That turned out to be fairly complex considering the fact the Italian universities had invented degree names centuries ago ~ so they didn't translate exactly into things comprehensible to Americans.
And you know what that meant ~ that if it didn't meet our expectations and standards it was simply more disaggregated scheiss.
The agreed upon standard to discuss his degrees is to name the degree, reference an article, and provide your own translation.
Here's the link to the supposed letter supposedly confirming the supposed degree.
You tell me why:
Unfortunately, since knowing French and Spanish don't give me a good feel for Italian, I can't really translate the name of the degree. But, I can run it through a machine translator, and I have seen an Italian comment about it in a forum. As far as I can tell, "Dottore Magistrale in Filosofia" translates as "Master's Degree in Philosophy." Another glaring discrepancy is within the text of the letter itself (which my Spanish and French *do* allow me to understand): it says that the degree was awarded with a vote of 100 out of 100--but that's meaningless. If you read up on the Italian university system, you see that a jury of (IIRC) three faculty vote on whether a student has completed graduation requirements for the advanced degrees. So, what are the 100 votes? There is also an entrance exam to get into advanced degree programs; I believe it is graded on a scale of 100, but NO student ever seems to get above about 70 on it (the university publically posts scores). So, Rossi looked at various university procedural documents, put something together that sounded good (wow, 100 out of 100 votes is really impressive!), and passed it off as evidence that he attended university?
One impression I get from everything I have read about Rossi is that he's a gifted con man, but he's not really all that intelligent. He completely misses the details that would make his scam look genuine (for instance, having the font size consistent throughout the supposed degree letter). Well... maybe he deliberately leaves obvious discrepancies, because it gives him some kind of thrill to make his scam so obvious and still hoodwink people.