Talk:Pope Alexander VI

Video Games

Surprised that Assassin's Creed is not included in the "In Popular Culture" Section, as Rodrigo Borgia is the Primary Antagonist of Assassin's Creed II. The Assassin's Creed wiki pages link to this Article, and there are many online records of the events of the games which detail his conflict with Enzo. The Final Battle of the game takes place after Rodrigo has become Pope Alexander, so it is not a case of mistaken identity.

If a lack of sources is the issue, here are some that provide detail about the character in the games (including from the developers themselves): https://www.giantbomb.com/rodrigo-borgia/3005-13230/

https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/characters/Assassins-Creed/Rodrigo-Borgia-Pope-Alexander-VI/

https://callumhonoursproject.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/case-study-rodrigo-borgia-assassins-creed-2/

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/valhalla/news-updates/130Q6PvXH25FgKdWoFnjWK/travel-to-naples-and-help-the-auditores-take-down-rodrigo-borgia-in-the-latest-update-from-assassins-creed-rebellion 220.244.143.36 (talk) 12:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

The section is already WP:TRIVIA, more of it is not needed. Veverve (talk) 12:08, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Your sources consist of a wiki, a content farm, a blog, and a WP:PRIMARY source. I'm not seeing enough coverage for this to be WP:DUE. Elizium23 (talk) 12:11, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Found some sources from published books.

1)https://books.google.com/books?id=blw4EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA48&dq=Alexander+VI+assassin%27s+creed&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Alexander%20VI%20assassin's%20creed&f=false (pages 48-49 by Springer Nature)

2)https://books.google.com/books?id=oGoDEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&dq=Alexander+VI+assassin%27s+creed&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Alexander%20VI%20assassin's%20creed&f=false (P.37 by Cambridge University)

3)https://books.google.com/books?id=X7xbxA4HjLIC&pg=PA126&dq=Rodrigo+Borgia+Assassin%27s+creed&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Rodrigo%20Borgia%20Assassin's%20creed&f=false (p.126 by Routledge)

4)https://books.google.com/books?id=GZxVYsBCdbkC&pg=PT108&dq=Alexander+VI+assassin%27s+creed&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Alexander%20VI%20assassin's%20creed&f=false ( Visible ink press) Kwesi Yema (talk) 22:16, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Still WP:UNDUE WP:TRIVIA. Veverve (talk) 22:47, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Tomb of Popes Borja ( Callisto III and Alessandro VI).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

You can't just say "or".

"Alexander's papal bulls of 1493 confirmed or reconfirmed the rights of the Spanish crown in the New World following the finds of Christopher Columbus in 1492." There needs to be context for this claim. PortsManteau (talk) 05:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Follow the wikilink provided? There were two bulls, of different ambits. The description is accurate. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:30, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

GJ Meyer material

@Sira Aspera: One would have thought that you would be familiar with WP:BRD by this point. Discuss first, waltz around on the revert button afterwards. - You are removing the reasoned opinion of a well-respected historian on grounds of personal preferences. It is a minority opinion, and for that reason it gets a directly attributed minority mention. Our entire group of articles on the Borgias remains happily stuck on the current (likely misapprehended) interpretation of Alexander's "offspring"; noting that there exists some degree of dissent is hardly WP:UNDUE. Further, you then went ahead and glommed the cite for Meyer's book onto a statement that he directly disagrees with, which is even worse because misleading. So no, I strongly disagree with the removal of this material. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:33, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

