Informaţii privitoare la Ţările Române în câteva lucrări italiene mai puţin cunoscute (veacurile XVI - XVIII)
Information regarding the Romanian principalities from some less known Italian works (XVIth – XVIIIth)

Summary/Abstract: The article briefly presents some pieces of information extracted from Italian manuscripts and printed books, dating from the XVIth-XVIIIth centuries. These works are written by minor authors who usually compiled from other books, more or less known during that age, and they also refer to the Romanian Principalities, briefly presenting them from a geographical or historical point of view, or simply insisting upon isolated episodes of political or military nature, whose echo reached the Occident. These works are a clear example of how the news concerning the Eastern part of Europe was presented in Western Europe. The Easter countries, usually ignored by the Western reader, were frequently of great interest only because of the exotic character of those lands. The book of the abbot Giovanni Giuseppe Clemente Bonomi and also the manuscript work of an anonymous Venetian author, testify the information that, in the XVIIth-XVIIIth centuries, the educated people of the old Italian states knew about the Latin origin of the Romanians. At last, a short paragraph excerpt from the book of the Venetian poet and historian, Alessandro Ziliolo, describes, in few words and lacking accuracy, the campaign to Transylvania, from 1603, of the Wallachian prince, Radu Şerban (1602-1610), campaign ended with a brilliant victory and with the death of the Transylvanian prince Mose Székely (May-July 1603). All these sources reflect, as it concerns the history of the Romanians, the level of knowledge reached in that age by the Western authors and also offer, as we already said, an example of how the Romanian Principalities were perceived in Europe, during that age.

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