Talk:Dante Alighieri

Possible fringe and OR information ​

Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet, note: "Though an Italian nation state had yet to be established, the Latin equivalent of the term Italian (italus) had been in use for natives of the region since antiquity".

• This information is based on the letter of Pliny the Elder((AD 23/24 – AD 79), Letters 9.23. [23] L To Maximus. [[1]] "He said that he was sitting by the side of a certain individual at the last Circensian games, and that, after they had had a long and learned talk on a variety of subjects, his acquaintance said to him: "Are you from Italy or the provinces?" Tacitus replied : "You know me quite well, and that from the books of mine you have read." "Then," said the man, "you are either Tacitus or Pliny."

It is a primary source WP:PRIMARY, and secondary source in this sense does not exist. Given that the primary source only mentions: "Are you from Italy or the provinces?" and the article contains information: "the Latin equivalent of the term Italian (italus) had been in use for natives of the region since antiquity", it is obviously a violation of the rules of wikipedia ie. WP:OR and WP:FRINGE since there is no secondary source that states this and also information from the article in this sense and with this fact, has not been published anywhere, that is, it does not exist anywhere. Based on the above reasons, I suggest that this information be removed from the article because it does not comply with the rules. Thank you. Mikola22 (talk) 14:41, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

It's fine to quote primary sources, but obviously the second part is an editorial deduction. Let's cut it now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap Thanks for the answer, can you please show me or quote me where Pliny the Elder says: "the Latin equivalent of the term Italian (italus) had been in use for natives of the region since antiquity"? and in which context it concerns Dante Alighieri? Mikola22 (talk) 15:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I cut it already, but hey. The editorial deduction was possibly OR but nothing more. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:46, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Are you maintaining that "Italian" is an invalid term when applied to someone living in Dante's times? Does this entry in Lewis & Short's dictionary, where the Pliny source you've referred to is only one of the many citations, convince you that "Italian" has been used since ancient times? Since the Encyclopaedia Britannica calls Dante an "Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker", I don't think our characterization is particularly "fringe" or debatable. Deor (talk) 15:05, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Deor My proposal is related to this situation ie information. You can open another topic so we can discuss it. Is this information fringe or OR? Mikola22 (talk) 15:12, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

WP Challenge: 'One of first to publish in vernacular language in Roman Catholic Western Europe'

The text states: Publishing in the vernacular language marked Dante as one of the first in Roman Catholic Western Europe (among others such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio) to break free from standards of publishing in only Latin (the language of liturgy, history and scholarship in general, but often also of lyric poetry).

This is problematic from a couple of stand points, parts such as "break free from standards of publishing" are borderline WP:Editorial. But more than that this isn't true. There are a number of Old English / Anglo Saxon authors such as Cynewulf, Cædmon and the author of Beowulf who are Christian, from Western Europe and who write in vernacular and who also predate Dante and Chaucer by up to 700 years in the case of Cædmon. While I appreciate the point the article is trying to make; it's making the statement so broad as to be incorrect. Also depending on how we define Christian and Western Europe the Norse Sagas are also examples of extent literature written in vernacular which predate Chaucer and Dante. Once again I'm not trying to lessen Dante's achievements but pointing out that this section seems overly superlative. 2601:2C3:800:6E0:9DB6:1C3D:39A0:324C (talk) 18:55, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Date format

Hi, I would like to suggest changing the date format of this article to dmy as that is what is used in Italian and is by far most common on Italian topic pages.--Marginataen (talk) 18:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi, it's been more than a week. If another week passes without any objections, I'll probably just change it. Merry Christmas :) Marginataen (talk) 22:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

In order to not have to raise several different discussions, I hope the result of this discussion can also be applied to the articles about Dante's works, e.g. Inferno. Marginataen (talk) 22:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello. Missed this thread. I disagree with that rationale. Plus as I already told you before, it is not based on manual of style. This is the English-language Wikipedia. What applies for another language-edition of Wikipedia does not necessarily apply here. I see no valid reason to change it. StephenMacky1 (talk) 22:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with other language editions. It has something to do with how we normally do with Italian people. The MDY year format is basically US only. That's why 99% of the quality articles about non-Americans use dmy. Marginataen (talk) 16:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

That only applies for English variants (American English, British English and etc). There is no guideline about Italian people. StephenMacky1 (talk) 16:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Correction, I meant English-speaking countries, not variants. Anyway, I do not know why you are so obsessed with date formats. There are much more important issues to focus on. You got blocked for this before. StephenMacky1 (talk) 17:07, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that the article about Dante uses a Dante currently has a date format diffrent from the one used in almost every article about his European contemporaries, as well as modern Italians and his own play Divine Comedy. Marginataen (talk) 23:45, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

There is no requirement that the date formats have to be consistent between this article, articles about him and his contemporaries though. Date formats are determined individually, since the requirement about national ties does not apply in this case. I would recommend starting a RfC since you seek consensus to change the date format. Perhaps others could agree with changing the date format, but I do not see it as necessary. StephenMacky1 (talk) 00:04, 27 December 2024 (UTC)