Is this still happening?
In my sandbox just now, VE changed [[Ancient Carthage]] to [[Ancient Carthage|''Ancient'' Carthage]] as I would expect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AThryduulf%2Fsandbox2&diff=570143239&oldid=568345382

With the sole exception of plaint text followed by italic text, it seems that a separate link is created for each part of the link that has a different bold/italic status:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Thryduulf/sandbox4&diff=574094377&oldid=574094235
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Thryduulf/sandbox4&diff=574094083&oldid=574093861

To reproduce:

1. Create or edit any page that has consecutive words that have different italic/bold annotation, i.e. any of

''one'' two
'''un''' deaux
''ein'' '''zwei'''
'''un''' ''dai''
'''uno''' due

2. select both words and make the selection a link (internal or external).

Expected behaviour: One link is created, e.g. [[link|''one'' two]]
Actual behaviour: Two links are created, e.g. [[link|''one''']] [[link|two]]

Merging with bug 50098.

• This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 50098 ***