Talk:Lucia Visconti/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 14:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Happy to review the article. Amitchell125 (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Assessment

Lead section

• Link Lord of Milan (List of rulers of Milan); Milan; Visconti (Visconti_of_Milan#Lords_and_Dukes_of_Milan); England (England in the Middle Ages).

• Add to the lead section the following points from the main article:

• Bernabò ruled the city jointly with his brother Galeazzo II; (section removed)
• Between 1382 and 1384, Bernabò actively sought marriage negotiations for his infant daughter with Louis II, the Duke of Anjou and the future King of Naples;
• The marriage contract between Louis II and Lucia Visconti was cancelled;
• Henry was banished to France for ten years by King Richard II and had his lands taken;
• the negotiations (were put) on hold;
• Visconti was smitten with Henry;
• Gian Galeazzo offered Visconti to Frederick of Thuringia, the future Elector of Saxony, they were married in 1399, she was able to obtain an annulment;
• in 1406, Edmund had had a liaison with Constance of York and the following year, Constance gave birth to Edmund's illegitimate daughter, Eleanor;
• The couple did not have any children;
• her husband left her with little money;
• (She) approach(ed) Henry for financial aid. Henry granted her one-third of the income of her late husband's land, with the remainder used to pay his creditors. This was not enough to balance the accounts;
• By July 1421, Visconti was residing at the medieval Holy Trinity Minories;
• buried in Austin Friars, London;
• Reprisals taken against Milanese merchants in London in 1464 to recover this sum were probably related to the dowry;
• Further reprisals took place in England in 1489.

I disagree with most of these, as I think that makes the lead too long. I think we only need to hit the highlights: family origin, people who she was linked in marriage to, about her own marriage, and the whole dowry thing. —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I have struck out from the above points those have no longer need to be addressed, or that are now in the lead section. The remaining points need not all be included in the lead section, but without many of them it will not be a summary such that "it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article" (MOS:INTRO). To ensure in my own mind that it doesn't look too large, I have written the lead section out again, with the extra points included. I hope you'll agree with me that its OK as far as the length is concerned:

Lucia Visconti (c. 1380 – 14 April 1424) was a Milanese aristocrat who was the Countess of Kent by marriage from 1407 to 1424. She was one of fifteen legitimate children of Bernabò Visconti, who, along with his brother Galeazzo, was Lord of Milan. Her father negotiated for his infant daughter to marry Louis II of Anjou, and she was briefly wedded in 1399 to the future Elector of Saxony Fredrick of Thuringia, before the marriage was annulled. It was then intended that she marry the English noble Henry Bolingbroke, whom she had met as a teenager, but after he was banished to France, the marriage negotiations were suspended.

In 1407 she married Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent: there were no children. The relationship was troubled, as Edmund had had a daughter born out of wedlock shortly before the marriage, and was unfaithful to his wife. In September 1408, Edmund was killed in battle. Henry IV guaranteed Lucia a third of the income from her husband's lands in England, but for the rest of her life she was constantly affected by money problems, as the dowry due to be paid by her family upon her marriage was never paid: reprisals taken against Milanese merchants in London in 1464 and 1489 were probably both related to the unpaid dowry.

Lucia, Countess of Kent, died in 1423 and was buried in Austin Friars, London.

I hope this helps. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Done, with a correction: Edmund's affair was before the wedding and the child was born afterwards. There is no evidence that he was unfaithful during the marriage. —howcheng {chat} 18:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

• As information in the lead section should also be included in the main article (as the lead section is a concise summary of the article), you need to include the following: her date of birth; that she was a daughter of of Bernabò Visconti, Lord of Milan, and Beatrice Regina della Scala, one of their fifteen children; that she was born in Milan; that her family was extremely wealthy; that her other notable sisters included Valentina Visconti and Caterina Visconti, she was still Countess of Kent when she died.

• As a result of this, she grew up extremely wealthy. This sentence is not needed, if the information in the preceding sentence is amended to ...'the Visconti household were the wealthy rulers...'.

• As a noblewoman in a powerful family,… - this can be removed (as it is self-evident).

• ...to enter into marriage… - 'to marry'?

• The Visconti daughters were all involved in Bernabò's dynastic policy, as he married them off into many different ruling houses across Europe. - amend to 'Bernabò married his daughters off into many different ruling houses across Europe.'

• She herself was connected to various potential marriage partners, including both… - amend to 'She was married or bethrothed to...'.
  • She was only betrothed to (and married, but it was annulled, so does it count?) Frederick. The others she was just linked to. —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Understood. --Ami

• Fredrick of Thuringia (the future Elector of Saxony) and Henry Bolingbroke (the future King of England) - the text reads better if the brackets are removed ('future Elector of Saxony Fredrick of Thuringia, and Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV England.

• The marriage was complicated… - this is too euphemistic; the lead section needs to say what actually happened, i.e that her husband was unfaithful from the start.

• ...Edmund died… - 'Edmund was killed in battle'.

