Talk:Cèllere Codex

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Cèllere Codex/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ceranthor (talk · contribs) 03:15, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this. ceranthor 03:15, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

• Yo Ceranthor thanks for taking this. Thing is, when you took this on it was like this, but now, cos I had some stuff to add from an as-then-yet-unobttained source, is now like this...you still willing to take it on, even though it's slightly expanded? Mind you, I should do a sectional rewrite: some bits I'm sure duplicate themselves, but, I guess it's your job to tell me  :) Have a good weekend! —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 17:55, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey, SerialNumber54129, I should get to this tonight or tomorrow. No worries about any changes you've made; I haven't started close reading yet. ceranthor 18:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Ceranthor:, OK, just FYI that I'm all done with it now. Cheers, —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 17:00, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Lead

• "The King, prompted by the French mercantile community charged Verrazzano to discover whether there was a direct passage from the Atlantic to China and Japan." - comma after "community"
  • done
• "and in little over a month had arrived at North Carolina." - more than, not over
• "From there they journeyed south—in some danger, as the Spanish Empire reached Florida.[note 1]" - this seems awfully vague; I'd say explicitly that the Spanish Empire patrolled the waters around Florida or whatever the source says
  • "Florida represented the northerly point of the Spanish Empire, and Spanish warships patrolled the sea"?
• "Verrazzano then turned northwards again and, hugging the coast, passed Virginia, New Jersey, and entered New York Harbour." - some grammar issues; you can't move from a list of nouns to "entered New York Harbour"
  • "eventually reached New York where he anchored in "?
• "He then continued north around New England, to Newfoundland, where, with provisions by now running low, he turned eastwards" - cut out "by now" as it doesn't add anything and it's technically not right since it implies current rather than in the moment
  • "with provisions running low".
• "The great degree of detail the Codex possesses compared to the other versions is probably due to the fact that it was probably originally transcribed by Verrazzano's brother," - why the repetition of "probably" twice in such close proximity?
  • Removed.
• "It was sent via a series of letters to colleagues of Verrazzano in France and thence to Italy" - thence? overly pretentious; then works just fine
  • Pretentious? Moi?  :) (done)

Background

• "Verrazzano's fellow-Italian" - why is this hyphenated?
  • Rm
• "investigated the new continent as well as claiming land where possible.[4]" - better as "investigated... continent, claiming land where possible"
  • Absolutely, nicked your phrasing.
• "A few years after Columbus, John Cabot had made multiple voyages to Newfoundland in the service of the English King.[5]" - you should say Henry by name
  • done
• " In September 1522 the first global circumnavigation was achieved by Sebastiano Elcano,[4] and the following year the king of France, Francis I, was persuaded to also send an expedition under the command of the Florentine explorer and humanist Giovanni da Verrazzano[6] in order to seek out a westward-passage to China, avoiding the Straits of Magellen:[4] precisely the same goal as Columbus had originally set out to achieve over 30 years earlier.[7]" - too long, particularly the part after the colon (could be a separate sentence)
  • Split into three much shoter sections
• "provided it discovered new wealth.[15][citation needed" - why is there a citation needed tag there? is it supported by the ref or not?
  • That was an aide memoire...that failed. Added source.
• "Not only were the Lyonnais merchants also Florentine[note 5] like him—they effectively formed an expatriate community[17]—but records dating from March the previous year suggest that he had joined a syndicate—while the expedition was still at the planning stage—which had the declared aim of dividing both the investment and the profit from the voyage among them; they are described as tous marchans florentins.[9]" - overwhelming with the dashes
  • Reformed into two sentences
• "Verrazzano left France ship provided and paid for by the King[4]" - grammar; need "with a" before "ship"
  • done
• "Myrtle Grove, North Carolina\Myrtle Grove Sound[20] in North Carolina.[18]" - a link error?
  • Yeeees...I wasn't sure what to link to, re WP:EASTEREGG
• "This land—North America—he called "Francesca", after his King.[9]" - seems awfully dramatic; why does North America require dashes?
  • It doesn't, of course  :)

