Italian Scholarship on Iran (An Outline, 1557–1987)

Abstract

The origins of Iranian studies in Italy go back to the second half of the sixteenth century, when there developed a scholarly approach based on a recognition of Persian linguistic and literary evidence. The modern course of scholarly understanding was preceded, and prepared, by a process of political observation and geographical discovery of Iran, which began exactly a century before, with the accession of Uzun Hasan Aqqoyunlu (1457-1478).Iran had then emerged as an autonomous power which on its western frontier contested the power of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmet Fatih, the conqueror of Constantinople (renamed Istanbul) in 1453, was the great rival both of Iran and of Venice for the control of traffic and commerce between Asia and the Mediterranean. Hence the Papal State, interested in the salvation of souls, and the Republic of Venice, the hegemonical maritime power of the Mediterranean's eastern basin, established close diplomatic relations and pacts of alliance first with Uzun Hasan and then with the Safavids.