Talk:Antonio Veneziano (poet)

Latest comment: 2 years ago by 151.63.203.163 in topic Sicilians pre-risorgimento

Sicilians pre-risorgimento edit

I've noticed on wikipedia that all Sicilians who died before the birth of the modern Italian state are invariably described as Italian. How can someone who lived before the birth of Italy be described as Italian? The Kingdom of Sicily was a nation-state for centuries before Italy came into existence (Kingdom of Sicily). Therefore, if someone was born in, lived in and even died in the Kingdom of Sicily - why would they be described as being Italian? Do we describe the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, as being Turkish? No, therefore any Sicilian who lived their whole life in what was at the time the Kingdom of Sicily, cannot be Italian. It's a statement of fact. I could put this same note in a lot of articles, I might start the discussion here, also state that given the time period, it's an absolute impossibility that we can consider Antonio Veneziano as being Italian, so I wish to put it on record here that Antonio Veneziano can only be considered as being Sicilian, and that the article must reflect that reality. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 23:16, 3 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Kingdom of Sicily is a cultural ancestor to today's Italy. Sicilians have always been pretty much a subset of Italians, it is just that Italy was divided for a while.

Italy's situation in the sixteenth century is pretty much the same as the situation of Yugoslavia today. It is just that Italy's history is older and thus created more separate languages.

So basically calling Antonio Veneziano "italian" is the same as calling a present-day Serb "Yugoslavian" in a situation where Yugoslavians reunify.

With Constantine XI, it is different. Pretty much all of Anatolia used to be Greek-speaking at one point. The Turks were Siberian\Central Asian invaders, that assimilated Anatolia by converting them to Islam.

Calling Constantine XI Turkish is like calling someone from Aztec Empire "Mexican". --151.63.203.163 (talk) 12:54, 22 July 2021 (UTC)Reply