45/2 - Qualestoria. Rivista di storia contemporanea. Anno XLV, N.ro 2, Dicembre 2017

The article analyzes some of the many testimonies written by Italian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land between the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the promulgation of the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate, dedicated to the relations between the Catholic Church and non Christian religions. Such an extended time frame allows to achieve two goals. The first is to identify the linguistic transformations in this literary corpus in regards to the representation of the Middle Eastern world through the travel books written by Christian pilgrims, a source so far unused. The second goal concerns the perception that the Catholics had of Judaism in its historical, political and religious dimension, and how these have changed over the decades. By analyzing the linguistic, cultural and ideologi-cal frames used in these travel accounts to describe the complex Palestinian reality first, and the Israeli one after, it will be possible to adopt a different perspective.