The development of the image 'Turk' in Italy through 'Della letteratura de Turchi' of Giambattista Dona

Soykut M.

JOURNAL OF MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES, cilt.9, sa.2, ss.175-203, 1999 (AHCI) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 9 Sayı: 2
  • Basım Tarihi: 1999
  • Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Scopus, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Historical Abstracts, Index Islamicus, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, Political Science Complete, Sociological abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.175-203
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

Islam represented for Italy and Europe a threat of military nature, as well as that of a cultural one in terms of representing the 'other' vis-a-vis Europe. Europe defined itself along the lines of Christendom, especially beginning with the conquest of Spain and Sicily by the Arabs in the eighth and ninth centuries. As a result of the rapid Ottoman conquests in Eastern Europe, from the midst of the fifteenth century onwards what came into European mind when thinking of Islam was the Ottoman Turks. While the image of Islam as ell as that of the 'Turk' served to define 'Europeanness' as opposed to the 'other', this image gradually started to change towards the end of the seventeenth century with the Ottoman decline.