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Ludovico Racaniello: a spoof?

I recently translated this article from the Italian Wikipedia—it originally turned up here as a machine translation and a proper one had been requested—and I am a little concerned.

The problem is that outside of Wikipedia and its parasites I have been quite unable to source any part of the article which refers directly to Ludovico. The same problem, in fact, applies to the article on the Racaniello family itself, which is supposed to be an ancient noble family of Umbrian origins but which fails to turn up at all at http://www.sardimpex.com, which I take to be a fairly decent genealogy site. I don’t just mean that there is no page for the family, but that I cannot even find an instance of a member of the family marrying some other Italian noble. (Nor does it seem to turn up anywhere else known to Google.)

Of course it might be a relatively minor member of a relatively minor family whose importance is being exaggerated a bit. But at the moment I feel that I should probably nominate my work for deletion. Any thoughts? —Ian Spackman 14:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

No idea; if the family was really noble there should have been some google hit, at least on sardimpex. Since there isn't any, it was at most a prominent family of Todi; for instance, the Medici weren't a noble family, although they were signori of Florence, until Florence became a duchy. And Ludovico is after all classified as a condottiere, so basically the leader of a mercenary army; I doubt they were noble at all. Thus, I guess the family should be proposed for deletion: as for Ludovico, I'm not really sure, maybe the author (who appears to be anonymous btw) used a printed publication as source. I'll propose the family article on it.wiki to be deleted and raise the question there. --Εξαίρετος (msg) 15:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Εξαίρετος, that’s very helpful. I’ll watch the Italian pages. The articles certainly claim nobility: indeed the one on Ludovico refers to a ‘ducato di Racaniello’, no less.

If, as I suspect, it is a spoof then it has been done rather well! The background history seems to be right. Hawkwood, for instance, did vacate the castle of Montecchio Vesponi at about the right time: but nothing I could google said who succeeded him there. (Odd, as it’s rather an important-looking castle.) Cortona did pass to Florence in 1411. (Basically, they bought it: but that doesn’t preclude there having been a bit of fight before.) Arezzo probably did have something like a proconsul in 1419. But does the internet contain a list of rulers or governers covering that year? Not one I could find.

It’s rather as if someone has spotted a little gap in the internet’s coverage of Italian history and has invented a clever fiction to plug it. Or perhaps they have plugged it with the truth?

Finally the stemma feels a bit dubious. But I am no student of heraldry.

Cheers! Ian Spackman 16:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it:Utente:Senofonte added a reference to the article in both it.wiki and here; he also says he saw the stemma when visiting Cortona. According to the book, though, Racaniello administered a contado, not a duchy; the difference is that a duchy implies a duke, while a "contado", which originally was the same as a "contea" (county), doesn't automatically imply a count, as the term was also used for the land owned by a comune (in modern Italian, "contadino" means "farmer"). I don't know which word to pick to translate "contado". Any thoughts? --Εξαίρετος (msg) 09:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Splendid work! On contado, the Italian reads “contado di Racaniello”, rather than “contado di [some commune]”. So perhaps translate as “Racaniello lands”. It’s slightly vague, but I don’t think that’s a great problem, and it is idiomatic English. However, I realise that I may have made a mistake in translating that sentence anyway. Currently on the Italian Wiki it reads

Nel 1397 entrò in conflitto con la famiglia dei Casali per il possesso di Cortona, conflitto che si protrasse per più di quindici anni, fino al 1411, anno in cui il territorio passò sotto il controllo di Firenze e rientrò nel contado di Racaniello.

I assumed Ludovico was the implicit subject of rientrò (as he is of the entrò at the start of the sentence). But it could be that territorio is the subject. That gives us two possible meanings to the last bit of the sentence:

…1411, the year in which the territory [of Cortona] passed under the control of Florence, and in which Ludovico returned to the Racaniello lands.

or:

…1411, the year in which the territory [of Cortona] passed under the control of Florence and its administration was handed back to Racaniello.

(In context, the second doesn’t seem very compelling, as there’s no prior indication that the territory of Cortona had been part of the contado di Racaniello before 1397. )

I don’t at all pretend to have good Italian, so a glance by a native speaker would be very welcome.

(Another tiny note. 1397–1411 is not più di quindici anni!)

