Talk:Catherine de' Medici

Biography assessment rating comment

WikiProject Biography Assessment

Basically a B class, needs an infobox and more references.

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 15:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

one thing missing

I just want to say: incredible work on this subject. Im pretty sure this is the most detailed biography of all wikipedia biographies. I noticed one thing was missing - cultural depictions of Catherine De Medici. Was she part of any fiction? novels? films? etc. Would like to know that. 77.250.25.165 (talk) 12:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Constantly! --PL (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

source

---

Just to weigh in on behalf of the Italians, I don't see why anyone other than the French should put an "s" at the end of her name. Her family name was Medici - one of the most famous and respected family names in Italian and world history. The prefix "de'" (an abbreviation for "dei") translates in English to "of the." She was literally "Catherine of the Medici" - In Italian "Caterina de' Medici." I understand that since this is the English language Wikipedia, we say Catherine instead of Caterina, but the last name should remain unchanged. Certainly, it makes sense to mention the French spelling and pronunciation in the article, since she was the Queen of France for many years, but to generally refer to her in this way is confusing and breaks the continuity with the rest of her famous family. It is true that there are many repetitions of first names in the Medici family tree, which can make historical analysis confusing. I agree that "Caterina Di Lorenzo de' Medici" is complex and not very practical. Her father's name was indeed Lorenzo, however, the more famous Lorenzo in her family was her great grandfather Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" (the magnificent.) Italians often use such "nicknames" to distinguish between members of the Medici family (and other historical figures). For example, the eldest Cosimo in the Medici family tree is referred to as Cosimo "Il Vecchio" (the elder), to differentiate him from later Cosimo's. Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" had a father Piero, who was known as "Il Gottoso," or "The gouty" because of his health problems. This differentiates him from Lorenzo's "the magnificent's" son Piero di Lorenzo. You can see how this can get really complicated after a while, with so many repeated names and nicknames (and various foreign spellings and pronunciations.) I think somewhere on Wikipedia there should be a Medici family tree with all of these names and the nicknames as well, but for individuals such as Catherine who stand out in their own right historically, I don't think there is any reason to complicate things. In the English speaking world, she's known and should remain known as Catherine de'Medici.

DonatelloNYC (talk) 03:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Original text from 1911 encyclopedia. Has been copyeditited, wikified, and revised somewhat for NPOV. It still needs a thorough review by someone with a background in the modern study of history. -- April

Any reason why the page title and article subject disagree in the final "s"? -- Tarquin

I don't know where that came from; but i fixed it. --mav

It definitely has an "s" in French. -- t

Ah. Well then its not so bad to have that transliteration in the text then -- although the family name itself is still Italian, no? --mav

Montrealais, do you really want to include regents as successors to monarchs? France has had female regents, but never a queen regnant. -- Someone else 04:03 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

---

By Wikipedia naming conventions, an article should be named by the most widely used name in the English language. "Catherine de' Medici" has about 8,000 hits on Google. "Caterina Di Lorenzo de' Medici" has no hits at all. I think this page (and the other Medicis) should be moved back to their English names. -- JeLuF 21:05, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

See Talk:Lorenzo de' Medici and Talk:Medicis for some background to what's going on.

The problem is that due to reuse of first names, the family has: 2 Alesandro's, 5 Cosimo's, 3 Ferdinandinos, 6 Giovannis, 2 Giulianos, 2 Giulios, 5 Lorenzos, 2 Pieros, etc, etc. You get the idea. Over a third of these deserve pages, and as I started to add them, I started running into name conflicts when we were just calling them "X de' Medici".

I can see (and sympathize) your point about "Catherine de' Medici", but then instead of having one simple rule for almost all the Medici pages (which is that the page is under their full correct names, with redirects - which will become disambiguations in some cases - from the shorter names), we'd have all sorts of confusion.

