Talk:Isabella d'Este

Untitled
she ruled alone after her husband died. at age 16 she could speak latin and greek play the lute dance and sing debate with older kids very well educated

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.204.242.22 (talk) 15:59, 21 April 2003 (UTC)

vandalism
This page is subject to repeated vandalism by anonymous users in the form of inserting nonsense. It needs to be kept an eye on. Soph 11:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed vandalism, messed up format. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.185.79 (talk) 13:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

deleted breathless paragraph
I deleted this paragraph, which had been inserted above the citation label:
 * Isabella d'Este- first lady of the renaissance, inventor, political ruler, patron of the arts, mother of seven children and musician. She was indeed a remarkable woman. Throughout her life, she served not only herself but also others and helped to better the standards of living everywhere. All of these are characteristics of great leaders of the renaissance. By her words and actions she is revered and has become one of the most influential people in renaissance history.

Better suited for a eulogy than an encyclopedia article. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Deleted plagiarized material
I have deleted a section of this article which was plagiarized from the site Spiritus-Temporis. I could not find any license information at that site. If the text of the site is public domain, please feel free to restore the text, but footnote it properly. Thanks, --Ravpapa (talk) 13:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

More plagiarized material
I don't have the book in front of me, but isn't the first section of this article cribbed word for word from Julia Cartwright's book? --Ravpapa (talk) 06:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Name
Leave her where she is, she is not the only Isabella and it should not have been redirected nor copied & pasted Its pointless really Monsieur le Duc LouisPhilippeCharles (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)


 * How many other people named "Isabella d'Este" have an article? - dwc lr (talk) 22:34, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This Isabella d'Este (1635–1666) =\ Monsieur le Duc LouisPhilippeCharles (talk) 22:41, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok I have added a link to her article :-) - dwc lr (talk) 22:45, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I feel rude now =$ that's better Monsieur le Duc LouisPhilippeCharles (talk) 22:54, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Prose needs to be improved
The prose in this article needs a lot of work; as it currently stands, the article reads too much like an essay in parts, and contains many peacock words.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I promoted this to C Class with some misgivings. It requires a lot of cleaning-up.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * After another perusal, I really must demote it back to start class. Some of the sentences are very poorly-constructed.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I found a biography on Isabella and did some work on the article. I changed a lot of the wording, made additions, expanded the lead. I'll make more improvements later.

