[pluma]

> XVIII to XIX century

This is off topic, but what is up with the Roman numerals when referring to centuries?

I tried googling it but came up empty. I can't find any authoritative source for this being a thing in any particular dialect of English and at least one person I've seen using this was a native Russian speaker. Google results only indicate that this is common in Spanish and maybe Polish.

Am I missing something? Is this a thing in American or British academia? Is it part of some popular newspaper's house styles? As a non-native speaker I find this incredibly peculiar.

[toyg]

I'm actually Italian; that's the standard way to refer to centuries in Italian academia, and I believe it's common across the EU. It's probably linked to traditional research usage by Catholic scholars writing in Latin. It's also much more concise: XIX would become "diciannovesimo" in Italian...