Talk:The Path to Rome

Did you know nomination

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. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron talk 20:39, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that one literary critic described Hilaire Belloc as "the quintessential carnival fool" in his own account of his pilgrimage to Rome?

• Source: Frassati Jakupcak 2015, p. 63

• ALT1: ... that The Path to Rome contains several passages where the narrator argues with an imagined reader who is often combative and confused? Source: Frassati Jakupcak 2015, p. 65
• ALT2: ... that Hilaire Belloc began his pilgrimage to Rome in Toul because that was where he had served as an artilleryman? Source: Belloc 1902, pp. viii, 13
• ALT3: ... that Hilaire Belloc described writing The Path to Rome as requiring "no research, no bother, no style, no anything"? Source: Pearce 2002, p. 83
• ALT4: ... that G. K. Chesterton praised Hilaire Belloc's The Path to Rome by calling its narration "flaming and reverberating folly"? Source: Pearce 2002, pp. 83–84
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Nina Milkina

Moved to mainspace by ThaesOfereode (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 24 past nominations.

ThaesOfereode (talk) 10:18, 9 September 2025 (UTC).

• Moved to main Sept 7 and nommed Sept 9, good on that; obviously long enough; nothing else of concern. Was competently GA reviewed after DYK nomination as well with clean spot checks. Appropriately sourced with reliable sources. No concerns with neutrality or CV/CLOP. As to the hooks, I like ALT1 best but feel like it may fall afoul of DKYFICTION since it concerns the contents of the book - I'll let a promoter decide that. ALT0 and ALT4 are fun for similar reasons; both feel like they should be insults but in context are not. ALT3 is my least favorite, it's acceptably sourced and all but just doesn't feel like as much fun. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Was going to promote ALT1, but I could use a quote for "often combative and confused" from the source? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:45, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
    • "Belloc’s implied reader, Lector, is actually a character in the book who periodically interrupts the text in order to complain, question, or tell stories of his own." from p 65; I think this can be reasonably summarized as being "combative or confused". ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:35, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
      • I probably also should have added p. 66 in the cite, since there's a passage where Lector is confused as well. Also, cited inline on the page itself, from Wilson (1984), p.g 104: "Among its almost Shandean devices, Belloc allows the reader – who is an Englishman of the middle class – to interrupt his narrative at various points, protesting that he is bored, confused or distracted." ThaesOfereode (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
    • Oooh I realized my original review neglected to note that the QPQ has been done. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:22, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
      • No worries Premeditated Chaos; thanks for the thoughtful review! ThaesOfereode (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
        • Cheers :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:17, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Comments and suggestions

• French-English author: under MOS:DASH, there's a difference between French-English and French–English: the former (hyphen) means that he was an Englishman from a distinctly French-flavoured community of Englishmen (just as "African-Americans" are not Africans); the latter (endash) means that he was in some important way both French and English.

• My understanding of nationalities was that they were always hyphenated rather than endashed because the old nationality describes the new one (British → British-American; i.e., an American person who is also British). That is to say, Belloc is French-English because he's a French (adj) person who is also English (adj), but Charles de Gaul and Winston Churchill might debate French–English relations (i.e., a coordinating rather than mutually defining relationship). This is actually explicitly called out in MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES, a subtopic of MOS:DASH. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• explain his decisions to the audience.: audience is unusual here: we'd normally say reader, but I'm hesitating because "the reader" is also a character in the book.

• Yes, it's a difficult structure and a bizarre thing to write around. If you come up with an alternative that works, I'm all ears. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• his journalistic work at The Daily News had earned him as much as #14 a week: not a BrE problem, but we should introduce earlier on that he was a journalist and worked for this paper.

• Not against it, but I'm not really following the rationale. The section introduces Belloc, his religion (pertinent to the book), his role in the army (pertinent), his intellectual position (maybe not pertinent), his Britishness (i.e., why is he writing this in English), and his foot traveling (pertinent) in the first paragraph. The second contextualizes why the book is written and where it appears in Belloc's oeuvre, as well as a bit about his stylistic goal. The third is for explaining the familial and financial contexts. I could see replacing the Oxford bits with his journalistic work, but I think the job description is more at home with the explanations of his financial situation. Open to alternatives, as always. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• If we're going to give page numbers for quotes, we should specify the edition (quotebox). Somewhat boldly, I've swapped the author's name to the work's title, which is better when we're giving a page number (plus it's always a tricky one as to how far an author's narrator straightfowardly "is" that author, even in an autobiographical work).

• I've been using the Library of Congress's version, though my understanding is that the book doesn't really change much because the drawings/maps/etc. have to occur at fixed positions throughout. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• BrE doesn't need a comma before the final item in a list, but it does allow it (subject to vociferous opinions for and against), and it's helpful when the list is complex. I've generally left them in.

• I'm a strong "for" on the Oxford comma, but I have to applaud your impartiality here; it's hard to overcome scholastic rivalries. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• I put in some horrific code to translate the CHF values into modern GBP. I only barely understand it and have included a "helpful" note os that it can be fixed if/when it all collapses.

