Disputatio:Iosephus Nicolaus Laurenti

Nomen

Why doesn't the title of his major book, Josephi Nicolai Laurenti Austriaci Viennensis Specimen Medicum (1768), make the nominative of his surname Laurent(i)us ? IacobusAmor 10:52, 30 Novembris 2010 (UTC)

Pass ... The name as we have it here seems to be widely accepted, though what the contemporary authority for it is, I don't know.

I changed "in the Western world" (whatever that would have meant in the 18th century) to "in European writing", not specifically aiming to include Russia or exclude America but for the specific reason that this is how de:wiki expresses it, and de:wiki seems to have been the main source from which the other wikis were translated. In any case I'd like to know the reason why such a phrase is included at all: did descriptions of cave-dwelling species already exist in non-European or non-Western literature? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:03, 30 Novembris 2010 (UTC)

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Contributions to the History of Herpetology (digitized versions of the relevant pages here [1][2]) asserts it is 'Laurenti'. There are apparently two versions of his work, and:

"The name "Laurenti" appears on the title pages of both, but it has been disputed whether this form is both genitive and nominative. At the end of the preface in the thesis version (only), the name is given in what is believed to be the Latin nominative: Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti. Unfortunately, in the 1966 reprint of the thesis version of Laurenti's book, the final i in his name has been omitted. On inquiry to the Archives of the University of Vienna, Kurt Mühlberger, the University Archivist, has determined that Laurenti himself consistently used the spelling "Laurenti" in all of his university records and that it is, in fact, the nominative form."

There's also an image of what is presumably his autograph, which reads 'Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti'. —Mucius Tever 03:17, 5 Decembris 2010 (UTC)