Italo-Levanines and Italian diaspora

[Foxy]

Italo-Levantines are a community of Italian people living and radicated in modern Turkey since the time of the Cruisads. The Sea Republics of Genoa and Venezia started to build colonies in the Levant during the XIII century: among these Smirne (Turkey) received Genoan colonists, Chios, Acri (Lebanon), Pera (next to Costantinopolis). Venetian colonies were: Negroponte, Cyprus, Rhodes and Creta. Fewer were the colonists of Pisa.
Italo-levantines have the characterist to be catholic, though in a country where most people are muslim. They still speak a creole language, a mix of Italian and local dialects and during the time have mixed very few with natives. The little miscegination is due to privileges that Sultans accorded during the XVI century to Italians, privileges that made colonists richer and preserved them as community.
The old colonies were established to control the trades between Europe and Asia. Established there since 1204, the Italo-Levantine community is therefore the oldest Italian colony in the world.
In 1935 the Italo-Levantine community in Turkey had 15.000 members and it was also becouse of them that the Latin alphabet was adopted by the Turkish government.
The community had a loss during the II WW. Today Italo-levantine community has about 1000 members, most of them living in the metropolitan area around Istanbul, Galata (ex Pera). Some Italo-levantines were Jews.

Galata:
http://img2.blogcu.com/images/t/a/r/tarihimekan/1230910289galata.jpg

ITALIANS IN THE WORLD (oriunds):

OUT OF ITALY BUT STILL IN EUROPE: 58,509,526
NORTH AMERICA:16,098,248
SOUTH AMERICA: 39,840,571
AFRICA: 55,519
ASIA:5,170
OCEANIA:546,035

[Guapo]

Do you have pics of these Italo-Levantines?

[Foxy]

Aren't all Italians levantine? Do you have pics of these Italo-Levantines?

No, Italians are not all levantines..- :rolleyes2:
I don't have pics, sorry

[San Galgano]

Italo-Levantines are a community of Italian people living and radicated in modern Turkey since the time of the Cruisads. The Sea Republics of Genoa and Venezia started to build colonies in the Levant during the XIII century: among these Smirne (Turkey) received Genoan colonists, Chios, Acri (Lebanon), Pera (next to Costantinopolis). Venetian colonies were: Negroponte, Cyprus, Rhodes and Creta. Fewer were the colonists of Pisa.
Italo-levantines have the characterist to be catholic, though in a country where most people are muslim. They still speak a creole language, a mix of Italian and local dialects and during the time have mixed very few with natives. The little miscegination is due to privileges that Sultans accorded during the XVI century to Italians, privileges that made colonists richer and preserved them as community.
The old colonies were established to control the trades between Europe and Asia. Established there since 1204, the Italo-Levantine community is therefore the oldest Italian colony in the world.
In 1935 the Italo-Levantine community in Turkey had 15.000 members and it was also becouse of them that the Latin alphabet was adopted by the Turkish government.
The community had a loss during the II WW. Today Italo-levantine community has about 1000 members, most of them living in the metropolitan area around Istanbul, Galata (ex Pera). Some Italo-levantines were Jews.

Galata:
http://img2.blogcu.com/images/t/a/r/tarihimekan/1230910289galata.jpg

ITALIANS IN THE WORLD (oriunds):

OUT OF ITALY BUT STILL IN EUROPE: 58,509,526
NORTH AMERICA:16,098,248
SOUTH AMERICA: 39,840,571
AFRICA: 55,519
ASIA:5,170
OCEANIA:546,035

There was a large community of genoeses in Gibraltar too, who fought by the side of English against Spanish siege.
English army created in the 1725 the genoese guard indeed.
Today there are 900 people from Gibraltar who can trace back their ancestry to Genoa.

[Foxy]

An other place at East that was largely touched by Italians was the peninsula of Crimea and the southern part of Ukraine, with a pick in Odessa, that during the XVIII century guested a large Italian community.
Southern Ukraine had been touched by Italian ships that from Genoa used to procede eastwar, along the routes of Eastern Mediterraneum. With the foundation of Odessa, lead very soon by an Italian of Spanish origin called Jose De Ribas, the affluence of Italians in Odessa increased.
They were mostly merchants and architects. They used to manage coffes, cake shops, jeweller's shops, restaurants, casinos and hotels. Still today most Italian surnames in Odessa are still associated with architects.

