Fact-checking footnotes

Although this has immediate reference to art history, there's a parallel problem in "mainstream" Bible scholarship:

Creighton was scrupulous about sources, and nothing pleased him more than to trace a footnote through multiple generations of citation and to discover at the origin a misinterpretation or some indisputable evidence of neglect that he could wield against an adversary farther down the citation chain.  “Scholars tend to be lazy,” he often observed with charming smugness, knowing that we knew that he took pride in being an exception.

http://www.baroquepotion.com/page/3/