Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Keep. Ham 09:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind

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This is a biography of Leonardo for a general audience, and does not clearly meet the criteria at Notability (books). The bulk of the article is a 6-paragraph-long quotation from the New York Times's review. Ham 16:03, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep the review indicates that its a major, detailed biography, and not one of the many glossy, oversized. cheaply put together volumes on him. the author has won major literary awards. I agree the article here is poorly structured, giving way too much space to the review quotes, which may be copyvio anyway. I would be utterly shocked if this book has not received multiple reviews. it needs cleanup and more sourced references, but I have no doubt that a da vinci scholar reading the book could turn this into a featured article if they wanted to, considering that the book probably contains new information on da vinci.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:12, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It has indeed received several reviews, many of which are here. Nicholl's other biographies, which have undisputably won awards, are on poets and playwrights; he isn't an art history scholar but a professional biographer (no value judgement intended). Even if this were a scholarly monograph, according to WP:NB, "textbooks or reference books written specifically for study in educational programs" do not necessarily qualify as notable. Ham 16:59, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep: Per this. Thanks for the link, Ham. Joe Chill (talk) 23:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note, i cut out the last section, an Amazon customer review is not RS.  Triplestop  x3  17:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. The reviews linked by metacritic.com very clearly show that this book passes criterion 1 of WP:BK. I'm rather at a loss to understand why the nominator thinks that reviews in The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Post, The Independent, The New Yorker etc. don't satisfy this criterion. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Reading criterion 1, I had assumed that "multiple, non-trivial published works" doesn't count book reviews, otherwise every book that gets reviewed in the above publications every week would qualify for a Wikipedia article. I was thinking more along the lines of sources showing that the book has been influential in the field. I own and read a lot of books like this and I don't think there need to be Wikipedia pages about them, otherwise you'd have one for each Leonardo biography, just for starters. Ham 21:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, that criterion does say, "this includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews"(my emphasis). And why shouldn't every book that gets reviewed in the above publications every week qualify for a Wikipedia article? It's not as if we're running out of space. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I stand corrected. Most of the existing articles are on seminal texts. Ham 11:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ham, based on this conversation, would you consider closing this nomination keep? We can do it ASAP. Thanks. Ikip (talk) 00:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. Meets all notability criteria and then some. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 23:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The book has sufficient reviews.  D r e a m Focus  03:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep if improved from present 1-line text. Book is notable, but there are much better books on Leonardo that don't have articles - those by Kenneth Clark & Martin Kemp (art historian) for a start. Johnbod (talk) 02:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.