Talk:Medieval technology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2022 and 13 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Kj3gomez, Ahanson11020.

Da Vinci is NOT a Surname

Just a quick note to whoever keeps reverting the article to refer to Leonardo da Vinci as simply "da Vinci": that is not Leonardo's surname, any more than "of Nazareth" was Jesus's surname. This whole nonsense started with Dan Brown. The proper way to refer to him is either as Leonardo or Leonardo da Vinci. Mpaniello (talk) 19:49, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a source to back up your assertion? Toddst1 (talk) 21:53, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

It's rather you who have to provide evidence that Leonardo was ever referred to simply as Da Vinci prior to the Dan Brown book. There is a centuries-old tradition of referring to Renaissance painters by their forenames only: Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, and yes, Leonardo. Look at the other names in the paragraph as well: why not just give their surnames? If anything, the paragraph should be consistent, questions of correct usages aside. Mpaniello (talk) 22:12, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

ETA: Here, if you look in any dictionary of fine arts or artists, you'll always find Leonardo in the L section, not in the D section. Other artists are given by surnames (e.g., Picasso, Pablo), but Leonardo is given as Leonardo da Vinci, not Da Vinci, Leonardo. Check out this link to Oxford Art Online: https://www.oxfordartonline.com/search?q=leonardo+da+vinci&searchBtn=Search&isQuickSearch=true

Besides, the "da Vinci" part doesn't even refer to Leonardo but rather his father: his full name was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, or Leonardo, son of ser Piero of Vinci. Calling him "Da Vinci" (oh, and the "d" is never supposed to be capitalized) would be like giving Joe, son of Bob from Akron the surname "From Akron." Surnames as we use them today didn't exist in Leonardo's time, so the whole "Da Vinci" thing is an attempt to shoehorn Renaissance names into a 20th-/21st-century template. Mpaniello (talk) 22:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

So your argument is that Da_Vinci_(disambiguation)#People_with_the_surname is wrong as well? Toddst1 (talk) 23:03, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

No, my argument is that Da Vinci was not *Leonardo da Vinci's* surname, nor has it ever been accepted as such outside of the confusion caused by Dan Brown. It doesn't matter in the slightest if anybody else has had Da Vinci as a surname; the only point relevant to this discussion is that Leonardo didn't. But anyway, I provided you with a source, and if you check out any online (or printed) art dictionary or encyclopedia you'll see the same thing. Mpaniello (talk) 23:30, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

• Really? The 1911 Britannica seems to disagree with you, if you're insisting on older sources: [1] You're welcome. Ravenswing 07:12, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  That's the entry for Lorenzo di Credi; the one for Leonardo da Vinci called him Leonardo, as does the more current Britannica entry. Ham II (talk) 12:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

ETA: I just looked at your link, and they only give two people with the surname, and one of them is a stage name. The other one is incorrectly given as the surname of Pierino, the nephew of Leonardo. However, Vasari, the source of the article, doesn't give it as his surname. Most importantly, though, the list of people with the surname Da Vinci doesn't list Leonardo, so your link only supports my argument. Mpaniello (talk) 23:36, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

• This flies in the face of WP:COMMONNAME. Accurately or no, there are tens of millions of sources for this construction, which absolutely predates Brown's book. (Seriously???) The da Vinci Science Center opened in 1992. The same-named Michigan school district opened before 2000. I see a paint company that opened in 1975. The lunar impact crater named in his honor was done by 1962 at least. A crater on Mars had its name approved by the IAU in 1973. A restaurant in the Netherlands has been garnering Michelin stars since 1999. A Da Vinci bridge was built in 2001. Good heaven, did you not so much as bother to check the disambiguation page, or List of things named after Leonardo da Vinci, with many examples predating 2002??