Since any reference to "Catherine de' Medici" does wind up on the correct page, as do attempts to look her up, the fact that her data is under a name which is not the most common form seems to me a lesser evil that having all sorts of inconsistent namings for the pages of the family members. YMMV, but I don't think my changes are completely without reason.

Noel 21:57, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Will sleep about whether I like it ;-) -- JeLuF 22:18, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate it. BTW, I listed her name (at the top of her page) as "Caterina de' Medici, (French: Catherine de Médicis) (English: Catherine de' Medici)", putting her actual given name first, and then the variants in other languages. If you feel it would be more appropriate to invert that into "Catherine de' Medici, (Italian: Caterina de' Medici), (French: Catherine de Médicis)", I have no problem with that - there, I was just guessing as to what would be most appropriate, but the WikiNaming rule you point out might make sense there. Noel 22:40, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This page name is totally wrong! Nobody on the planet calls Catherine "Caterina di Lorenzo de' Medici." That is 1) Not used See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) 2) not in English, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). I'm changing this page back

--mav

Well, I'm not going to get into a big fight over it. If other people want to know why Medici pages are named inconsistently, you can explain it to them.

I'll note that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) does say "that does not conflict with the names of other people or things", and the short forms of many of the Medici names *do* conflict, which is what started all this.

I'll further note that the Medici page has her as "Caterina de' Medici", not "Catherine de' Medici", and *I* am not the person who did that.

Noel 23:48, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The de' is difficult in all ways, mostly because of that little '

This is English wikipedia, thus English should be used. As she lived both in Italy and in France, thus the de' and de are basically both correct, but impossible to combine, it could be "of". I vote for Catherine of Medici. 62.78.105.126 07:01, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ever since the time when she moved to France, she has always been called 'Catherine de Médicis' (pronounced 'Medi-cease'), and countless sites and institutions are so named and pronounced to this day. People asking in France for them under the name 'Catherine de' Medici' will simply not be understood! Please note also that her husband is referred to in the article under his French name 'Henri'. Consistency, please! --PL 08:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

DonatelloNYC (talk) 03:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC) If I might interrupt here - Catherine was famous as a member of the Medici family BEFORE she moved to France (bringing her court's Italian culinary skills with her). Users of Wikipedia in English are not "people asking in France" - we are English speakers who search for the names that we know. I do agree though regarding "Henri." It is important to be consistent. DonatelloNYC (talk) 03:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Some users of Wikipedia in English do actually visit France sometimes, you know -- and they need to be able to pronounce the name properly, since it's everywhere! Anyway, the article as it stands now does seem to get it all in perspective. --PL (talk) 10:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If by 'Gallicised' you mean making the name look (and sound) French, I think you've got the pronounciation wrong. Spelt the way you suggest, and according to French pronounciation rules, it would be pronounced 'Medi-cee', with the emphasis on the last syllable and the final S not being heard. (English 'phonetics'.) LarRan 09:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I assure you that 'Medi-cease' is the correct pronunciation. It you don't believe me, watch the French LCP channel on a Saturday night at 2100 local time during term time, when you will be regaled with an eminent literary discussion-programme entitled 'Bibliothèque Médicis' (pronounced 'Medi-cease'), which is televised from the Bibliothèque Médicis in Paris. I'm afraid that 'French pronunciation rules' don't always apply to proper names! --PL 14:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

But then, as far as 'French pronunciation rules' are concerned:

'bis' (= twice/Encore!) is pronounced 'beece'

'fils' (son) is pronounced 'feece'

'vis' (screw) is pronounced 'veece'

'lis' (lily) is pronounced 'leece'

'cis-' (on this side of) is pronounced 'cease' (or 'seize' before vowel) and (ahem)

'Médicis' is pronounced 'Medi-cease' (see any relevant dictionary, such as Harrap's Standard English and French Dictionary of 1934). --PL 08:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

We have to use one of the names she's called in English, which are "Catherine de' Medici" and "Catherine de Medici". The former is the title of the article and seems to me preferable. This is the style R. J. Knecht uses for his biography Catherine de' Medici, the best recent work I have come across on Catherine in English.

