Talk:Giambattista Pittoni

Is Pittoni a Venetian or an Italian?

Recently the editor Justlettersandnumbers re-altered the ethnic designation from Italian to Venetian. I disagree. This is a topic that has been argued before, and my understanding is that the consensus is to use the term Italian for nearly all the persons born in the peninsula below the alps, in the nation of Italy, or of the nationality known as Italian.

I agree with this policy because for one, it makes it much easier. If someone was born in Brescia in 1510-1512, are they French, Lombard, Milanese, Venetian, or Brescian? Does one reserve Venetian for those with citizenship, or those who moved there. If someone was born in a place, but moves as a child, what is his nationality. Was Gianlorenzo Bernini, a Florentine or a Roman? If you were born in the Papal states in 1865, are you Italian or a citizen of the Papal states (Papabilitian?)?

I have no problem with calling him a Venetian painter, or Venetian by birth, or ancestry, or nationality. But in the lead sentence, I would leave this as Italian. If not, we have thousands of Italian painters, sculptors, architects, etc have entries that need changing.

Recently there was a discussion to rename Venetian painters to Painter of the Venetian Republic, but I disagreed since the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice continued in existence even after the fall of the Republic. Again, keep it simple. Yes one could change the designation to "persons of the Italian peninsula" or persons "born in what is now Italy", but isn't it simpler to call them Italian, and, with respect to Pittoni, born and active in Venice, year so and so.

I apologize that I do not search for you the Wikipedia discussion on this specific topic. Rococo1700 (talk) 18:59, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Rococo1700, the relevant guideline is for this WP:OPENPARA:

3. Context (location or nationality);

1. In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable.

2. Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the country of birth should not be mentioned in the opening sentence unless they are relevant to the subject's notability.

That seems to me crystal-clear. We don't report ethnicity, we report the nation the person was a citizen of when he or she became notable. In this case, that is the Republic of Venice. It is obviously ridiculous to claim for Pittoni citizenship of a nation that came into being a century after his death. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to undo your edit, which was mistaken. Oh, and I agree that there are many cases where it is hard to identify the nationality of people from the Italian peninsula; this just isn't one of them. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:50, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers

I did some searching on Wikipedia, and as expected, found that this is not an infrequently litigated area. You also unsucessfully litigated this for Petrarch, here [[1]]. The writer stubbornly remains as an Italian icon, although one could argue, he had strong links to an written Italian language, while the language of painting is a far more oily field. I could also find similar discussions (Florentine versus Italian) when speaking of Giovanni da Verazzano [[2]] or Leonardo Da Vinci [[3]]. In all, or at least most, the preponderant decision is to define them as Italian, even while recognizing some anachronism to the term.

I recognize your objection, but still disagree. You must admit that it is not favorable to your position when the WP:OPENPARA:, right after the section you cite, uses an example of Petrarch as Italian, the very same label you opposed.

I would recommend you to the following guideline on categorization of articles at [4], wherein a states that

A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define[1] the subject as having—such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people), type of location or region (in the case of places), etc. For example, here: "Caravaggio, an Italian artist of the Baroque movement ...", Italian, artist, and Baroque may all be considered to be defining characteristics of the subject Caravaggio.

(Again notice that the example is Caravaggio as Italian, not Lombard, not Milanese, not Caravaggian, etc.)

Thus again, I quoted reliable sources in Freedburg and Wittkower, who wrote major reviews of painters of the time and place of Pittoni (or Pittoni) himself, and cited him as Italian. Of course I can find you a book on, Venetian painters alone, such as Michael Levey, but I would favor in this regard, the more encyclopedic notability. Rudolf Wittkower assigns Pittoni to Italian painting; Luigi Lanzi assigns a section on the School of Venice in his massive nineteenth century opus The History of Painting in Italy: The school of Venice. Federico Zeri and Elizabeth Gardner published a monograph on the paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of the Venetian School, titled Italian Paintings: Venetian School. Again it is these assertions that fortify assignment of Pittoni, and so many others, of the Italian label: "reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having this characteristic—such as nationality.

There may come the future, when Italy disappears, as ethnicity, nation, and language, and then your call for renaming their ethnicities will make more sense. But, alas, not today. In Wikipedia, as of now, Petrarch is Italian, Caravaggio is Italian, Leonardo da Vinci is Italian, Verrazzano is Italian, and Pittoni is Italian. Unless you can convince me there is a consensus to change all these, I decline to revert this.Rococo1700 (talk) 00:47, 2 February 2016 (UTC)