A Passage to Italy: Contacts and Interactions between Orient and Occident in the 19th Century

My research is based on the travel accounts of several Arab intellectuals who, starting from the first half of the 19th century, came to Europe where they stopped off in Italy too. The texts they have left open the way to two types of analysis. The first concerns their typology: they are by Egyptian, Tunisian and Syrian-Lebanese writers and can be collocated within the framework of travel accounts where they are characterized by the fact that the Rihla is now directed towards the West, to a Europe that arouses interest because of its scientific and technological progress although the stimulus for the journey still continues to be the concept of talab al-‘ilm or, in other words, “the search for knowledge” now reinterpreted according to the dictates of modernity. The second type of analysis brings us to the concept of personal identity and our relation with the Other. Although the traveler brings with him his own expectations and cultural baggage which inevitably condition his actual experience on the journey, he also reflects on his own experiences and self-perception by comparing himself with a vision of the Other. From this point of view the writings in question are a source of interesting indications both because of the way the countries of Europe - including Italy - with all their differences are reflected in the penetrating view of these Arab writers and above all because of the way in which the vision of the Other influences their perception of themselves within a historical context that is rich in contradictions and marked by the advent of Nahda.