Talk:Nicolas Fatio de Duillier

Was Isaac Newton homosexual?

Encyclopedia Britannica:

"Newton, whose only close contacts with women were his unfulfilled relationship with his mother, who had seemed to abandon him, and his later guardianship of a niece, found satisfaction in the role of patron to the circle of young scientists. His friendship with Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, a Swiss-born mathematician resident in London who shared Newton’s interests, was the most profound experience of his adult life." --Enciclope2009 (talk) 17:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Biassed opinion

"In 1707 Fatio came under the influence of a fanatical religious sect, the Camisards, which ruined Fatio's reputation". This statement is opinionated and shows a lack of impartialety. Peter Horn 23:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

As if the dragoons (rhymes with goons) were not fanatics in perprtating their Dragonnades, great reputation!!! My maternal grandmother descended from a French Protestant Huguenot, so I would be somewhat inclined to be sympathetic towards both Fatio and the Camisards. Peter Horn 00:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Fatio or Facio?

His name appears in a number of horology books as 'Facio'. Is this a mistake, or a mistransliteration by English authors, or an alternate spelling, or what? Thanks --Chetvorno^TALK 19:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

According to Zehe (1981), the name Fatio (or sometimes Facio or Faccio) is a diminutive of Bonifatius and Bonifazio. However, in most historical sources (German, French, or English) the name Fatio is used. --D.H (talk) 08:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, sir. --Chetvorno^TALK 04:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge articles

The articles Nicolas Fatio de Duillier and Nicolas Faccio should be merged, as they are the same person. Fatio and Faccio are variations of the same surname.EricWR (talk) 18:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Great idea! --158.195.250.249 (talk) 10:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

And within this article the two variants are both used -- should it not be Fatio (as in name of article) throughout? I will do this now.--Jrm2007 (talk) 04:44, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Nationality of Nicolas Fatio de Duillier

(moved this from my talk page, + answer Sapphorain (talk) 09:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC))

You've edited the article on Nicolas Fatio de Duillier to un-label him as "Swiss". This is contrary to the accepted usage in most modern secondary and tertiary sources. See, e.g., Prof. Mordechai Feingold's The Newtonian Moment (NYPL, 2004), which characterizes him as "the Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier (1664-1753)", or the entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica for "Nicolas Fatio de Duillier (Swiss mathematician)".

I understand that your rationale is that Fatio was a citizen of the Republic of Geneva, which was an "everlasting ally" of the Swiss Confederacy but not de jure part of it before 1815. I see that your campaign on Wikipedia to un-label pre-1815 Genevans as Swiss has attracted controversy, for instance with User:Johnbod. This alone should suffice, I think, to establish that you aren't just stating a straightforward "historical fact". There's often an element of judgment in labeling historical figures as "Swiss", "Italian", "German", "British", "Irish", etc. It seems to me that you're adopting a unilateral attitude on this matter.

With respect to Fatio, one must also take into consideration the fact that he was born in Basel, which was in the Swiss Confederacy. If you want to add categories relating to Geneva I wouldn't object. But to expunge all reference to him as "Swiss" without prior consultation seems to me contrary to good Wikipedia practices and likely to invite an unnecessary controversy. - Eb.hoop (talk) 06:06, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I must admit that this case is borderline, since indeed he was born in Basel. [However note that he was a student in Geneva, and was then professionally active mostly in London and never in Basel (but never in Geneva either, I agree): thus is there really any good reason to qualify him as Swiss rather than British?!]

So I would after all not object to him being put in a Swiss category, provided the information that he was in reality a citizen of the Republic of Geneva is not removed.

I must however point to you that your statement that "the Republic of Geneva was an everlasting ally of the Swiss Confederacy but not de jure part of it before 1815" is partly incorrect: the Republic of Geneva has never been an ally, let alone everlasting, of those Cantons in Switzerland which were not protestant; in fact the catholic Cantons were so reluctant to accept Geneva in the Confederacy in 1815 that the integration project nearly didn’t work. So if Geneva was not part of Switzerland before 1815, it was very far from being only « de jure », but for very strong « de facto » reasons !

Finally, the fact that many (mainly Anglo-Saxon) biographers of Genevan people call them Swiss for convenience (or because they are not interested in political history) is not a reason to reproduce their approximation: after all, we do have at our disposition precise reliable sources, compatible with the historical facts, telling us a 16th to 18th century citizen of Geneva (with no citizenship from anywhere else), was not also a citizen of Switzerland. Sapphorain (talk) 09:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Sooner or later we will need an RFC on this. WP should not accept "Genevan" as a first line nationality. It is not just "mainly Anglo-Saxon" sources at all - for example SIKART does not accept "Genevan" as a nationality, nor do most Swiss sources. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I don’t know how to understand the assertion that « WP should not accept «  Genevan » as a nationality » . If if is just the use of the precise term «  Genevan » that causes problems (for instance because it could cause confusion with the modern inhabitants of Geneva), that of course can be discussed. The historical dictionary of Switzerland uses sometimes « citoyen de Genève » (citizen), or «  bourgeois » (burgher), and often simply «  de Genève » (from Geneva). But if it is to be taken as face value it is quite outrageous. WP is not comparable to a country in the world that may recognize or not recognize, in some diplomatic and irrational sense of the word, another country that does exist (or existed), and simply decree that people from that not-recognized state are therefore non-citizens of this non-state.Sapphorain (talk) 09:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

While I grant that it's technically true that Geneva was an independent state until 1815, I don't understand why Sapphorain has undertaken to purge Wikipedia of all reference to pre-1815 Genevans as "Swiss". The mere fact that this effort has already attracted controversy should be enough to establish that this shouldn't be done unilaterally. Sapphorain's logic, applied to pre-unification Italians or Germans, would lead to an undesirable and pointless proliferation of national categories. And I'm sure that there'd be an uproar if we labeled Rigas Feraios as Ottoman because during his whole lifetime Greece wasn't an independent state, but rather a part of the Ottoman Empire. I've attempted a compromise in this article by declaring Fatio to have been a citizen of Geneva and keeping Sapphorain's ref. on that point, but restoring some of the Swiss categories. - Eb.hoop (talk) 20:46, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Fine. But the example offered as a comparison of Rigas Feraios is not well chosen at all. Geneva was not historically referred to be part of Switzerland, in any sense whatsoever, before 1815. Sapphorain (talk) 21:31, 12 September 2018 (UTC)