I'm slowly undertaking an improvement to this article and ironing out the Henry/Henri thing as I come to it. The best style, I think, is to use "Henry/Francis" for the major players and Henri/François for the lesser, according with Wikipedia article titles and most books in English. Contradiction is inevitable, and it exists in the scholarly sources also: the only way to achieve consistency would be to write all names in the French versions and change the names of hundreds of articles.qp10qp 09:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why do we have to use one of the names she's called in English, which are "Catherine de' Medici" and "Catherine de Medici" -- when neither was her name at any time during her reign? As I have pointed out, 'de Médicis' was not just a different spelling, but a different name, and the only one by which she is known in France. Centuries of erroneous English references (including Britannica) shouldn't be informing the article. Have you bothered to refer to the French version of the article, every one of whose references is to 'Catherine de Médicis'? --PL 14:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC).

We have to use one of those names because those are the names she's called in the sources referenced. It would be original thought to use her name as it appears in French sources. Yes, of course, I have read the French version of the article (it was one of the first things I did); but it didn't occur to me to change her name in the English article as a result: why would it?qp10qp 18:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Or to paraphrase, we use the English-language names of things because this is the English-language Wikipedia; we don't ignore history and make up new names for things (people, places, whatever) or adopt foreign-language names when a standard English-language name is common, for a "best-of-all-possible-worlds" English Wikipedia, wherein everything is called what it "ought" to be called. For something with multiple names (or common misspellings) there need to be redirects for the less-preferred alternates.

And this issue is by no means unique to this article; if we start down the path of "fixing" names, then we would need to "fix" Erik the Red, Pliny the Elder, Julius Caesar, Jesus, MacBeth (the historical figure, not the play), Xerxes 1, etc., etc. Mangling foreign-language names has been a fine tradition for the last few millenia; while that's more or less stopped now, we're not going to reverse history here. Studerby 17:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking back at the above, it seems to me that Noel's solution might be the best one, combining as it does both source tradition and accuracy. --PL 08:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Children

It is very unclear from this article who Catherine's children were and many of them aren't even mentioned (such as her first son, Francis II who was King of France). The Valois line of kings in the article seems to be the completely wrong timeframe as the last king listed is Charles VIII who died before Catherine was born.

I am going to add the box of Henry II's children from his article (they are Catherine's as well) and changing the Valois branch to the Valois-Angoulême branch list of Monarchs. Someone please correct me if there is a reason not to do this. -- Jdvelasc 22:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Maguerite de Valois and Nostradamus

I have removed the tendentious reference to Maguerite de Valois' Memoirs: they in fact contain only one sentence about the death of Henri II (quoted in translation in my edit review). Similarly the nonsense about Nostradamus: for June of 1559 (not '1555' -- sorry!) he had predicted only that 'France shall greatly grow, triumph, be magnified, and much more so its Monarch.' Quatrain I.35, often supposed to have predicted the death of the King (especially if mistranslated as per a few edits ago!), was not in fact linked to it for the first time in print until 1614, 55 years later! It is perfectly clear from their writings that neither Nostradamus nor his secretary, Chavigny, had any idea of the proposed link. Thus, I have removed the Nostradamus references as well, even though he certainly had links with the Queen (not mentioned in the article). Please see the relevant article. --PL (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

That's very helpful. If you see any other mistakes in the article (whether editors' fault or sources' fault), please could you remove them or mention them here. qp10qp (talk) 16:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, Nostradamus is now mentioned in a note—non credulously. qp10qp (talk) 00:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Making cuts