THE NEXT SUGGESTION DOWN BELOW

Isabella d'Este was described as a beauty, with dark eyes and golden hair. She was famous for her fashion, sense, and her style. Her portrait was painted twice by Titian. When she was 60 years old Titian risked his reputation by painting from an image of her when she was 25. Isabella d'Este was born on May 18, 1474 and died on January 13,1539. She lived to be about 70 or 85 years old. She was a Marchioness ruler, art collector and patron, loved to be involved in political intrigues, successful collector of antiquities, supported convents and monasteries, created a girls' school in Mantua. I will write a research essay to explain to you her lifetime here on Earth. Isabella d' Este was born in the Ferraro family in Ferra, Italy. She might have been named after a relative, “ Queen Isabella Of Spain”. She was the firstborn in her family and her parents favorite child. Isabella and her sister, Beatrice, both studied together, Latin and Greek, Roman history, singing, playing instruments, astrology, and dancing. When Isabella was six she was betrothed to a man named Marquis of Mantua. The next year she met him. Isabella started understanding how to debate with ambassadors when she was sixteen and married Marquis of Mantua the same year. Even after their marriage Isabella still studied and went home for her books. Isabella d'Este collected paintings over her lifetime. Her first daughter was Leonora, who was born in 1443. She had another daughter born in 1445 who only lived two months after birth. In 1495 her sister Beatrice suddenly died along with Beatrice's infant. Then her husband, who had headed collision, was dismissed under a cloud of suspicion. Isabella had been given a golden cradle as a gift at her daughter's birth. Isabella was said to be a very strong woman in those times, but she put the cradle aside until she finally had a son, Federico. Federico was born in 1500. She had another son, Ercole, born in 1505. Federico was supposed to be the next heir to the throne. Ercole was supposed to be a bishop and cardinal. In 1509, Francesco, Isabella's husband, was captured by the armies of King Charles VIII as his prisoner. Later Isabella decided to join her armies to bring her husband home safely. Isabella moved to Rome where she became well known to many people. In 1519, Isabella's husband died. Many think it may have been from syphilis. While her son, Federico, was still to young to rule alone, she was his helper and ruled beside him. When he became of age, Federico took over the throne and put his mother in charge of the city. Isabella was to go and help keep watch on the city and if anything was to go wrong, she had to tell him. In Rome Isabella d'Este had some people paint her portrait. A lot of them painted pictures of her that made her look younger. The people drawing her portrait didn’t want to risk their reputation because of them showing what she really looked like. Some of the people who painted her portrait were Leonardo da Vinci, I believe Michelangelo, Mantegna, Rubens, and others. In 1527 Isabella d'Este bought a cardinalate for 40,000 ducats and gave it to her son Ercole. When the Bourbon armies attacked Rome, Isabella led the defense of her property, and she and many, who were taken refuge with her, spared the cities life. Later Isabella returned to Mantua, to help their illness and famine. Isabella moved to Ferrara the next year, to welcome her son, Ercole's new bride, Renée of France, daughter of Brittany. They were married on June 28, in Paris. When Isabella was at Bologna in 1530 Emperor Charles V was crowned by the Pope. She convinced the Pope to raise her son to the Duke of Mantua. She was also able to negotiate a marriage for him with Margerhita Paleologa. Their son was born in 1533. Isabella was put as a ruler in a small city-state until she died in 1539. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hinata12357 (talk • contribs) 23:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't it a paradox?
"Due to the vast amount of extant correspondence between Isabella and her family and friends, her life is unusually well-documented.[3]" Didn't you mean "usually"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.183.141.209 (talk) 08:38, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Exactly which years was she regent?
The article does not specify the dates closer. It is an important fact, so the dates should be there: at least the years. For example, it says she became regent in 1509, but not for how long - to later in 1509? to 1510 or 1512? Was this he only occasion when she had the position? --Aciram (talk) 22:56, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The Titian Portrait
If I understand, correctly, the Titian portrait was done 1534-ish? Isabella d'Este, born in 1474 would have been in her 60s. That just isn't a 60 year old woman. And it doesn't seem to agree with the physical features of Isabella from the da Vinci sketch or her bust likeness. The eyes appear to be grey/blue. Isabella d'Este's were brown.

The Titian, however, seems to agree with portraits of Isabella of Portugal, who would have been in her 30s at the time it was painted.

See:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flanders_Isabella_of_Portugal.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_Gossaert_-_Portrait_of_a_young_lady_as_Mary_Magdalene,_possibly_Ysabeau.jpg

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1530-isabella-of-portugal-daughter-of-king-emmanuel-news-photo/51243670

I would suggest using the da Vinci sketch, which seems to be universally accepted as being of Isabella d' Este.

(And, if I may, I would also suggest that if anyone wants to see a good representation of Isabella d' Este's features, that Isabella d' Este is represented in the lower left of Raphael's Parnassus. No, I can't give you a citation for that, but, as they say, "take it to the bank". Raphael says that is her. And I would bet a large sum that the subject of the so-called "red" portrait is actually Margherita Paleologa).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parnassus