• Yes, I was reluctant to do the inflation pieces for francs because he uses them in France, but clearly there's no reason not to use them in the Swiss section; good looking out. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Otherwise -- a really lovely article. I would have very little to complain about at FAC. One thing to think about: during the Summary section, we almost slip into an in-universe style at times: it almost sounds as if Belloc's narrator is also narrating our article when we report his opinions in Wikivoice (He buys another bottle of excellent wine in Porrentruy; He has the worst, or second-worst, meal of his life). It might be wise to frame these in a more detached manner, if they're felt important: "he has a meal, which he calls the worst or second-worst of his life..." or something like that. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:06, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist: I really appreciate you taking a look at this. Once this is at GA, I'll probably bring it over to FAC (for WP:4). As for the in-world narration, I think it's hard to avoid especially when the narrator is the person stuff happens to. I'm not sure how much this circumlocution adds to the detachment of the writing. For example, in a traditional narrative, if the narrator George tells us he and Bob are friends, we have to call who he calls his friend his friend, because not doing that creates a narrative distance between the two characters that isn't there and I think serves as pseudo–scare quotes; that is to say, we say "George meets up with his friend Bob" rather than "George meets up with Bob, whom he considered to be his friend" since the circumlocution implies that Bob isn't really George's friend. In this non-traditional narrative, we have to assume wine he calls excellent really is excellent. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think those two things are the same -- I think it comes down to how much "personality" is in the phrasing. It's one thing to write "Belloc drinks a bottle of wine, which he does not enjoy" -- I don't think anyone would have a problem with that -- but something like "Belloc drinks an absolutely god-awful bottle of Italian swill" wouldn't pass muster -- we'd either flatten it or turn it into a quotation. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:17, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

I think this passes muster now. What do you think? ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, looks good. One query -- is the Old Wall of the Vatican definitely the Aurelian Wall and not the Leonine walls? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:27, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Great question, but yes, Belloc recounts that he arrived at the "Gate of the Poplar", which is clearly the Porta del Popolo of the Aurelian Walls. This is a good reminder to add it to the summary though, so thank you! ThaesOfereode (talk) 21:41, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:The Path to Rome/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: ThaesOfereode (talk · contribs) 00:56, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 17:57, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Comments

• This is a very nicely-written article and its structure, approach, and citations are plainly up to GA standard. My main concern is the considerable length of the plot sections. The rules on this are not set in stone: long and complex books can get away with a bit more plot text; but this book is not of exceptional length or complexity. Why do we need such a long plot section, and could it not be condensed to give a briefer encyclopedic overview without going into so much detail?

• Thanks for taking on this GA, Chiswick Chap, and for the kind words about the writing. The rationale for the length of the summary is threefold. For one, a travelog like this doesn't lend itself easily to standard plot configurations; there's no building tension, no climax, no resolution. Another is that I leafed through other FA-level travelogs and found similarly long summary sections, such as A Voyage Round the World. The last piece is that it's kind of difficult to objectively determine what should be in the summary. Part of the book's appeal is its focus on everyday life, which similarly makes it difficult. I cut a lot of sections, especially in France, which I found remarkable, but I couldn't justify including. I'm open to cutting things, but I had a lot of difficulty figuring out what to cut. I'd hate to do so, but I could understand the removal of the anarchist and horse episodes, and maybe trying to shorten the failed journey over the mountain and the Medesano episodes. Open to suggestions. ThaesOfereode (talk) 19:13, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

I guess the more picaresque a book is, the harder to summarise. What we're trying to do in a Wikipedia summary, I think, is to sketch the outlines of a book without the colour. If you can trim those episodes that would be good. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:49, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I've cut the anarchist and horse episodes, and trimmed the failed journey over the mountain and the Medesano episodes. ThaesOfereode (talk) 22:02, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks.

• Crisis magazine of 3 June 2022 triggers an Earwig copyvio warning for the Joseph Pearce quote. It seems quite reasonable to me that we should quote the passage under fair usage.

• I suggest that you gloss Pearce as a Catholic writer; you have hinted at spirituality for G. K. Chesterton but it might be useful to say he's Catholic too, given the role of faith in Belloc's life.

• Soft pushback here since Chesterton wasn't Catholic when he reviewed the book and wasn't Catholic when he wrote Orthodoxy either. I've glossed Pearce though. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• Given this context, you might add that Stephen Graham went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

• Was a little leery of OR here (perhaps unjustly), but I've added it. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• Please add a gloss for Jakupcak; she is a Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, so the gloss might say "the Catholic nun", for instance.

• Glossed ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• A. N. Wilson too needs a gloss; he was raised a Catholic, went to an Anglican seminary and then became a secular writer: "author interested in religion" might fit the bill.

• I think Wilson's purview is a bit wider than that, but I've still glossed him. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• You gloss Chesterton and repeat his initials at the second mention.

• Fixed. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• Might be good to move the 2nd quote box up one paragraph.

• Why? The quote is from the Calestano episode, not the Medesano or Taro-crossing ones. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• Belloc's ten-page description of Flavigny, a "comparatively obscure town", than to all of Tuscany - something missing here.

• Not sure what you mean here. Do I need to gloss Tuscany or something? ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I can't parse the sentence, even with an 'A' in my Use of English half a century ago. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I must have shorted out writing this sentence and then again rereading it; apologies! I think it should be good to go now. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:41, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Images

• All the images are Public Domain and on Commons. All are directly relevant.

Sources

• Spot-checks: [17] ok; [19] ok; [24] ok; [24] ok; [26] ok.

Summary

• This is now ready for GA status, with just a couple of very minor suggestions to be implemented. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:29, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.