The Codex

• "The Cèllere Codex is a manuscript attributed to Verrazzano[22] held in the library of Count Guido Macci of Cèllere[23] in 1908, from whence it receives its name" - again, whence is pretentious
• Again
• "It was discovered by Italian scholar Alessandro Bacchiani who critically[24] (and "enthusiastically")[25] critiqued and published it the following year.[note 6]" - "critically critiqued"?
  • Just critiqued
• "It is unique among the surviving copies[19] in being annotated by Verrazzano himself.[22][note 7] These annotations are considerable, and they both expand the context of the events the Codex describes and provides detailed minutiae about them.[27] " - grammar; "provides" should be "provide"
  • "provide"
• "The annotated Codex appears to have been given to either Leonardo Tedaldi or Thomaso Sartini, Lyonaisse merchants, and thence to a Roman banker," - replace "thence", as per above comments
  • done
• "Phelps Stokes described the Codex" - who is this? why is their opinion important?
  • Disambiguated, but see note below.
• "Most recently, a new translation was made by Susan Tarrow." - same as above?
  • Disambiguated, but see note below.
• " Luca Codignola has blamed this phenomenon " - same note
  • Disambiguated, but see note below.
• "been described as the "most significant"[31] and the "definitive document" of Verrazano's voyage on account of its "semi-autobiographic" nature" - where do the latter two quotes come from? citation after a direct quote?
  • Quoted
• "Verrazzano devotes about one-third of the Codex to the natives he found on the new continent, especially their appearance, customs and society. Other areas of particular interest were the landscape, including climate and vegetation.[35] " - tense shifts (past to present)
  • Moved to pp
• "It is copiously annotated with marginalia,[28]—at least 26 times[42]—in a different, more hurried, hand to the prose." - comma and dashes?
  • rm comma
• "Bernard Hoffman explaine what Verrazzano's text demonstrates about him:[32]" - typo; also who is Hoffman?
  • Typo + disambiguated, but see note below.
• "John Allen has called Verrazzano's landscape descriptions as "lyric",[44] and Theodore Cachey" - who are they?
  • Disambiguated, but see note below.
• Margaret Eisendrath - who is this?
  • Disambiguated, but see note below.
• "A photographic facsimile of the original document was created and published in 1916 by I. N. P. Stokes,[46] " - who is? also, you've previously spelled out names, so why the initials here?
  • Disambiguated, but see note below. Since this character is wikilinked, you certainly dont need to be told who he is.
• "The Cèllere Codex is now held by the Morgan Library and Museum[22] as MS MA 776.[48]" - which is where?
  • Clarified
• "The Codex describes how he sailed 160 miles south to Florida in search of a harbour.[4]" - conversion for miles to km would be nice
  • Converted Also see note below re formating problmes
• "A few days later the Dauphine sailed again, this time north-easterly—always within sight of the coastline[52]—passing North Carolina, Georgia, (an area which he named Selva di Lauri and Campo di Cedri, or Forest of Laurels and Field of Cedars)[53][note 12] Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey[49]—"on a sea characterised by enormous waves"[43]—where he recorded seeing Navesink Highlands, which he called "little mountain by the sea",[37] New York (which he named Nova Gallia, Latin for Little France)[9] and Rhode Island coastlands.[49]" - sentence is tough to read with all the interruptions/notes, and is possibly a run-on
  • Broken up, tweak wording
• "Here he "temporarilly set aside his cautious practice of always dropping anchor off-shore in open waters" and sailed stratight into what was probably Narragansett Bay." -citation after direct quote? and typo
  • Cited, typod
• " into he described Staten Island and Brooklyn as "two small but prominent hills...[either side of] a very wide river".[37]" - grammar?
  • done
• "Chesapeake Bay, it has been noted, is eleven miles wide" - why spell out eleven here? also need a conversion to km
  • numerated, converted
• "Verrazzano certainly gives "the opposing weather" as a reason for not landing on an island slightly later in the voyage.[61]" - cut "certainly"
  • lost
• "Thomas Suarez" - who is this?
  • Ditto previous remarks!
• "Travelling approximately 160 miles northwards" - conversion to km?
  • Converted
• "Another 300 miles north" and "sailed another 450 miles" - same as above
  • converted

Aftermath

• "already a hundred miles south of Dieppe, in Blois,[69]" - spell out 100 and conversion
  • Unpelled, converted
• "Although the King had left him a commission to fit out a new expedition (of four ships), no sooner had this been completed, they were requisitioned for the war effort.[21] " - grammar
  • tweaked
• "Verrazzano may have attempted to find another patron in either the " - missing punctuation
  • "King of England, or Portugal"?
• "he was killed and eaten somewhere in the Caribbean," - links to cannibalism; but it's spelled with an "i" not as "cannabal" afaik
  • Spelt

Historical significance

• "This was known as the "Verrazzano controversy".[69]" - any more on this?
  • expanded with the views of contemporaries

The prose looks like it needs a lot of work. Here are some initial comments on prose alone. Once these are addressed, I'd be happy to go through and copyedit some. ceranthor 03:30, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