If I have a preference, it seems fair to say that you has too, since your answer seems to indicate that you favor Meyer's opinion. I am not so interested in the matter as to do in-depth research on his life, but what I have found makes me doubt his qualification as a "respected historian": from what I have seen, he neither studied nor worked as such in the academic field, just wrote popular book with many assumptions and little evidence with many assumptions and little evidence bent to fit what he wants to prove which sell, and given that he doesn't have an academic reputation or position to maintain, it is certainly a strategy he can support. But it doesn't seem to me at all that the historians were sensitive to his research: in ten years since the book came out I have not seen others historians take up his theses, and there would be work to be done, given that Meyer has essentially completely rewritten the Borgia's history. This confirming for me the impression I had formed while reading his book. The disagreement among historians Is mainly regarding Borgia's children concerns statements such as of Giovanni or Laura, actually controversial, or of Goffredo, which Borgia himself doubted, but I cannot recall academic works that doubt that Borgia had publicly claimed as his Vannozza's children. I don't pretend to have read all the new works, but it is such an exceptional hypothesis that if it had had solid foundations it would be quite widespread at this point. So no, I don't consider this source reliable and I find it exaggerated to dedicate half a paragraph to it twice,, structured among other things, in terms of phrasing ad position, suggestes he is right despite all.

When moving the quote, it was not deliberate.

Since my opinion essentially remains that of the summary and you have an opposite one, a debate between just the two of us seems useless to me because I don't think either of them will convince the other, so I think that either we wait until someone else comes forward or look for a compromise formulation.

Good day Sira Aspera (talk) 17:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Legacy (yet again)

Someone keeps removing maintenance tags from this section. The legacy section is a near whitewashing of Alexander's legacy and badly fails NPOV. See this discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

The crime section is also patently NPOV. It's ignoring of sources (see the thread above) is so glaring that it raises concerns about the basic factual integrity of the article. I have tagged both sections and the article as a whole. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:05, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Courtesy ping Yishayl. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:06, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

• Two facets here. One, there is increasing evidence that the philandering, debased Alexander VI image is indeed just that - a carefully constructed image with little basis in primary accounts. As an example of more modern scholarship, Meyer's The Borgias: The Hidden History gives a convincing rundown of contemporary sources that suggest a much less sensationalist reading. So there is a basis for a certain amount of "whitewashing", and our Borgia articles are still missing most of that.

Second, I am surprised at the contents of the current "Legacy" section because it consists of just counter-examples and counter-arguments, and not very good ones at that. For all that we are currently presenting what is very likely a made-up, unhistorical image of this person, we are bound by consensus in the field, and we can't have a Legacy section that expressly runs against that. It's just plain confusing. Unless we were to have a separate "Revisionist scholarship" section (which is not a good idea) this stuff needs to be integrated in context, not tagged on like a third opinion. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:13, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

(Re the crime section: similar - that needs to be expanded, presenting both current standard view and alternative readings.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:16, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

The crime section is perhaps a little overly reliant on a single source but is useful info (that ought just be appended elsewhere). As for the legacy section, I'm going to tame some of the language to reduce POV violations. Feel free to revert if you feel they are inadequate. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:46, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, the more I read that the more we need someone with more in-depth knowledge to come through here and make sure the whole section isn't just revisionism. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:57, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

NPOV dispute, continued

@Elmidae: I appreciate the reality check on the cited source, but I must insist that the prose which I deleted is out-of-bounds in terms of neutrality. It's pure WP:PEACOCK, subjective adulation, and you've reinstated it in our own Wikivoice. I could also replace Borgia's name with the name of any other pope and nobody would be the wiser. Surely there are attributes of someone's appearance and personality that could be described in specific and neutral terms, but if this is all we can find in the "seminal book", then we don't want it at all. Elizium23 (talk)

The wikivoice is a problem, but the material is absolutely not an issue if attributed and presented correctly. Make that "De Roo states that ...", use actual quotes, and there you go. The relevant text is here (search for Chapter X). Of course it's hagiographic; de Roo is known for that. If it can be juxtaposed with other POVs then all the better, but it is not our place to cull historical sources because we feel they don't have a neutral tone of voice. The neutrality must on our end, not on theirs. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:05, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I have replaced the wikivoice with direct de Roo citations. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:06, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

• I am restoring this discussion as someone keeps removing the POV tag from the article. The issues have in no way been resolved. The legacy section is blatantly one sided and ignores the clear consensus among historians. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:08, 26 July 2024 (UTC)