Talk:Petrarch

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"Petrarch's career in the Church did not allow him to marry," What career? Elementalwarrior 16:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Wrong Date?

In, the paragraph "The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments and a DNA test revealed that the skull was not Petrarch's,[2] prompting calls for the return of Petrarch's skull. The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch's due to the fact that the skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a donkey, when he was forty-two.[3]"

I didn't believe they had DNA testing in 1873? Anow2 (talk) 01:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name Specifics

Petrarch or Francesco Petrarca? Isn't the latter the real name of this guy and the former just something that english speaking people have invented for him later? If this is true, then, in my opinion, we should have the main page for Francesco Petrarca and have Petrarch be redirected there. Right now Francesco Petrarca is redirected to Petrarch, which is, again in my opinion, quite backwards. Or perhapse this is a FAQ somewhere? --Tbackstr 07:48, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

support. I think it should read: "Francesco Petrarca (also called Petrarch in English)" or something similar. It is not uncommon to call him Petrarca, even in English Dbachmann 08:44, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This is facile argument which is both misplaced and lainly wrong. As this is the English language part of the encyclopedia a reference to Petrarch is fully justified. It can be expected that English speakers will use the terms they are familiar with. If you actually go to the Italian language version you will see it come up with his full italian name.
--This anonyme comment was added by 62.200.53.254 at 17:48, 27 Aug 2004 (--Lord Snoeckx 18:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC))
Support, above (anonyme) statement is incorrect, as every itself-respecting encyclopaedia will use the full correct title (whether English or not), and look by every non-English autor, they all use their official name, not their Anglicised.--Lord Snoeckx 18:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Correct and official are meaningless words in this context. Very few articles in any encyclopedia use the full name exactly as printed on the birth certificate, and which titles are valid and important aren't agreed upon. Why is it Isaac Asimov and not Dr. Isaac Asimov or Исаак Озимов? I certainly wouldn't expect the main article for Sun Tzu to be at 孫子. We put articles in the English Wikipedia where English readers would expect to find them, so we should put this article at Petrarch.--Prosfilaes 19:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree. Isaac Asimov is the correct transcripted name, the 'Dr.' is just a titulation and doesn't need to be part of the title. And to be quite honest, the English 'Petrarch' sounds very ugly - 'Francesco Petrarca' sounds quite better. And, this is an electronic encyclopaedia, and we can thus easily have automatic redirects to 'Francesco Petrarca', so an English-speaking user can simply type 'Petrarch' and then be automatically redirected to 'Francesco Petrarca', and that actually makes this entire issue moot.--Lord Snoeckx 21:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Why is it the correct transcribed name? And why is Sun Tzu the correct name? Whether or not you think Petrarch sounds ugly is really neither here nor there; it's still the most common English name and thus the right title, just like we have "St." on articles where appropriate and call Confucius Confucius.--Prosfilaes 23:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this entire naming issue is pure moot due to redirect possibilities. And 'Petrarch' is only used by English speakers, all other languages use Petrarca (whereas Confucius is used among all other European languages - and even Arabic, Japanese and China). English is btw the only language who has to anglicise (=against neutrality and POV because of ethnocentrism) all famous names, like Aristotle (Artistoteles), Ovid (Ovidius), Homer (Homeros)... (However ethnolangualisation is not unique for English, in most other European languages it is rare or dissaproved. Why is it that English always wants to rule the world and make its own names :-( )
And by the way, only about 75% of English speakers use 'Petrarch', that makes a non-neglectable minority of 25% who use 'Petrarca'--Lord Snoeckx 15:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
If this is moot, why do you keep arguing? It is impossible for a language not to nativize a name, since each language has its own set of sounds and syllables. Confucius is Kong Fuzi in Chinese; Confucius is a Latinization. Five seconds looking at Ovid shows that perhaps half of the articles aren't titled Ovidus or Publius Ovidius Naso, instead using a nativized name.--Prosfilaes 16:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Why don't we just stop arguing since this discussion going nowhere, and change the title, after all, what do you have personally against 'Francesco Petrarca', do you really think it will harm Wikipedia? :-) --Lord Snoeckx 09:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Wow, accusations of personal hatred for Petrarch; you've just made it less likely I'd let a change go by unremarked. Since you've run out of arguments, and your facts have been shown to be fallicious, why don't you concede?--Prosfilaes 12:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I will never bow to the name of Petrarch. Nor shall I bow to the names of every anglicised name. Thank you. --Lord Snoeckx 18:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
That is such a self-centered viewpoint. It's not about making you bow to anything. It's about choosing the most clear and most common English name for the article.--Prosfilaes 20:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The Poll:

Poll: Petrarch or Petrarca

Simply say you want this article to be called Petrarch or (Francesco) Petrarca

--Francesco Petrarca --Lord Snoeckx 18:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

--Francesco Petrarca Reynaert-ad 16:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

--'Petrach, the English name. --Prosfilaes 18:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

--Francesco Petrarca --Tbackstr 13:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

.....well I think that the title Petrarch is the title that we of the English speaking world have come to know this poet. I do not see why a change would be necessary. I do not think this is due to ignorance or anglophilia or bigotry. I honestly think that Petrarch would be quite happy with us for trying to make his name more of a household common word among us English speaking peoples(how the name Petrarch centuries ago was invented, I assure you). This is in no disrespect to him for being Italian, but in every respect to him for being a great poet.

