Talk:Francesco Matraire

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Françoise or François[edit]

I think if this printer was a man and a Frenchman, his name should not end in "e"; French male name is generally François and not Françoise. Who can check it? --Л.П. Джепко (talk) 08:52, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, it could be a typo (maybe, a typo in the source), and the real first name is François. Or this was actually a woman. I was able to locate only two webpages for 'Françoise Matraire', the printer: fr:Françoise:XIXe siècle and Bridge Stamps from Italy. The latter talks about Françoise Matraire as a man, too. --Michael Romanov (talk) 12:59, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure I transcribed from Dehn's book accurately (I'd have to go over to the UNLV library to check), but I note that http://www.italianstamps.co.uk/kingdom/matraire/ uses "Francesco", and it occurs to me that maybe Dehn tried to translate from his sources, and got it wrong. In any case, yes, we need to dig a little further. Stan (talk) 13:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, guys. This is the answer why there is almost no trace of 'Françoise Matraire' in sources. His real Italian name was Francesco Matraire: [1], [2], [3], [4]. See also an Italian book on him published in 1986. He is mentioned as Francesco Matraire in it:Francobollo and it:Francobolli del Regno d'Italia. So, at this point, I propose to rename the article. --Michael Romanov (talk) 14:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I'll rename then, if Stan does not object. --Л.П. Джепко (talk) 14:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of those John/Jean/Giovanni/Johann/Jan/Juan/Ivan situations, and we are not 100% sure of Matraire's nationality. Dehn lays out evidence that he was French, but almost all the information we have is from his Italian residence, where they would have tended to say "Francesco". I'm content with Francesco, I think it would take some additional original research to resolve once and for all. Stan (talk) 15:30, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess because he lived in Turin, he might actually bear the Italian name, which was possibly written in some old Italian documents. We could speak of his family French origin but his nationality should be, almost for sure, considered the Italian one, i.e. in terms of citizenship. I agree that any original documents might shed light on this issue. Thank you for discussion. --Michael Romanov (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]