Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Aldus Manutius/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 12:36, 7 September 2018 [1].

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Aldus Manutius

Nominator(s): Gandhi (BYU) (talk) 17:08, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Aldus Manutius was the first printer to use a standardized Greek font for publication. Greek type was unheard of before Manutius. Currently, scholars consider his contribution to have saved many rare manuscripts that would not have been published otherwise. He is integral in the preservation of Greek manuscripts and also promoted contemporary humanists authors as well as Latin classics with more accurate translations. Manutius also promoted a smaller, portable book that is the predecessor of the modern paperback. Gandhi (BYU) (talk) 17:08, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Aldus_Manutius.jpg needs a US PD tag. Same with File:Virgil_1501_Aldus_Manutius.jpg

• File:Bust_of_Aldo_Manuzio._Panteon_Veneto;_Istituto_Veneto_di_Scienze,_Lettere_ed_Arti.jpg needs a tag for the original work

• File:Aldo_Manuzio_Aristotele.jpg has the wrong tag - under US law reproducing a 2D work garners no new copyright, and this definitely isn't own work

• File:Manutius.jpg: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:30, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Oppose

For now. The subject seems well covered, and the sourcing looks broad and authoritative at first glance, but work is needed on the text, which does not meet FA standards, in my view. It is a great pity the article wasn't taken to peer review before being put up for FAC: such generally minor quibbles as those below should really have been sorted out before an FA nomination.

• Lead
  • "Aristotle or Aristophanes" – why link one and not the other?
  • The article uses the word "font" where "typeface" is wanted. In an FAC about print-related matters the common confusion of the two terms should not be perpetuated.
  • "Desiderius Erasmus" – not linked (and why ever trot out his full name? It's as pretentious and unhelpful as referring to, say, "Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino".)
  • "Giovanni Pico" – not linked: if he's not worth linking from the lead, why mention him there?
  • "Manutius published two works for his pupils and their mother, but in his late thirties or early forties he settled in Venice" – why "but"? There is no obvious contrast or contradiction between the two halves of the sentence.
• Early life
  • Rome is linked, which it shouldn't be – see MoS on major geographical features, although Venice hasn't been earlier.
  • "Manutius studied Greek in Ferrara from Guarino da Verona" – does one study something from somebody? "with" would be the normal preposition.
  • "Most of Manutius's early life is relatively unknown" – relative to what? A pity to misuse "relative" as a mere synonym for "rather".
  • "The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica … asserts" – does it indeed? The OED defines "assert" in this sense as "To declare formally and distinctly, to state positively, aver, affirm" – a bit over the top for an uncontentious statement in Britannica. There is nothing wrong with plain words: "Britannica says" or "according to Britannica".
  • "Caterina Pico, both works" – stronger stop than a comma required here.
  • "location for his work settling there – needs a comma.
• Aldine Press
  • "a five volume folio edition" – could do with a hyphen after "five"
  • "a Greek Plato" – link wanted
  • "On December 1507" – wrong preposition.
  • "Iphigenia in Audlis" – where?
  • "octavo" – a link wanted here, I think.
  • "an edition of Plato" – duplicate link to be removed once link is in place at first mention.
• Greek classics
  • "Only four Italian towns were authorized" – it is not made clear whose authorisation was required. Also, Milan has already been linked.
  • "Cardinal Bessarion" – link needed.
  • "Desiderius Erasmus, Pietro Bembo" – already linked: redundant links here.
  • "a lecturer of history at the University of Warwick" – strange choice of preposition: your cited source calls him "lecturer in history", which is what one would expect.
  • "a different view regarding" – comma wanted before "regarding"
  • "as many as thirty" – WP:EDITORIAL – better just to say "thirty" and leave it to the reader to do the ooh-ahhing.
  • "Under Manutius' supervision" – a rogue outbreak of "ess-apostrophe" rather than the "ess-apostrophe-ess" used throughout the rest of the article.
• Latin and Italian classics
  • "Dante" – link needed at this first mention.
  • ""to provide anaccurate – "an accurate", one assumes.
  • "Manutius didn't" – see MOS:CONTRACTION. This should be "did not".
  • "started 30 years" – but "seventy-five texts" in the previous section: consistent form of numbering wanted.
  • "Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy". Oh, that Dante! We don't need a link and his full name at this fourth mention.
• Imprint and motto
  • to my mind, "dolphin" and "anchor" are common terms that need no link, but it's borderline and I do not press the point.
  • "The symbol and phrase were … was given to Manutius by Pietro Bembo" – trouble with grammar here. If you change "was" to "which" it will make grammatical sense.
  • "London" – remove otiose link.
  • "The international honor society … uses the dolphin and the anchor as the society’s insignia – the repetition could be avoided by using a pronoun instead of the second "society".
• Typefaces
  • "Cursive" is probably a term unfamiliar to many readers nowadays, I think, and perhaps a link would be helpful.
  • "By creating a cursive typeface, Aldine Press publications felt more personal" – dangling participle: the publications did not create the typeface.
  • "Despite the uncertainty, the Aldine Press commissioned…" – a strange sentence. There seems no connexion between the first and second parts of it. The uncertainty is that of modern scholars rather than of the Press.
  • "and as such many of the Aldine Press publications" – the OED says of "as such": "The sense ‘in that capacity’ passes contextually into: Accordingly, consequently, thereupon. colloq. or vulgar." To avoid being colloq. or vulgar I suggest "consequently".
• Counterfeits and piracy
  • "Pope Alexander VI in 1502 and later Pope Julius II in 1514" – the "later" is unnecessary: your readers can do the sums.
  • "attempted to dissuade piracy" – I don't think one can either persuade or dissuade piracy. I think you may mean "discourage".
  • "In the Bibliothèque nationale de France" – was there really something called the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1503? According to the linked article it seems to have been the Bibliothèque du Roi at the time, if I correctly read the text.
  • "the 16th of March 1503" – our prescribed date format is "16 March 1503", omitting the "the" the "th" and the "of"
  • "tried to warn off those who plagiarize his content" – should plagiarize be plagiarized?
  • "He goes on" – unexpected switch to present tense.
  • "decipher a real Aldine" – strange verb, suggesting decoding rather than distinguishing between.
• Illumination manuscripts and Aldine prefaces
  • "re-used" – not hyphenated in any of the dictionaries I use.
  • "Ovid" – link at first mention.
  • "Sabinus" – ditto.
• Marriage and personal life
  • "Torresani's house now his father-in-law" – most unusual to have a house rather than a man as one's father in law.
  • "a house now covered by a bank building in Venice named Campo Manin" – Campo Manin is not a bank building: it is the name of the entire square.
  • "Manutius knew the Marquis of Mantua, Francesco Gonzaga and wrote letters to the Marquis" – another example of unnecessary repetition of a noun where using a pronoun the second time would flow more naturally.
  • "spent five days in jail … and another night in a real prison" – not clear what was unreal about the earlier jail.
  • "Horace" – link at first mention.
  • "Horation" – not in any dictionary I know. The OED and Chambers prescribe "Horatian".
  • "He died the next month, 6 February, and "with his death the importance of Italy as a seminal and dynamic force in printing came to an end."" – this is one of many cases in the article where a phrase is put in quotes with no inline attribution. Unless it is worth saying who said them, such phrases are better paraphrased, or the quotations are without context in your text.
• Legacy
  • "The quality of Manutius's work, as well as his popularity, make his works" – singular verb needed. "As well as" does not = "and".
  • Last para – titles not italicised: is that intentional?