I intend to cut the article down to a more reasonable length. Please don't be alarmed (I added the excess baggage myself in the first place): the material won't be wasted and will go into related articles, particularly those of the six kings (Francis I to Henry IV), in the future. qp10qp (talk) 17:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC) Bold text

disambiguation

The following links need a disambig:
dauphin
dauphine
blood feud
cardinal of lorraine
francois
Randomblue (talk) 10:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I fixed dauphin, blood feud, and Cardinal of Lorraine. Dauphine goes to the best page already, even though it is a disambiguation page of sorts, and I can't find any bare references to François. Yomangani^talk 10:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I replaced Catherine's birthtime which is accurate.The eleven o'clock birthtime is not correct. If you wish to remove it, go ahead, I wont make anymore reverts. By the way, that other editor was not a vandal. By the Gregorian calendar Catherine was born on 23 April 1519. Just as George Washington was born 11 February by the Old Style calendar but his birthday is celebrated on 22 February after Gregorian was finally adopted in Britain and the Colonies.jeanne (talk) 18:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if I assumed vandalism, but, as I expect you know, there are constant sneaky changes to dates in articles by people who wish us harm. I have removed the date again because the source used contradicts it; as you know, if we change information without changing the source, we leave the new information referenced to the wrong source. It's the same with the birthtime information. On a broader point, most books do not get microscopic about date styles and exact birthtimes; my bigger reference here is the silent one: all the books that do not bother the reader with these things at all. In our much shorter article, it is all the more important that we don't overdo detail, which can break the rhythm of the prose. It is the same not only with with birthtimes and styles of dating, but with titles, ancestries, styles of address, etc. Some editors are determined that Wikipedia articles should contain ever more detailed information on such things, but to what end? qp10qp (talk) 23:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I do see your point, and you are correct about the 23 April birthdate. That was her actual rectified birthdate but as she was born when the Julian calendar was still firmly in use, her contemporary recorded birthdate was 13 April, so the article must state this, otherwise readers will become confused. Her exact birthtime would suffice for a 500 page biography but I can see how too much information becomes rather unwieldy for an encyclopedia article. Sorry if I intruded on the article, I just felt that Catherine was one of history's more important personages and impulsively added her birthtime. Thank you for your patience and explanation.jeanne (talk) 13:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not that you intruded, because we are all writing this encyclopedia. But in a fully referenced article, new information needs referencing to scholarly sources and tying in with existing information and references. I don't agree about the need to explain date style discrepancies, since the sources used do not bother to do that but simply give the reconstituted date. qp10qp (talk) 14:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? It seems to be historically much more normal to give actual dates as known at the time! --PL (talk) 15:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

British dating should be used

Since Catherine de Medici was European, I feel that the British system of dating should be employed in the article rather than the American. Does anyone agree with me ?--jeanne (talk) 06:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wrong illustration

The so-called "Portrait of Catherine de Medici as a child, by an unknown artist" is not Catherine de Médicis (by the way, the dress and hair style are absolutely not the ones of Catherine's youth). It's a well known portrait of her daughter-in-law, Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.226.245.146 (talk) 19:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You're quite right. I don't know why someone added it. I'll remove it.qp10qp (talk) 22:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Wrong page # in footnote(s)

Footnote # 26 claims that information regarding the doctor Jean Fernel and his advice can be found on page 68 of the Frieda book. This is incorrect. I have been able to access page 68 through googlebooks, and that page says nothing about doctor Fernel.

It is more likely that the information may appear on page 58, but I cannot see that page to confirm. A similar problem probably exists with footenote # 25, which cites page 67 of the same book. Ed8r (talk) 19:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

No, these page numbers are correct (I made the citations myself and have just checked them). I expect you are either looking at another edition with different pagination, or that the page numbers on Google Books are slightly out, as sometimes happens. qp10qp (talk) 01:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

But part of my point is that this information does not appear on the page with that number (not a google page, but the number "printed" as part of the page itself). Page 68 of the book shown by googlebooks is about Francis' death. Ed8r (talk) 23:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, well in that case it must be a different edition. I promise you that the information I cited is on the pages given. I have a copy of the book. qp10qp (talk) 02:27, 21 August 2009 (UTC)Ed8r (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, thanks for confirming that.Ed8r (talk) 15:26, 24 August 2009 (UTC)