@Ceranthor: oops. Right; I've addresssed all your suggestions, bt haven't had time to tick off your points as I went along. I'm happy to clarify tomorrow though—it's a little late now, I'm afraid. (I got a bit distracted elsewhere!) But thanks very much for such a thorough review, I really appreciate it it. Cheers! —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 19:04, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: I hope to get back to this today. ceranthor 18:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, no problem. I haven't got around to adding the extra "controversy" material yet, but it is, as you suggest, a thing worth and capable of expansion (slightly), and should do tomorrow/ish. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 19:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

More Miscellaneous Prose Comments

• "Francis was a willing backer,[9] although no Royal commission survives for the expedition:[4] " - what suggests that he was willing then?
  • Well, the source says "...particularly the French king’s ambition to have a share in the Iberian glories and profits of the New World"; more generally (but also more OR!) he was one of the two most important men in Europe of his age, and didn't have to do anything unwillingly. Well, until his son got captured by the Holy Roman Emporer, that changed things a bit  :)
• "This was intended to divide both the investment and the profit from the voyage betwen them; they are described as tous marchans florentins.[9]" - meaning?
  • Well, I translated it; it just seemed s little patronising that's all!
• "It was discovered by Italian scholar Alessandro Bacchiani in 1908,[25] who "enthusiastically"[26] critiqued and published it the following year.[note 6]" - what do you mean enthusiastically critiqued?
  • Wroth calls B. the "enthusisatic discoverer", but it smacks of mutual back-slapping a little; "who published a critical edition the following year" is better.
• "they both expand the context of the events the Codex describes and provide detailed minutiae about them.[28] " - think you mean "expand on"
  • Yes.
• "It is formed of 12 numbered sheets of Italian paper," - why not just "it consists of 12..."
  • Yes, fine: how about a footnote to explain the significance of the page numbering?
• " It is written in the cursive court hand of the period,[29] probably by a secretary.[33] " - grammatically these don't match - should be something like "probably the work of a secretary"
  • "probably that of a secretary"?
• I keep seeing spacing errors where sentences drop off mid-paragraph. Any idea what's causing these formatting issues? ceranthor 12:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Heh. Yes that was really bizarre. It was when I was working with the Visual Editor: See how all the gaps you caught were specifically around the conversion templates? It wouldn't let me insert them into a plain sentence, it forced me to leave a line either side. I assumed it adjusted it in the source version, but *clearly* it did not. Thanks for catching them.

Sources

• Earwig's tool: a few points for a bit of concern. The article uses a lot of quotes, but per this and [https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/?lang=en&project=wikipedia&oldid=853253962&action=compare&url=http%3A%2F

%2Fwww.columbia.edu%2F~lmg21%2Fash3002y%2Fearlyac99%2Fdocuments%2Fverrazan.htm this], perhaps we could replace just a few of the quotations with paraphrases?

• • Well, I confess to having my own views on the efficacy of Earwig ...and all the quotes are from V. personally, which I deliberately chose (as opposed to quoting historians) because they are from the horses mouth...irreplaceable, I'd say.
• Also, for this source, the article text is a little too simuilar to the source. Article says "On account of the "beauty of the trees"" while the source says “on account of the beauty of the trees,”.
  • Yes, tweaked.
• What makes "Rowlands, P. (2009). Man on the Move: The Pete Friesen Story. New York: iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-44015-956-5." a reliable source?
  • Wooah! WP:SPS? Replaced.
• Same with "Fredriksen, J. C. (2006). Revolutionary War Almanac. Almanacs of American Wars. New York: Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-81607-468-6."?
  • Whereas Infobase seems reliable, no?—Educational materials for higher and further education?
• "Phelps Stokes, I. N. (1916). The Iconography of Manhattan Island. II. New York: Robert H. dodd. OCLC 9511425." - what does "dodd" mean?
  • I think dodd means Dodd  :)
• Otherwise look good.

Images

• appropriately sourced and licensed.
• Would make the BJ Hoffman picture bigger. Sort of hard to read for me on Chrome.

Let me know when you're finished with these. ceranthor 14:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• • Cheers, Ceranthor, I've addressed all your suggestions...and utilised mst of them  :) no major disputes, but a couple of...uncertainties as to the glass I'm being offered. Thakns for all this though; would I be correct in my feeing thatthis review is, perhaps, slightly closer to a pre-FAC PR than an ordinary GA?! (I certainly don't mind if it is). Nice one, —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 08:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I know I can be a stickler, but like you said, a pre-FAC review is usually better than just a normal GA review. Let me read your responses, but this is close to being ready to pass! ceranthor 15:26, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm satisfied with the article's progress. Passing this. ceranthor 16:48, 4 August 2018 (UTC)