• ...allowed her to avoid obstacles… - it needs to be specific here about what Henry did.

• References 1 (Bradley), 2 (Richardson) and 5 (Bueno de Mesquita) can safely be moved into the main article, as they don't cite contentious information.

Visconti family history

I decided to get rid of this section as it was not really relevant to Lucia herself. —howcheng {chat} 21:12, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

OK ---Ami

Comments hidden. Amitchell125 (talk) 10:55, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Marriage arrangements

• Link King of Naples (List of monarchs of Naples); Sicily (History of Sicily); Elector of Saxony (Electorate of Saxony); consummated, Southwark (Southwark#Early_history); Brittany.

• To improve the flow of the prose and unclutter this section, remove all the subsections (possibly excepting 'Edmund Holland'), the majority of which contain a single paragraph (see WP:OVERSECTION to understand where I am coming from here.

• ...whom his cousin was to wed. - amend to 'whom his cousin Lucia was to wed' (he had a lot a cousins).

• "to the very end of her life, even if she knew that she would die three days after the marriage" - the citation for this quote should be amended to this.

That's already there. —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Great, my apologies. ---Ami

• use — for the two dashes.

I don't see why, as en-dashes are equally acceptable (already using {{snd}}). —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Apologies, you are right of course. ---Ami

• I cannot verify the information about the marriage contract for Lucia and Edmund in Reference 20 (Hinds). Can you provide a more specific url for this citation?

It's in the Bradley source. —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

• The record of their marriage was reported in Sir Nicholas Harris's A Chronicle of London, 1089–1483. - consider adding that this is a chronicle, and that the original manuscript is now kept in the British Museum.

I couldn't think of a way to mention that the work is a chronicle without making it sound redundant, but the note about the manuscript being in the museum is in the image caption. —howcheng {chat} 18:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

That works well. ---Ami

Widowhood

• Link Parliament (Parliament of England); nunnery; steward (Steward (office)); Lincolnshire.

• Remove the three sub-sections (WP:OVERSECTION).

• Bradley gives the full text (in Latin) of Visconti's epitaph, which could be included. What are your thoughts?

It says in the book that the last bit is corrupt and "cannot be sensibly translated", so probably best not to include it. —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, but as the epitaph still exists, I think it's important that readers know that a version of the text can be accessed. I would add a note (either including the epitaph in Bradley, or not), but saying something like 'Lucia Visconti's epitaph, written in Latin, has been preserved in a late sixteenth century document, now kept in the British Museum. Helen Bradley, who has includes a transliteration of the epitaph in her study of Visconti, notes that the last part of it is untranslatable'. Amitchell125 (talk) 13:18, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Added. —howcheng {chat} 18:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

References

• Replace current url for Tait with this (free access to the text from the Internet Archive.

• Add a url for Tuchman ([1], (registration required). (ref removed)

• Link James Tait (James Tait (historian)

• Reference 16 (medieval-life-and-times.info) is not a suitable resource for verifying information in the article, as it appears to be a personal and unreferenced website.. It needs to be replaced with another source. (ref removed)

Other sources

• The article currently has no images. Consider including:

^{* The heraldic symbol of the Visconti family ([2]);}

• The record of Lucia Visconti's marriage to Edmund (British Library Harley MS 565 f. 68r) ([3])
• The depiction of Lucia's parents, from the fresco in the Santa Maria Novella, Florence (1365), Allegory of the Active and Triumphant Church and the Dominican order (here).

What are your thoughts regarding including the image of Lucia's parents? Amitchell125 (talk) 13:48, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Added. —howcheng {chat} 18:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

• Consider adding:

• The count of Virtue Giangaleazzo Visconti, duke of Milan (1965) by Eric Russell Chamberlin, to the section;
• Kent, Lucia (Visconti), Countess of, who was the wife of Edmund (Holand), late Earl of;... (documents held at the National Archives); (not added)

The Chamberlin book is on loan, so I wasn't able to evaluate it. The National Archives one added as an external link. —howcheng {chat} 18:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

• Add a Further reading section, to include:

• Michael M.N. Stansfield's thesis The Hollands, Dukes of Exeter, Earls of Kent and Huntingdon, 1352-1475;

• I was able to use this to add some more detail to the article. —howcheng {chat} 23:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

• Wenck K., 'Lucia Visconti, Konig Heinrich von England und Edmund von Kent', Mittheilungen des fur Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung, xviii (1897) , 69-129 (in German)";
• G.Romano, Primo Matrimonio di Lucia Visconti, Archivio Storico Lombardo, XX (1893), pp. 603-6 (in Italian).

On hold

I'm putting the article on hold for a week, please let me know if you have any queries or need further clarification. I'll cross out text once I can see an issue has been sorted, and check over the article again when you think all the issues raised have been addressed. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 13:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Passing

Passing as a GA, thanks for producing a beautifully written article, and making it a pleasure to review. Amitchell125 (talk) 19:15, 8 November 2019 (UTC)