Talk:Paolo Sarpi

Comments
This article now seems to be written to reflect the views of one person: Jaska Kainulainen. A decision has been taken to give prominence to a review by Eric Cochrane of Wootton's book. Wootton's book received a dozen reviews; that one is exceptional not only in the hostility to Wootton's argument that it expresses but also in that (unlike all the other reviews) it is full of factual inaccuracies. It contains quotations which supposedly come from Wootton's book but which aren't actually in the book, claims that Wootton's book discusses people who aren't mentioned in the book, and so on and so forth. I don't want to propose a rewrite as I am a party to these debates and I don't want to simply rewrite the article to reflect my own views. Reginaldscot (talk) 10:53, 2 November 2014 (UTC)Reginaldscot

Untitled
I've cleaned up a some vandalism from late 2007. This:

He immediately turned it to practical account by constructing a map of the moon.

shouldn't be vandalism, but from the 1911 EB source. But as otherwise unsourced, I don't think it needs to be there - very vague. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

As literary history
Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent is considered a literary and historical masterpiece and was praised not only by Milton, but also by subsequent historians Gibbon and Macaulay. Samuel Johnson also famously admired it and planned to translate it. You would not know that from this article, which is quite POV. David Wootton's book, referred to in the article, attempting to paint Sarpi as an atheist, was severely criticized by the historian Eric Cochrane as extremely unconvincing. This also needs to be mentioned. Mballen (talk) 06:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC) Mballen (talk) 07:08, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Introduction misleading
The article seems to suggest that the sole reason Sarpi became famous as a historian was because he criticized the Catholic church. In fact, his history is a stylistic masterpiece and landmark of intellectual history and political resistance to tyranny and that is why he influenced other great literary figures such as Gibbon, Milton, Bayle, etc., not to mention the founding fathers of the United States. No less a figure than Samuel Johnson, a conservative Tory and believing Christian, wanted to translate him. Sarpi represented free thought, reason, and religious toleration in a time of oppression, censorship, and violence. The Catholic church may not have liked his criticisms of the Council of Trent, but they came around to agreeing with him about the menace of Spain, which was using the Inquisition, despotism, and atrocities as a tools of political domination under cover of religion. During the ensuing 30 years war after Sarpi's death, Rome and France (under Cardinal Richelieu) were allied in supporting Protestant Denmark and Holland over Austria and Spain because they did not want to see see Spanish troops in Italy and and the Rhineland repeating the atrocities they had committed in the Netherlands. Mballen (talk) 17:31, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Section without sources notice
One section has a notice that it doesn't cite any sources. The source, however, as noted on the bottom of the article, is the entry on Paolo Sarpi in the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 24, which featured contributions by notable scholars. It is available on the web at Archive.org, the article is signed R.G.Mballen (talk) 01:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC) The author of the encyclopedia article is Richard Garnett, distinguished author, historian and translator.Mballen (talk) 01:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Sarpi's histriography
A section on Sarpi's historiography would be appropriate. He is considered one of the greatest historians of all time. Mballen (talk) 01:47, 4 December 2019 (UTC)