Talk:Niccolò Machiavelli/Archive 3

Fortune and Religion, sources?

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There are almost no sources for the content and opinions about Machiavelli on Fortune and Religion in this article, and opinions widely perceived as of Machiavelli. Clean-up and citations needed here? Connor Machiavelli (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

A missing source very often just means someone needs to find the time to finish a job off. If sourcing is missing at a place where you think it is needed, you can post here with the example in question and/or else look around a bit yourself to see if you can confirm or deny it. For example a quick google find a lot of the publications you might want on a particular subject.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:24, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

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Leo Strauss - Undue weight?

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Leo Strauss is mentioned 17 times in this article, 26 if you count the citations. Surely, other scholars have interpreted Machiavelli besides Strauss. Mballen (talk) 07:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Are you saying no one else is cited? That sounds wrong. It could be that the article could be improved though by adding more references, but that is not much more than saying that the article can be improved. Likely, the article's strongest bits so far are on areas Strauss is a good source for, such as the "modernity" of Machiavelli and how he compares to the Greeks who were the standard. That seemed to me (and probably to other editors) an important (notable in reliable sources) thing to work on. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

This is no answer. Strauss is an outlier with an idiosyncratic theory of textual interpretation: namely that texts have secret meanings understandable only to the elect, i.e., the followers of Leo

Strauss, among whom is Harvey Mansfield, also over-cited here.

Strauss was a generalist, not a specialist in Machiavelli or in history. Mansfield is a conservative professor of government and as such not an expert on Machiavelli. On the other hand Maurizio Viroli, emeritus of Princeton has a special expertise in Machiavelli (and Rousseau), about whom he has published many books. His interpretations, which agree with those of Italian scholars and are at odds with those of the acolytes of Leo Strauss, deserve at least equal billing, if not pre-eminence. Mballen (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2019 (UTC) Mballen (talk) 21:14, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I take it back. Mansfield is an expert on Machiavelli in the sense of having written several books on him. He is a follower of Strauss, however. Mballen (talk) 03:14, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Your comment seems sort of an overexaggeration, considering the rather monstrous extent to which Strauss and his followers have influenced the scholarship of Machiavelli. Viroli, despite being a good biographer, seems to go wayyy too far in the republican interpretation, positing Machiavelli as a Christian patriot, even though he has a obvious low opinion of Christianity (Discourses Book 2, Chap 2) if not to say an absolute disdain. And just because the scholars are italian, doesnt mean they should be given special status over other scholars. They are reading the same content. That seems like a way to quell the dissent of other scholars in my opinion. If that is the case, what about the French and German? Most influential scholarship on Machiavelli has been in English. Your need to press that Mansfield is a conservative and that somehow makes him less of an interpreter also seems a bit ideological. I also need to press that Mansfield has even translated Machiavelli's writings,and they have been viewed as a vital tool by most scholars, even if they entirely disagree with his method.SuperWikiLover223 (talk) 05:01, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

My impression is that Strauss is known in European languages and he is respected to some extent as a scholar of certain authors including Machiavelli. In this situation, to the extent he and Mansfield are conservative or controversial the best solution is not to remove them but to add more sources and get a balance. But their books about Machiavelli tend only to show a glimpse of those things in the attention they give to the question of whether Machiavelli was a big dangerous turning point in history or not, and I think on this question their point is at least a serious and well-known debating point, and also older than them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:44, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

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The Devil Incarnate

This article could say that in his day, some people saw Machiavelli as the Devil incarnate. Vorbee (talk) 08:59, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

That's deep... 😶 TrackerMercurial136 (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Further reading section

I see this section has been tagged for being too long. Perhaps it should not include any works which are already cited in the footnotes? But I notice we have no actual references section apart from the footnotes, so maybe the solution is to create one and move some of the sources (the ones we are actually using) to there?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:07, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Removing works already cited in the footnotes would be a good way to start. UpdateNerd (talk) 07:44, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Italian IPA

Is the second m in Machiavelli truly correct? I don't know Italian IPA well, but having both m's seems incorrect.

Hi @Schwiiz: I'm not familiar with italian too, but I can direct you at Help:IPA/Italian (see the notes section) and Syntactic gemination, where it seems that this feature is discussed. You can also ask IvanScrooge98 for a further explanation, I'm sure he will be happy to clarify your doubts. Regards, Horst Hof (talk) 07:55, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

@Schwiiz: yes, it’s about syntactic gemination, which in this case is triggered by the polysyllabic oxytone Niccolò. Though we might add a note to specify the isolated pronunciation of the surname, if you think it can be helpful. イヴァンスクルージ九十八_（会話） 08:12, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

elogium

TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM ("So great a name (has) no adequate praise" or "No eulogy (would be) a match for such a great name").

'elogium' means 'short saying, inscription', not to be confused with 'eulogium': 'no inscription is equal to such a great name' (Pamour (talk) 11:08, 9 August 2019 (UTC)).