I hope these points help the nominator improve the article to bring it nearer to FA standard. Happy to enlarge on any points if wanted. – Tim riley talk 10:31, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Comments by Johnbod

I see the group above are being worked through.

• "Everyday handwriting in Venice was in cursive, but at the time, published works contained only block lettering" - "published works" means "printed books" presumably. Indeed cursive should be linked, but what does "block lettering" mean? Certainly not "block capitals". Nor is Manutius's new font actually "cursive" in terms of the letters being joined up (mostly). Precision is needed here, and probably expansion. We have many articles on the types of writing and typefaces used at the time.
• Does the article really still "incorporate text from a publication now in the public domain: Symonds, John Addington (1911). "Manutius". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 624–626." At FA it shouldn't really, or certainly not enough for the overall template in this form. Remove, or if there's any left, treat like a normal ref, as you do with one rather long quote.
• I would have thought that "Fletcher III, Harry George (1995)" would be "Fletcher, Harry George III (1995)", but I'm not too familiar with this American style.
• No link to Aldine Press in first line.
• "Manutius devoted his later part of life to publishing and disseminating rare texts" - "the later part of his life" reads more naturally, at least in British English.
• Bassano is "located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) southeast of Rome", which isn't that close - at least a day's travel at the time I expect.
• Carpi link at 2nd mention.
• The prose is generally rather jerky: "Printing work halted again while the League of Cambrai tried to lessen Venice's influence". How did that work exactly? "Only four Italian towns were authorized to produce Greek publications: Milan, Venice, Vicenza, and Florence and only published works by Theocritus, Isocrates, and Homer.[22] Venice printer John Speyer produced Greek passages but required the minimal Greek letters to be left blank and later filled in by hand.[23]"
• Really needs a careful copy and style edit - there are all sorts of little MOS points, many of which Tim has picked up above. But for example Campo Manin (whether a building or square) is not italicised.
• More later. Johnbod (talk) 02:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Coord note

Reading through the comments above, it looks to me that the article, despite some strengths, has been nominated prematurely. I'd like the improvements suggested to be worked on outside the FAC process, after which, per Tim, I'd suggest PR, or perhaps consider the FAC mentoring scheme. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 12:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.