  This is not merely a nonsensical argument, but a sloppy one. Obviously you don't like the construction, and I agree it's no more proper grammar than any other use of a placename as a surname, but COMMONNAME is clear, and your personal approval here is not required. I advise you to drop the stick. Ravenswing 00:28, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Ravenswing, da Vinci is not a proper name nor has it ever been used or accepted as such by anyone other than Dan Brown and those who take his words at face value. You've been working under a faulty assumption. Don't take my word for it, do a bit of research. Read some online dictionaries and encyclopedias of art and artists and tell me how many of them put Leonardo under D or V instead of L. Just one credible source, please. Mpaniello (talk) 00:38, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

You are not paying attention. I don't know what your obsession over Dan Brown is about (nor particularly care), but there are demonstrably numerous institutions and entities named "da Vinci" or "Da Vinci" (however much you hate the capitalization), predating Brown by years or decades. Obviously you don't like it, but WP:COMMONNAME is governed by the most common usage in English language sources generally, not by the most common usage in art history books solely. Right now, you are edit warring, and that must stop. You are also engaging in ad hominem attacks against other editors, and that also must stop. You are also failing to obtain a consensus for your POV, and you are required to do that. Ravenswing 00:51, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

No, you aren't paying attention. You list a bunch of *modern* place names in support of your argument, but they're neither here nor there: Da Vinci has never been accepted as *Leonardo da Vinci's* surname. The practice was popularized by Dan Brown's book, which is why I keep mentioning it. The only point that matters is that Da Vinci has never been accepted as *Leonardo da Vinci's* surname, any more than Of Nazareth has been accepted as Jesus's surname. Again, look in any dictionary or encyclopedia or artists and tell me how many list him under D or V instead of L. Just one source, please. Mpaniello (talk) 00:58, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• Now. If you're inclined to relitigate this after you get back from your block for edit warring and personal attacks, here are some factors to consider:

  (1) I don't know where you got the idea from that the governing factor for WP:COMMONNAME is what is in art history books, but that is utterly, utterly false. It's what's in all English-language sources. A high school or a Martian crater named "Da Vinci" matter exactly as much towards establishing common usage as the Oxford Dictionary of Art History.

  (2) As such, whether Brown's book (which I've never read and which was published when I was in my forties) has impelled more people to believe that "da Vinci" was a surname as we know it is utterly, frigging irrelevant. COMMONNAME -- and Wikipedia -- is blissfully unconcerned with the motives or rationales as to why people/institutions/entities use names the way they do, or the dates upon which they start doing so. It's entirely a binary deal: do they or don't they?

  (3) Your stipulation that the mere construction of "da Vinci" has never been accepted as a surname is false on the face of it, and also false generally. There are numerous counterexamples to your argument, including Palestrina, Ockeghem, de Ventadorn, de Girona, de Troyes, de Machaut, de Wycombe, da Correggio, and so many others. What is "accepted" (or not) as da Vinci's surname is not your unilateral decision to make, any more than the common practice of identifying medieval and High Renaissance figures by placenames -- or the use of territorial surnames generally, a practice over a thousand years old -- is yours to overturn.

  (4) You are required to obtain consensus for contentious changes. We do not need to refute your premise to your satisfaction; you need to prove your premise to the satisfaction of a consensus. If you do not obtain that consensus, your only legitimate option is to lose gracefully and move on. Ravenswing 01:45, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  OP is factually right though, 'da Vinci' literally just means 'from Vinci'. It should say Leonardo or Leonardo da Vinci, but never 'da Vinci'. 49.184.205.68 (talk) 14:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, we should not use "da Vinci", still less "Da Vinci". Some RS may but they are ignorant fuckers misinformed. The better ones don't, and nor should we. Johnbod (talk) 14:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  Doesn't matter. Nomenclature on Wikipedia isn't governed by grammar books ... which are, in point of fact, notably silent regarding the premise that the usage of "da/de X" is somehow illegitimate because some people don't think the English translation makes sense. It's governed by COMMONNAME. Now if you want to call the likes of the International Astronomical Union and the Encyclopedia Britannica "ignorant fuckers" because they don't share your grammatical preferences, that's up to you. Ravenswing 20:53, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  Grammar has nothing to do with it. It's a name, & they can be as ungrammatical as they like. Obviously this isn't the usual WP:COMMONNAME situation, as everybody agrees the long form. Your mistake is thinking that the "surname" is the most common short form. It isn't. Btw, things named after a person are irrelevant - sources discussing the actual person are what count. Johnbod (talk) 01:56, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  Obviously everyone does NOT agree upon the long form; I've mentioned numerous differences in this thread. As far as sources discussing the actual person go, I've also mentioned several which go with "da Vinci/Da Vinci/Vinci." (That being said, I disagree with your assertion that things named after da Vinci are irrelevant; they are certainly indicative of the fact that there are many entities -- and some highly authoritative -- who feel that "da Vinci" is a valid name to use in place of "Leonardo da Vinci.")

