Talk:Alessandra Giliani

[Untitled]
Real historical documents for this person doesn't exist. Also Medici on pp.29-30 retaines the story untrustable. --Enzian44 (talk) 01:38, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Myth or History?
The article misleadingly describes Alessandra Giliani as if her existence were undisputed. The point of view of modern historians is that her story is a legend created by Alessandro Machiavelli.

The first mention of Giliani is in 1739 by Alessandro Machiavelli in Effemeridi sacro-civili perpetue bolognesi. Some sources, including Oakes (2007), repeat and embellish upon what he wrote as if he were a reliable source. Some make much of the woodcut of a figure standing by a dissecting table, a figure they think looks female, and assume must be Giliani. Never mind that the picture appeared as the frontispiece in only one of the 49 editions of Mondino's anatomy book, one published in Leipzig between 1490 and 1512, and that nothing with it identifies the figure as female or Giliani. Much is also made of a contemporary inscription supposed to exist in the church "San Pietro e Marcellino degli Spedolari di Santa Maria di Mareto, o d'Ulmareto." Writers posit that the church is in Bologna, or Florence, or Sienna, or even Rome, but none has found it yet, let alone the inscription.

Even Medici (1857) and Barbara Quick acknowledge the controversy, but the English Wikipedia article does not. The article should be rewritten to reflect the consensus of scholarship. Many of the sources are in Italian, so some fluency would be helpful.





See also Worldbruce (talk) 06:43, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Alessandra Giliani in the Italian Wikipedia
 * Alessandro Macchiavelli in the Italian Wikipedia