronology of this campaign, its actors, and its relationship to the manuscript trade are documented elsewhere on this website through archival evidence, published articles, legal documents, public statements, and contemporary records.
The purpose of this page is to provide a documented reconstruction of the Turin MS E.V.5 case and to preserve the historical record concerning the appearance of the stolen folios on the market, their recovery by Italian authorities, the role of Peter Kidd in their catalogue descriptions, and the subsequent ReceptioGate affair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDuQiuG0IQE