Italian irredentism in Corsica corse" in 1934 and Bertino Poli wrote "Il pensiero irredentista corso e le sue polemiche" in Florence in 1940. Small list of renowned Corsican Italians: Italian irredentism in Corsica Italian irredentism in Corsica was a cultural and historical movement promoted by Italians and by people from Corsica who identified themselves as part of Italy rather than France, and promoted the Italian annexation of the island. Corsica was part of the Republic of Genoa for centuries until 1768, when the Republic ceded the island to France, one year before the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte in the capital city of Ajaccio. Under
Ancient Corsica also interested in Corsica even at this early stage. A first attempt to found a Roman colony on the island in 425 BC was a failure. In 296 BC, the island was used by the Romans as a place of exile for Galerius Torquatus. The Roman conquest of Corsica began in 259 BC, when Lucius Cornelius Scipio captured Aleria (Greek 'Alalia') and several Corsican tribes, in the course of the First Punic War. The Roman invasion of the island marked the expansion of the war beyond Sicily to the entire western Mediterranean. In the subsequent peace treaty in 241 BC