Category:Italian Diaspora (India)

Italian Diaspora (India)

Timeline

• 1st-2nd cent. CE - The first direct contacts between India and Italy dates back to Roman times.

• Merchant Marco Polo visited parts of India. In his travelogue The Travels of Marco Polo he described the life and customs in India at the end of the 13th century.

• 1310c - Franciscan friar Odoricus Mattiuzzi

• 1420s-1430s - Merchant Niccolò de' Conti

• 1560s - Merchant Cesare Federici

• 1579-88 - Merchant Gasparo Balbi

• 1583-1588 - Scholar Filippo Sassetti

• 1605-1656 - Missionary Roberto de Nobili (other Jesuits include Antonio Moscheni, Constanzo Beschi, and Rodolfo Acquaviva)

• 1624 - Scholar Pietro della Valle

• 1656-1717 - Niccolò Manucci spent his entire life in India under Mughal rule.

• 1671-1675 - Merchant Ambrosio Bembo

• 1830s-1840s - General Rubino Ventura

• 1843–1858 - Gaspare Gorresio's translation of the Valmiki Ramayana, the great Hindu epic.

• The Italian unification movement inspired some Indian freedom fighters, and the works of the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi were translated and widely read by Indian intelligentsia.

• 1931 (dic) - Gandhi's visit to Italy (Milan and Rome). Meeting with Benito Mussolini.

• 1941-1946: Around 68,000 Italian POWs were shipped by the British to India and they were housed in camps across the country. After Sep 1943, when Italy surrendered to the Allies, living conditions improved.

• 1943-45 - Indian troops played a role in liberating Italy from Nazi control.

• 1947 - Establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of India and the Italian Republic.

• 1953 - Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited Italy.

• 1971-1975 - Amedeo Guillet (ambassador)

• 1979- Ileana Citaristi (dancer)

• 1984-2023 - Sonia Maino Gandhi (married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968). Since 1984 She had an active political career. Mother of *Rahul Gandhi (b.1970) and *Priyanka Gandhi (b.1972)

• 1995 - Pres. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro was the first Italian head of state to visit India.

• 1995-present - *Dino Morea (actor)

• 2005 - Pres. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi visited India.

• 2007 - Romano Prodi became the first Italian Prime Minister to visit India.

• 2008-2010 - Roberto Toscano (ambassador)

• 2009 - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Italy to attend the 35th G8 summit at L'Aquila.

• 2011 - External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna represented India at the 150th anniversary celebrations of the unification of Italy in Rome In June 2011.

• 2017 - Prime minister Paolo Gentiloni visited India.

• 2023 - Prime minister Giorgia Meloni visited India.