  This might not be the construction you yourself prefer, or you yourself think is right, but that's not the issue. The issue is whether there's consensus to change every such construction on Wikipedia to support your preference. So far, no such consensus has materialized. Ravenswing 03:12, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  Huh? Who does not agree that the long form is "Leonardo da Vinci"? And a consensus appears to be forming right here. Johnbod (talk) 15:23, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ahem. Your "consensus" seems to consist of you and Ham II, discounting the blocked editor and an anon IP who just happened conveniently to stumble across this talk page for their second edit, with three editors in opposition. It's disturbing that you believe this to constitute a "consensus." Ravenswing 16:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

• Hey, that anonymous user wasn't me, lol. Anyway, Wikipedia strives to adhere to a scholarly/academic tone and formal register with its articles, and the practice in scholarly writing is to refer to the artist in question as Leonardo or Leonardo da Vinci. the Britannica article on Leonardo refers to him as such 173 times, not once as da Vinci. The same with Oxford Art Online, no da Vinci as a separate name. Biographical and explanatory materials on the websites of the National Gallery (UK), the National Gallery of Art (US), and the Metropolitan Museum (NYC) all refer to him as Leonardo or by his full name, but never once as da Vinci. The Chicago Manual of Style, in its section on indexing names with particles (16.71), mandates the use of "Leonardo da Vinci" in indices while also mandating "di Leonardo, Micaela," "La Fontaine, Jean de" and "Medici, Lorenzo de’," so your contention that if it's true for other names, it must be true for Leonardo da Vinci holds no water; there's obviously not a one-size approach here. The CMS also mandates adhering to the style of standard biographical dictionaries, which invariably list Leonardo under L and not D or even V. But even beyond that, in formal writing, the practice is for the first instance of a proper name to be given in full. Mpaniello (talk) 06:21, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

• Well, I don't discount them. Nor do I see who exactly agrees with you, except maybe Toddst1. But keep edit-warring if you must. Perhaps you'd care to explain why the precise sentence and use of names in "The technical drawings of late-medieval artist-engineers Guido da Vigevano and Villard de Honnecourt can be viewed as forerunners of later Renaissance artist-engineers such as Taccola or da Vinci." is worth edit-warring to defend? Bearing in mind that the only other usage in the article uses "Leonardo da Vinci" in full. Why not "da Vigevano and de Honnecourt"? And you didn't tell me who does not agree that the long form is "Leonardo da Vinci"? Johnbod (talk) 16:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  I just happened to stumble into this talk page from the DRN page. Apologies if I need correcting here.

  I've recently been learning about wikipedia policies like "consensus", so I'm curious to see if I can apply it correctly here as a third-party observer. My take on this situation is that:

  1. One side thinks "da Vinci" is not a valid way of referring to "Leonardo da Vinci".

  2. Both sides agree "Leonardo da Vinci" is a valid way of referring to "Leonardo da Vinci".

  So wouldn't that make the consensus quite clearly that everyone involved agrees "Leonardo da Vinci" is the right way to refer to him so we should use that? Oh also WP:HUMAN 50.45.170.185 (talk) 05:31, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

