'Romantic' traces to Latin 'romanice' (in the Roman tongue) — from vernacular tales to love itself.
Conducive to or characterized by feelings of love and emotional excitement; of, relating to, or denoting the artistic and literary movement of Romanticism (late 18th–mid 19th century), which emphasized emotion, individualism, and the glorification of nature and the past.
From French 'romantique,' from earlier 'romant' (a romance, a tale in the vernacular), from Old French 'romanz' (in the Roman language, i.e., in the vernacular rather than Latin), from Vulgar Latin 'rōmānicē' (in the Roman manner, in the popular language), from 'Rōmānicus' (Roman). The chain runs: the city Rome → the Roman people → their language → the vernacular languages descended from it → stories
The word 'romantic' literally means 'like something written in a Roman language.' Medieval scholars wrote serious works in Latin; popular adventure stories were written in the vernacular Romance languages and called 'romances.' Because these tales featured knights, quests, and love affairs, 'romantic' came to mean '