Marco Antonio Canini and the Ethnogenesis of the Romanian people

Abstract

Marco Antonio Canini, a well-known philo-Romanian, was an artisan of tightening the relations between the Romanians and the Italians. In the period preceding the Union of the Principalities, the Venetian had an active political and cultural contribution in supporting the national cause of the Romanian people. Between 1857 – 1858, Canini polemically replied to certain statements made by Ion C. Brătianu regarding the ethnogenesis of the Romanians. In a series of articles published in Nationalul and Gazeta de Transilvania, bound together in a volume, Studii istorice asupra originii natiunii române, Canini maintained, based on historical, linguistic and archeological evidence, the importance of the Latin component in the process of the Romanian people’s formation.