:Marin Mersenne - lived in a 700 year old (1200 year old?) kingdom/region of "France". Francesco Maurolico - Lived on an island outside of and 300 years before the nation of "Italy". Don't really see the comparison. If you making some kind of semantic claim based on how many times you can spot him called "Italian" you should see WP:OR. I don't see it in a strict Google book search, vast majority of sources have him as "Born in Sicily to a Greek family". If you want to make a case for modern nationalities being linked to historical people then you are arguing in the wrong place, you should take it up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies.       

 ==Greek origin / Greek ethnicity?==