I'd like to add a profile for Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)

Question

I would like to create a profile for the French poet Pierre de Ronsard.  Before doing so I'd like other people's thoughts on the sources and whether they are sufficiently reliable in WikiTree terms.

For his death Claude Binet's Discours de la vie de Pierre de Ronsard, Gentil-Homme Vandomis, Prince des Poets Francois published in 1586 seems to be the best there is.see page 25 It is almost contemporary to the death.

For his birth there is Ronsard's own poem A Pierre de Pascal du bas païs de Languedoc in which he says "L'an que le Roi François fut pris devant Pavie, Le iour d un Samedi, Dieu me presta la vie, Le onsieme de Septembre". (The Battle of Pavia was on 24 Feb 1524/25).  However this has issues because 11 September 1524 was not a Saturday.

Many other dates have been suggested for his birth, see Michel Simonin, Du Perron : Oraison Funerbe sur la Mort de Monsieur de Ronsard (1586) : Edition critique, page 162, footnote 28

I would plan on using September 1524 (uncertain) as the DOB for the profile.

Any thoughts and comments welcome (including "no - don't do it").

Comments

It now being 500 years after the fact, having some uncertainties on specific details isn't a reason to not create a profile for someone known to have existed. My question would be can he be connected to the larger tree through ancestors or descendants?

Answer 1

He is probably connectable even though he didn't marry or have known descendancy because he was technically a clergyman. For instance Roglo shows his brother Claude is a direct ancestor of Napoléon's wife Joséphine through her paternal grandfather, who is on Wikitree.

The question is to know if all of those profiles would be properly sourceable. 16th century sources are tough. Also, adding his brother would require adding his parents, and that would require a pre-1500 certification (which I don't have, and I don't think a lot of active French members do but I might be wrong.)

If you create his profile, please be aware his LNAB should be "Ronsard", with CLN "de Ronsard" as per naming guidelines.

Location fields might be a bit tricky because they should include time-appropriate historical provinces, but they can be corrected latter on with no issues (unlike the LNAB which takes resources to correct, which is why I insisted on it.)

If you're confident you can provide adequate sources, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't create the profile. He's a notable poet and post-1500 so he should definitely have one! I'm a bit more worried about sources for the rest of the profiles needed to connect him, but though it sounds like hard work, it doesn't seem impossible at all.

Comments

Thank you for your helpful answer.