Template:Did you know nominations/Johann Sperling

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by HalfGig talk 01:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Johann Sperling

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Title page of the 2nd ed., 1669

... that Johann Sperling from the University of Wittenberg wrote the first scientific handbook about animals, Zoologia physica (title page pictured)? Source: Heß (ADB) "Das Werk ist für die Studirenden geschrieben und ist das erste Handbuch, welches in compendiöser Weise das Wissenswürdigste aus der Zoologie übersichtlich darzustellen sucht." (The work was written for the students and is the first handbook which tries to demonstrate clearly the most imortant facts from zoology in a compendious way.)

Reviewed: Maxine Fassberg
Comment: please with image, - the creatures can tell better than words

Created by Gerda Arendt (talk). Self-nominated at 15:38, 26 January 2017 (UTC).

age, size ok, copyvio clear, written neutrally - my issue is the hook as I suspect some would argue there were Roman books dealing with categorising plants and animals (e.g. Pliny). It'd be safer to stick to first use of the term "zoology"....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:30, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Can you word that, please, because to my understanding he didn't use zoology, he said Latin zoologia? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:13, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Aber mein Deutsch ist schrecklich...and I am not sure of the nuance of the source in German. Clearly it's slightly lost somehow. Are there some other secondary sources that discuss this book? Cas Liber (talk · contribs)

English (translated from French) The Natural History of Birds: From the French of the Count de Buffon .... I don't know about this, p. 38, no birds ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:17, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

How is this? Less spectacular but interesting enough, avoiding "first" (although I read in the Bogards source, last sentence on page 142: "begründete Johann Sperling in einem ersten Handbuch der Zoologie diese als eine "Wissenschaft von den Tieren" - he founded in a first handbook of zoology this [referring to zoology] as a "science of the animals"):

ALT1: ... that Zoologia physica (title page pictured), a scientific handbook about animals by Johann Sperling from the University of Wittenberg, was published in 1661 after his death? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:55, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I think the age is enough to make it interesting. gtg. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:37, 20 February 2017 (UTC)