--Whichever an English-speaking user would most naturally search. If we lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is a service we may find ourselves adopting preposterous attitudes. Francesco Petrarca currentlyredirects the reader to the information.--Wetman 09:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

--Francesco Petrarca, it's his name for crying out loud. Where does 'Petrarch' even come from?Cameron Nedland 22:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

--Francesco Petrarca There was no man named Petrach.

[edit] "Which Saint?", or "I Want To Be in That Number: The Saints Augustine"

This artcle references St Augustine, but which? > Among Petrarch's Latin works are De Viris Illustribus, the dialogue Secretum, a debate with St. Augustine,

One, Augustine of Hippo, (354-430), was a philosopher and writer. The other, St. Augustine of Canterbury, was a missionary to the English circa 600 A.D. Will the relevant St Augustine please stand up? Jake 04:26, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, the most famous of course.. of Hippo.. i'll make the changes. Stbalbach

[edit] Duplication?

I see there's significant copying to or from the following article. I don't know which one is older.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/petrarca.htm

Here's an archive to see which is older:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/petrarca.htm
It appears the Wikipedia version is the newer version, from April 2003 User:NuclearWinner
Stbalbach 05:45, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] How many children?

I thought Petrarch had two children, not three as it currently stands. Only two are listed. I'm not entirely sure though so I will leave it as is for now...

[edit] homer

"Among other accomplishments, he commissioned the first Latin translation of Homer" - perhaps I misread this, but surely that ignores Livius Andronicus? Novium 23:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Petrarca had Leontinus Pilatus translate the Illiad verbatim in Latin, but he never read it completely. He mentions it's an awful translation. It was the first translation after the dark ages. Livius Andronicus translated the odyssee, however. Reynaert-ad 21:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to antiquity

Is it possible the text can need some elaboration concerning Petrachs relation to the antiquity? I mean, Cicero has been a gigantic influence on him, but it doesn't seem to be noted too much. Secondly, now I'm busy complainin', can there be made a list out of petrarchs works, it's pretty confusing, like it is now, and the major 'seniles' and 'ad familarum' letters aren't even noted. Even though those are his masterpiece Reynaert-ad 21:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bruni reference

In the Philosophy section, "civic humanism" is associated with Leonardo Bruni, which sounds as if it were part of Bruni's philosophy. However, civic humanism is a 20th century term, created by scholar Hans Baron to describe the thoughts of Bruni (among others). The concept of civic humanism is also a fairly contested argument. Should this be changed, or attributed to Baron? Eltonovereasy 22:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The translation

The translation by Alexander Foreman, whoever the hell that is, is absolutely abysmal, and quite likely to put quite a lot of people off our dear Petrarch. I'm begging someone to change it. Foreman also put up a butchered Pushkin. Idiot.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.128.70.25 (talk • contribs) .

Fine. Happy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Szfski (talk • contribs) 20:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Names to conjure with

"Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio and Dante are considered the fathers of the Renaissance. " Claims that someone is "the father of" something, or that a town is "the Venice of the" somewhere are uninformative. When a fully Medieval figure like Dante is added to the batter, the result is puff pastry. --Wetman 19:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

List of people known as father or mother of something. These kinds of idiomatic phrases are good in establishing fast-food context in the lead section - hopefully a source is included from someone whose opinion matters, and if it is widely repeated and supportable. -- Stbalbach 14:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Epistolae

I tried to improve the new paragraph about the Epistolae familiares but two points aren't clear (at least to me).

  1. Does the list of recipients apply to the "sine nomine" letters, or to all the letters?
  2. In the sentence "From Epistolae familiares he kept a special set of nineteen controversial letters that had much criticism against the Avignon papacy called Sine nomine" what does "he kept" mean? Does it mean that the sine nomine letters are included in the Epistolae familiares (kept in), or excluded from them (kept out)?

Once that's clear, the sentence can be rearranged. At present it says that the papacy is called "sine nomine", but no doubt we want it to say that the letters are called "sine nomine". Andrew Dalby 14:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent questions. Thanks for cleaning this up. I have reworded this now so that it should be clear on the relationship of Liber Sine nomine to Epistolae familiares.

  1. To ONLY the "sine nomine" letters. I wrote the article Epistolae familiares and also Letter to Posterity.
  2. Petrarch kept OUT of Epistolae familiares (because of the controversal nature of these special letters).

