Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 October 9

= October 9 =

Two questions regarding John Thurloe
Is it true that a portrait of John Thurloe hangs at the headquarters of one of the UK's secret service agencies (can't remember which one)? And is it true that the Venetian ambassador to England at the time wrote back home regarding John Thurloe and the English secret service under the Protectorate that (I'm paraphrasing) "no nation is as good at discovering the secrets of others and at the same time at keeping its own"? Could someone also provide the exact wording (assuming the ambassador really wrote that of course)? I seem to remember hearing those two bits of information once in a radio program but I haven't been able to confirm them now on Google. Basemetal 11:36, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * In Financial Times - Lunch with the FT: Sir John Sawers (19 Sep 2014) a journalist interviews Sir John Sawers, head of MI6 until November 2014: "I ask whether it is true that a portrait of John Thurloe, Oliver Cromwell’s spymaster, hangs in his office. “There is one, and, actually, my predecessor John Scarlett used to revere that particular picture. His office... had all sorts of historical artefacts and letters up on the wall. My style is rather modernistic. I have modern art on the walls and modern furniture to keep the clutter down to a minimum.”
 * The Government Art Collection - The seventeenth century spymaster at M16 says it was was purchased in 2007 and hung in Sir John Scarlett's office. Thanks Gordon Brown, nice to know you were making sensible use of our money. Alansplodge (talk) 15:33, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks Alan. Good to know you subscribe to the FT . When I try to read the article I hit a paywall. Nothing on the Venetian ambassador? I don't even know how I would even get started on that one. Anyone knows the name of the Venetian ambassador to England under Cromwell? Basemetal  16:08, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It must be an overseas thing with the FT. A pop-up dialogue box just asked me if I had children under 18, and when I clicked "no" it let me in. No luck with the Venetians yet. Alansplodge (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, it was easier than I thought, it was a chap called Lorenzo Paulucci (Wikipedia clearly doesn't have an article on everything!) - see THE COMMONWEALTH THROUGH VENETIAN EYES. Alansplodge (talk) 16:29, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No luck with the quote although I did find in Oct 12, 1654 - Lorenzo Paulucci, Venetian Secretary in England, to Giovanni Sagredo, the Ambassador in France: "..the English consider parliament the soul of their government and may be said to worship it. They are as jealous as possible of its ascendancy which they consider the palladium of their liberties". Quite right too. If you have lots of time on your hands, you could wade through Calendar of State Papers, Venice. Alansplodge (talk) 16:57, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Another diplomat called Giovanni Sagredo seems to transfer from being Ambassador to France to Ambassador to England during 1655. Alansplodge (talk) 17:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I will keep that in mind. Thanks a lot for your help Alan. Basemetal  18:43, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Also Francesco Giavarina from April, 1657.&mdash;eric 12:00, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Representative Men of Honolulu
Is there anyway to identified who are the men pictured here? I've tried to identified most of them with notes on commons.wikimedia.org but there are lot of holes and the writing on the bottom are hard to read.

Here is also a high resolution versions of some the ones I have been unable to ID. They are also noted in the larger image with ??? and their links.
 * http://gallery.hawaii.gov/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=54870 J. F. Hackfeld
 * http://gallery.hawaii.gov/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=54916 J. F. Hackfeld
 * http://gallery.hawaii.gov/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=52192
 * http://gallery.hawaii.gov/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=54919 W. Hall | M. Hall | N. Hall ... I'm guessing William W. Hall, power compay magnate
 * http://gallery.hawaii.gov/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=55719 J. H. Hunt ?

--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:32, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * You might also want to check out Committee of Safety (Hawaii) for names, photos &c ... they seem to be much the same group of people? --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:18, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Striking the one I was able to ID with the above information. There may be some of the same individuals on there but for the most part this one is more centered on the businessmen in Honolulu in 1898. That's why you have chief of the fire department or the president of the Hawaiian Electric Company. There are still nineteen unidentified persons.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:53, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Have you tried contacting the State Archives for assistance?  is given at their front page, or you can phone them with the information provided in the same section of this page.  Having done a large deal of work for two different digital libraries of photos, I can assure you that sometimes I've been familiar enough with people's appearances that I can identify them without a caption: yes, I put in the names whenever I noticed them, but if I were to be consulted on images from a third collection with no names, there's a good chance I could identify people without needing captions, and perhaps the folks at the HI State Archives would be able to do likewise.  Nyttend (talk) 11:32, 10 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I've written to them, not so much to ask for information as to ask what (the hell) they think they're doing posting images without identifying the subjects, in a situation in which (per the page titles) they know fine well who the individuals are. It is far beyond my comprehension why an archive, the managers of which have even half a brain-cell, thinks that it is good practice to post a catalogue of images with zero subject identification. Even after considerable AGF, the conclusion remains WTF. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:29, 11 October 2016 (UTC)