Over time, travel literature, in particular travel to the East, has been a source of valuable documentation of otherwise little-known realities, but has also contributed to the construction, in the so-called Western culture, of stereotyped visions far from actual reality. This has been repeatedly highlighted, in particular since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) and subsequently in numerous other works resulting from the intense debate that Said's work has brought to light. The course, which focuses primarily on travel documentation in Iran and adjacent areas in the nineteenth century, aims to provide students with the basic tools to (1) recognize whether and to what extent the travel records of European travelers in Western and Central Asia, and specifically in Iran, have been used to create a concept of negative otherness; (2) to know the social and cultural reality of the Iranian world in the Qajar era (XIX - early XX century), through the analysis of the experiences of some typologically very different Italian travelers and the documentation that has come down to us of their experiences; (3) understand the interdisciplinary value of information conveyed by travellers; (4) to evaluate the socio-cultural environment of origin and the ideological formation of travellers, which have strongly influenced their experiences and analyses transmitted directly or indirectly in travel reports. More in detail, after a brief review of the type of Italian travelers in Iran over the centuries, the travelers who will be treated, compared, and whose image of the culture and people of those places will be evaluated, are: (1) Gaetano Osculati, traveler and scholar of natural sciences and Felice De Vecchi, painter passionate about natural sciences and archeology, traveling together in Iran in 1841 (G. Osculati, Note d'un viaggio nella Persia e nelle Indie Orientali; F. De Vecchi, Giornale di carovana); (2) Joseph Anaclerius, military resident in Persia from 1862 to 1865 (Anaclerius, Persia descritta); (3) Eteocle Lorini, Italian economist and politician, resident in Persia 1897-1899 to write a monograph on behalf of the Italian Ministry of the Treasury (E. Lorini, La Persia economica contemporanea).