[Sikeliot]

Italians in Turkey would not be Italo-Levantines since Turks are not Levantines.

[Foxy]

Italians in Turkey would not be Italo-Levantines since Turks are not Levantines.

In Italian they are called "Italo-Levantini", the right English translation is Italo-Levantines. Levant doesn't mean Middle-Eastern. In Italian Levant means East, from the Latin "Levare" (to rise). It means "The place where the sun rises", therefore simply East. ;)

Ps: most Turks are levantine also in the look.

[Sikeliot]

In Italian they are called "Italo-Levantini", the right English translation is Italo-Levantines. Levant doesn't mean Middle-Eastern. In Italian Levant means East, from the Latin "Levare" (to rise). It means "The place where the sun rises", therefore simply East. ;)

Ohh ok that makes sense. :)


Ps: most Turks are levantine also in the look.

Not really.

[Foxy]

Ohh ok that makes sense. :)



Not really.

I've seen enough Turks when I visited Germany. Most of them look not different from other Middle Easterns. Maybe in Western Turkey there is some mediterranean one, but most Turks aren't white. Deal with it.

[Sikeliot]

I've seen enough Turks when I visited Germany. Most of them look not different from other Middle Easterns. Maybe in Western Turkey there is some mediterranean one, but most Turks aren't white. Deal with it.

I never said they didn't look Middle Eastern.. just that they don't look Levantine.

[Foxy]

I never said they didn't look Middle Eastern.. just that they don't look Levantine.

What's the difference?Racially speaking Levantin and middle-eastern in Italian means practically the same.

[Peyrol]

Do you have pics of these Italo-Levantines?

Claudia Cardinale



http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/37/3778/L61IF00Z/posters/claudia-cardinale.jpg

[Foxy]

Claudia Cardinale

http://www.zam.it/images/5154/1.jpg

http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/37/3778/L61IF00Z/posters/claudia-cardinale.jpg

Claudia Cardinale isn't Italo Levantine, she's just born in Tunisia by Sicilian parents, but she isn't a member of a community of Italians radicated since centuries in Orient. :D

[Foxy]

^^^

DEFINITION OF ITALO-LEVANTINES:

Gli Italo-levantini sono radicati nel Mediterraneo orientale dai tempi delle crociate e delle Repubbliche marinare italiane.
Sono infatti una piccola comunità di discendenti dei coloni genovesi e veneziani (e in minor parte pisani, fiorentini e napoletani) che si trasferirono nei fondachi orientali delle repubbliche marinare, principalmente per commercio e controllo del traffico marittimo tra l'Italia e l'Asia.

Italo-Levantines are radicated in the Eastern Mediterraneum since the times of the cruisades and of the Italian Sea Republics.
They are indeed a small community of descendents of Genoese and Venetian colons (and, in a smaller part, Pisan, Florentine and Neapolitan), who moved in the Eastern warehouses of the Sea Republics, mostly for commerce and control of the maritime traffic between Italy and Asia.

[Foxy]

Main colonies:

- Smirne (Turkey)
- Chios (Greece)
- Acri (Palestine and Lebanon)
- Pera, borough of Costantinopolis (Turkey)
- Crete (Greece)
- Rhodes (Greece)
- Negroponte (Greece)
- Cyprus
- Odessa (Ukraine)
- Yalta (Ukraine)
- Kerk (Ukraine)

[Han Cholo]

I never said they didn't look Middle Eastern.. just that they don't look Levantine.

I agree. Turks look more like a mix between Greeks and South Caucasus peoples than Levantines (Palestineas, Lebanese, Syrian, etc.).

[Peyrol]

Claudia Cardinale isn't Italo Levantine, she's just born in Tunisia by Sicilian parents, but she isn't a member of a community of Italians radicated since centuries in Orient. :D

Actually, she is.

The pure blooded "italo levantines" as you means are disappeared from centuries