So happens I just wrote a new article of "Book Without A Name" (a.k.a. Liber Sine nomine). Yesterday I made the new article Ildebrandino Conti, whom is the recipient of Letter # 8. Showing you what I am doing here should help answer your questions. I plan on making new articles on others that received these letters (now maked in red of course). --Doug talk 21:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medieval versus Renaissance

Petrarch is often called a Medieval author and he is often called a Renaissance author. There is no "right" category but he can certainly belong in both. -- Stbalbach 15:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

  • "While entombed at a cathedral in Arqua, a drunken friar and accomplice robbed the grave..." The smuggled-in alcohol apparently had a revivifying effect, then. --Wetman 21:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poet laureate

"Brought back the poet laureate tradition from antiquity" is an enormous over-simplification. This is what Petrarch thought he was doing; but let us not suggest that he was right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coldwell's edits

Doug Coldwell has made several edits today. I do not think higly of them, and have reverted.

  • 19:29 9 July Two pieces of fluff: Petrarch has been called the first tourist, and one of the first to collect coins since antiquity. If anyone else feels like restoring these, fine; but to me, trivia are trivial.
  • 11:17: a lengthy and pointless quote, which documents everything known about Petrarch's children (and perhaps more) except what requires citation: their alleged places of birth.
  • 16:48: edit summary: provided several improvements. These are an empty infobox and some headers.
  • 19:09: "copyedit + provided references per citation requests" In fact supplies nonsense about Petrarch "reviving the poetry cult after a thousand years, and cites the "commissioning" of a translation to a random website. I have replaced it with an account of what actually happened.

In short,Doug, get a copy of Morris Bishop, or some other reliable source, from Interlibrary Loan and read him. Please stop wasting our time. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the reversion. Here's another reason why: in the edit at 19:09, Doug added some text and a citation to lagazzettaitaliana.com. In that revision, the Wikipedia text read:
"He traveled widely in Europe and served as an ambassador. He was a prolific letter writer, and counted Giovanni Boccaccio among his notable friends. During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece. Among other accomplishments, he commissioned the first Latin translation of Homer,..."
Here's the text at lagazettaitaliana.com:
"Petrarca traveled all over Europe, serving as an ambassador and collecting ancient Latin manuscripts. He commissioned the first Latin translation of Homer..."
Has Wikipedia copied from lagazetta, or the other way around? Honestly, I can't be sure, since Wikipedia's content gets distributed, copied, and plagiarized in many different fora. But given our recent experiences with Doug, I have a pretty strong suspicion that he plagiarized lagazetta. Now, if you take some of the more colorful phrases from this article (try "Homer, he said, was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer"), you'll get some troubling results. I'm on the verge of suggesting reversion to a pre-Coldwell version just to be safe, but I haven't looked at the history to see exactly what this would do to the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe "deaf to Homer" is, as indicated, from Petrarch himself. I'll add quotation marks. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I see you added that! [1] from the 1911 Britannica. Yes, Petrarch did say that, but it would be nice to know exactly where he said it. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
That's fine; my edits should be held to the same standards as Doug's. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "...perfecting the sonnet, making it one of the most popular art forms to date"

What does this mean? One of the most popular art forms up to Petrarch's time? Up to ours? Llajwa 02:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The sonnet has never really faded. It has evolved in time (see Bembo, Marino, the Pre-Raphaelites, Ezra Pound) and space (Marot, Du Bellay in France, Wyatt, the Earl of Surrey and Shakepeare in England. I agree we might use examples and be more specific on that, but that means we should write a long section on Petrarch's metre alone?--Wiz shoot the bull 14:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

That's not what bothers me about that sentence, rather, it's this: Petrarch is credited with perfecting the sonnet although ... others perfected it futher. This runs contrary to the definition of the word to "perfect". 67.5.156.5 (talk) 09:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's rubbish. I'll chop it. --Folantin (talk) 09:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bad Source?

Just doing a little research on 'The Dark Ages' and was using Wikipedia for ideas on keyword ideas to help me along in my research. I've noticed that the source that points to Petrarch effectively coining the phrase 'Dark Ages' didn't actually really say much about him being the first to mention 'The Dark Ages'. May I recommend a better source from the same database (JSTOR)?

Title: Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages' Author: Theodore E. Mommsen Link: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134%28194204%2917%3A2%3C226%3APCOT%27A%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

It seems to do a better job at describing his roll in the label 'Dark Ages' from what I can tell, not to mention it also describes where the term could have been derived from in a religious perspective (better background info). Hope this helps. :)

Edit: And I'm referring to source 9 in the article, just for clarification.

--Trikster85 (talk) 06:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added it in, as no one else seemed about to. Thank you for the tip. --Wetman (talk) 07:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)