—Ian Spackman 14:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, Italian is a very ambiguous language, so I can't say I'm sure, but the second translation feels better (just a single comma would have changed the "feeling", though). However, "rientrare" is very ambiguous (an online dictionary gives 10 different meanings; specifically, it doesn't only mean "re-enter", but also (see #5 in the dictionary I linked) "be part of (a group)". So, in this case I think the meaning is that Florence won Cortona's territory and made it a part of Racaniello's contado; I think "contado di Racaniello" in this context means the portion of the land of Florence Racaniello administered. About the tiny note: you're right! :) --Εξαίρετος (msg) 15:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant. And thanks for making the appropriate changes to the page. —Ian Spackman 10:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

San Giuliano di Puglia

I created 2002 Molise earthquake. Categories adding and linking help needed. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 13:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Good work. I have added it to Category:2002 in Italy and a newly-created Category:Earthquakes in Italy. If anyone knows of any other Italian earthquake articles please add those too. (I couldn’t find any, not even for the Messina earthquake of 1908 which has an Italian article at it:Terremoto del 1908.)

On linking help, that will best be done by someone who knows about earthquakes and plate techtonics, I think. Not me! I’ve added the wikify template in the hope it will attract someone.—Ian Spackman 15:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Pasta

Greetings,

I have been editing on the Pasta article for sometime now. The article was in this state when I started editing. I've tried to use reliable sources to bring it to bring it to this stage.

Since I have nominated the article for good article, any feedback on the current state and suggestions of improvement will be much appreciated.

Regards,

Phillip Rosenthal 09:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well great job on the article it looks much better. Lakers 05:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that encourages me to submit more articles related to Italian cuisine for review. Many regards, Phillip Rosenthal 05:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion

I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 18:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Istituto Luce

From what I can tell, there's no English language article for Luce. --NEMT 17:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

A category for Italian ‘territories’

The Italian Wikipedia has a very useful category: it:Categoria:Territori italiani which groups ‘regioni geografiche, regioni storiche e aree culturali omogenee dell'Italia’, as opposed to the twenty administrative regions which are collected under it:Categoria:Regioni italiane. We certainly have enough articles to justify such a category already and the number is growing (Attilios created Lomellina today) and will continue to grow.

Normally I’d just be bold and create the category, but I honestly can’t decide what to call it. The one-word options which spring to mind are

• Regions
• Territories
• Areas
• Districts
• Zones

Regions would be fine, except that we would have to move the existing Category:Regions of Italy to something like Category:Contemporary administrative Regions of Italy, which would be a pain.

Districts and Zones are hopeless. Areas doesn’t work. Territories doesn’t seem quite right.

Geographical, historical and cultural regions of Italy would be fine if it weren’t so long.

Any bright ideas? —Ian Spackman 23:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I went for the long title Category:Geographical, historical and cultural regions of Italy. I hope it proves useful. —Ian Spackman 11:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Latin cultures

Hello everyone! You may want to go to Latin cultures an participate in the article and discussion. There are a lot of disputed statements... The Ogre 12:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Peer Review

Can I ask this WikiProject to contribute to Wikipedia:Peer review/Italian football champions --Dweller 13:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Francesco Zingales

Pretty significant military leader, no enwiki article. --NEMT 03:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Where do you see him as exceptionally notable? I see through a Google search that he was an Italian WWII commander, apparently in Russia he commanded XXXV Corps, but was going to be a bigger commander had he not fallen ill, so was replaced by Giovanni Messe. The German wikipedia is the only language that has an article on him, correct? I can't read the German, but it appears to also speak of his fighting in Russia. Anyway, I could make an article on him if you want, and I can find a source or two. -KingPenguin 11:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe he also served in Abyssinia and the Balkans; he eventually took over for Messe in 1942 as well (1). Additionally, I was of the impression all WW2 commanders were notable enough for wikipedia. Anyway, dewiki seems to always have articles on military commanders often missing in enwiki (and itwiki). If only I could read German... --NEMT 21:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

A suggested merge

I have suggested the merger of the articles Municipalities of Italy and Comune as they currently overlap greatly.

Actually I don’t have strong feelings about whether the two articles whould be merged, or simply better coordinated. Currently they don’t even link to each other! But I tend to think the former as if they are not merged the Municipalities of Italy article will need at least to summarize much of the material in Comune. That could all to easily lead to the two articles falling out of step.

Thoughts? If so please air them at Talk:Municipalities of Italy —Ian Spackman 06:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)