Tobias316 (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)Tobias316 (talkTobias316 (talk) 23:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC) Tobias316 (talk) 12:28, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

how attractive was Isabella
i think it is strange that this is a question the encyclopedia article cares about. talking about her appearance is probably warranted since people seemed to talk so much about it, and the missed encounter with Charles VIII is interesting. but the tone is normative and gossipy—"physically attractive, though plump", "an unrepentant womanizer", "her figure underwent an inexorable decline"—then it laments that "the lack of her portraits does not allow a sure comparison between [she and her sister]", as though we should like to do that ourselves! if no one objects i will rewrite it to be, at least, a bit more NPOV about what a woman is supposed to look like. Iesbian (talk) 07:24, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Adjusting it sounds fine as far as what is stated or implied in the voice of Wikipedia. I think there is a lot of historically interesting information in the article though, as obviously her appearance was something that was commented upon. We should try to check sources for what is said in them and attribute things we can't say in Wikipedia's voice to the authors or whom they are quoting.
 * I notice a lot of these articles on Northern Italian nobility seem to draw heavily on the Italian Wikipedia and do have some rather loose standards for citation and NPOV, and perhaps different cultural perspectives. Some things are definitely constructed in a way we would not do on the English Wikipedia. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping for new editor who may not be subscribed to thread. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:27, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * thank you for the ping i was indeed not subscribed u/////u that makes sense re: leaning on the Italian version
 * and yes, i wanted to see if i could find more discussions of her appearance outside of the ones listed before i edited, because i wanted to know if what's in this article is pretty much all we have about her appearance, or if discussion/speculation about her beauty was typical. also, i think the comments about her weight are interesting in establishing contemporary ideas about beauty for example—"physically attractive though plump" seems like a summary of how people did see her, going by the quote selection later, and that's very historically interesting, but it would be better to ground it in the POV of the participants rather than presenting it as the encyclopedia's POV. i will try and get to it over the weekend and hopefully what i put together is okay. Iesbian (talk) 01:24, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

okay, i edited the article. this is my edit. sorry it took me longer than i said. speculation about her beauty is indeed typical; in fact there is an enormous literature about it. i did my best to present it in this edit, as well as refactoring some of the existing references so that i could cite from multiple pages. i also changed the heading from 'appearance and personality' to 'appearance' because neither my version nor the original actually talked about her personality. in general i tried not to remove any of the existing material, but to put the existing material in context, and, to avoid making this section excessively long, rewrite it to be more concise.

this meant cutting a lot of the episode with Charles VIII. my version is very short and humorless. sorry. i also removed the image of his medallion. per WP:DUE, "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including" "prominence of placement" "and the use of imagery." i felt that giving so much space to a man she never met was undue; a lot of the information (his appearance and taste in women) should really be on his page. but if anyone wants to add it back i won't press the point. a flaw with my version is that it completely removes Jacopo d'Arti from the page; he was a courtier who seems to have been important in Isabella's life.

the one citation i did remove was to George R. Marek, pg. 16. this is the source of the "physically attractive, though plump" claim, and the "lively eyes" and "lively grace" quotations. he doesn't cite anything there so i don't really know why he thinks that, and i thought it was better to replace it with more contemporary quotes. Marek's book seems to be an important one, but the page cites it elsewhere so it isn't lost.

i would also say that my version treats claims that Isabella was beautiful with more credulity than a lot of the recent literature does. actually, some of the articles i cite (Syson, Fletcher) basically call her ugly and delusional, as do some i didn't find room for (eg. Stephen Kolsky, ‘Images of Isabella d’Este’). you could invert the POV by changing "Isabella's appearance was frequently written about..." to "Many contemporary writers attempted to flatter Isabella by...", and changing "Isabella herself frequently diminished her own appearance..." to "privately, Isabella admitted the truth that..."—this would bring you closer to what i take to be the mainstream POV. but they are attempting to revise virtually a milennium of consensus that Isabella was beautiful. the reason is that they're actually trying to assess the accuracy of the portraits, which is for obvious reasons why art historians care about how pretty she was. our article treats her appearance and her portraits as two separate subjects. i wasn't really sure how to include their POV.

i left the last line (about Venetian ceruse) as it was because i couldn't access the citation myself, although i reformulated the citation to indicate which volume was intended.

anyway, i hope i did okay for now, even if it presently has some issues. Iesbian (talk) 00:46, 17 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Looks good after a quick glance over what you've done. I'll assume everything is in order as far as DUE and accuracy to sources. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:58, 18 November 2023 (UTC)