ABSTRACT
The chapter deals with the translation of the real act of travelling in travel narrations by three Italian travellers in the Ottoman Empire: Lugi Ferdinando Marsili, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri and Giuseppe Sorio. Using experience as an epistemological tool and leaving behind the scholastic principle of authority, the three authors used their concrete physical act of moving in a new space for transmitting information on cultural otherness to an enlarged Italian audience. The ability of authors to overcome prejudices in their narratives of their encounters with Ottoman culture and society should not be taken for granted. In fact, of the three of them, only Giuseppe Sorio showed a real openness in cultural perspective. Nevertheless, for all of them, experience provided a ‘Turk’ with flesh and bones, and transformed him into someone whom it was necessary to deal with, even if they were only ‘standing’ rather than ‘tolerating’ diversity. The three texts provide a greater articulation and sensitivity in the definition of diversity itself, which, through their dissemination and editorial success, also had an effect on the mentality of these authors’ readers in the Italian peninsula.