  In the text as it stands, with only two mentions of him, "Leonardo da Vinci" reads best in both those instances. It would be another matter if he were frequently mentioned in the article. Ham II (talk) 06:10, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure everyone knows who "Da Vinci" is. The OP has essentially just changed "Obama" to "Barack Obama". A pretty uninteresting topic on its own which is why I'm more interested in the policy side of things here. 50.45.170.185 (talk) 06:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

This is such a specious argument. It's like saying Leif Erikson's last name isn't his surname because it just translates to "son of Erik." GMAB. Toddst1 (talk) 04:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

User:Toddst1, not quite sure what this is a response to, certainly not my point. This is entirely a matter of correct and accepted usage, not meaning or grammar. Ravenswing seems to think that you agree that "da Vinci" can and indeed should be treated as a surname, like Erikson. I can't see that you've said that. Do you in fact agree with this? Johnbod (talk) 01:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

• There's no good reason why the first mention (of only two in the article) shouldn't call him "Leonardo da Vinci" in full (which is how his name appears in the second mention). The Union List of Artist Names recommends Leonardo da Vinci but Verrocchio, Andrea del for his teacher; other examples of "preferred" names it gives are Giovanni da Udine; Piero di Cosimo; Correggio, Antonio da (certainly not "da Correggio" as Ravenswing thinks) and Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da. So these figures would be referred to in brief as "Leonardo", "Giovanni" and "Piero", but "Verrocchio", "Correggio" and "Caravaggio". Ham II (talk) 12:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I wanted to try to jump in to help maybe get a consensus one way or the other on this subject. Looking at the Leonardo da Vinci article it takes care to never refer to him as da Vinci and even has a hatnote at the top explaining why this is. I looked through the article talk page to see if there was ever a discussion or consensus about this and this is the closest I could find to a discussion about it. I found plenty of forum posts of people complaining about him erroneously being referred to as da Vinci, but I wasn't able to find any kind of reliable source that explicitly says anything like "da Vinci is not the right way to refer to him." That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but I wasn't able to find it, though it is kind of hard to search for a negative like that. However, when I searched through Google Books and Google Scholar, I did notice that when scholars and authors refer to him in a shortform way, it's almost always as Leonardo, and not da Vinci (with the exception of authors of generally self-published books written after The Da Vinci Code came out). While I can't say there's any definitive "we shouldn't do this" evidence, I do think that it would be best to just spell out "Leonardo da Vinci" instead of "da Vinci", because no matter who you ask or what sources you provide, "Leonardo da Vinci" is always an accepted, understood way to describe the person, and I can't really see any argument for why just "da Vinci" is needed when "Leonardo da Vinci" also works just as well, with the added benefit that it complies with WP:SURNAME. - Aoidh (talk) 21:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

  It's not often that I see sources directly addressing this topic, but here's one: What was Leonardo's Name? And I don't have access to the Chicago Manual of Style (Mpaniello, do you?), but I can see see a search result that mentions an article titled "Defenders of da Vinci Fail the Test: The Name Is Leonardo" as an "example of headline-style capitalization" (8.160); if that's a real article existing out in the wild, it looks like another source directly addressing this. Cases like this are a major omission from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography § Subsequent use (i.e. WP:SURNAME) and should be added to it (or perhaps to WP:GIVENNAME, the section which follows it). Ham II (talk) 06:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

@Mpaniello:, I don't care what Lenny's last name is (if he has one), but do wish you'd stop edit-warring over the topic. Recommend the article be restored to its status-quo, then iron out a consensus 'here' for what to do, while the page is under protection. GoodDay (talk) 22:15, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 June 2022

add a short description {{short description|Technology used in midieval Europe}}. lettherebedarklight, 晚安, おやすみなさい, ping me when replying 13:36, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done revist when the page isn't protected anymore - and I suggest you maintain the same spelling as the article name, can't see why you want to override the existing wikidata short description with an alt spelling. I did remove the "the" on Q3180036 though. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:43, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: because wikidata short descriptions don't show up on wiki, and the alternate spelling was just a typo. anyway, imported the description. lettherebedarklight, 晚安, おやすみなさい, ping me when replying 06:51, 3 July 2022 (UTC)