Although Dalmatian by birth, Niccolò Tommaseo (Šibenik 1802 – Florence 1874) was culturally Italian. Furthermore, during his years in Venice he joined prominent Greek intellectuals who worked there and acquainted him with modern Greek language and culture. Both romantic and liberal, he became a passionate defender of the Greek War of Independence. As other writers of his time, he suggested that nations needed to develop mutually and that no nation was contained as if bordered up by a wall. For this reason, he claimed that the relationship between the Ionian Islands and Italy is an example of Italo-Greek intercultural combination, although the changes he witnessed during his exile in Corfou (1849–1854) undeniably could not be resistant to the emergence of nationalism, emphasizing national identity.