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This essay discusses the formation of “Italian travellers to Iran” as both a popular idea and scientific category. In the three decades after the Second World War, Italy and Iran were going through deep transformations and entered a phase of intense political, economic and cultural relations. In this context, scholarly interests and political agendas jointly contributed to a representation of past travellers as the manifestation of an imagined and almost eternal connection between the two civilizations. This narrative served to rhetorically enhance the role played by both countries in the history of mankind, and the contribution they could still give to humanity as nations among nations. However, these events may have also left their mark on how the history of connections between Italy and Iran, and the history of Iranian studies in Italy, are represented in scholarly milieus.

In Europe, the historical representation and narration of China and the Orient more in general from an outsider’s point of view has conjured up an exotic and a-historical image of a poetical, mystical and refined civilization. In Walpole’s Britain, for example, “the argument from the Chinese”—namely, the admiration for a prosperous and densely populated kingdom which did not belong to a single faith—was frequently used in religious disputes when claiming a wider or more coherent policy of tolerance or seeking to cut down the prerogatives of the clerical hierarchies. This chapter explores further Western uses of "the argument from the Chinese" in modern times and through different media (Antonioni; Yanne; Martin).

This book, designed as a resource for scholars, educators, activists and non-specialist readers, presents the results of new research on the role of Romani groups in European culture and society since the nineteenth century. Its specific focus is on the ways in which Romani actors, in their interactions with non-Romanies, have contributed to shaping Europe’s public spaces. Twelve chapters recount the experiences and accomplishments of individuals and families, from across Europe (England, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Finland) and Canada. All based on new research, and maintaining a focus on the real lives and activities of Romani people rather than on the perspective of the majority societies, these studies exemplify the creative presence of Romani people in the fields of politics, economics and culture. We see them as writers, artists and performers, political activists and resistance fighters, traders and entrepreneurs, circus and cinema managers and purveyors of popular science. Sensitive to the ambivalent position from which Roma act, the cases are linked and contextualized by a general introduction and by section introductions written by leading scholars of Romani studies with expertise in history, ethnography, musicology, literary and discourse studies and visual culture. The volume is richly illustrated, including many images that have never been published before, and includes an extensive bibliography / guide to further reading. Contributors to the volume: Begoña Barrera, Beatriz Carrillo de los Reyes, Malte Gasche, Paweł Lechowski, Anna G. Piotrowska, Laurence Prempain, Juan Pro, Eve Rosenhaft, Carolina García Sanz, María Sierra, and Tamara West.

The Italian travellers to the East during the 16th century left us some important works that they elaborated after their return to their homeland, works whose declared motivation was not only to leave a tangible memory of their life experiences but also to offer the cultured public of Old Europe and people interested in those geographical areas for professional reasons, useful material for a better understanding of the world. These texts, produced in accordance with certain literary canons that were already relatively well defined, are often documents capable of testifying to travel experiences in the era of the great geographical explorations in the Far East after Vasco da Gama’s voyage.