The new image of Islam that spread in sixteenth-century Protestant Europe marks a fundamental shift in the relationship with the ‘Other’ in modern times. The analysis carried out in this essay focuses on the cultural initiatives and reflections of the non conformist scholars and reformers, Theodor Bibliander (1506-1564) and Giovanni Leonardo Sartori (1500?-1556). These two intellectuals transformed the political role of the religious and political image of the Turkish Ottoman world. From enemy par excellence of the Christian society, and the very embodiment of evil, Islam became for them an object of enquiry, discussion and examination. It contributed also to the birth of a new, ethical and almost a-dogmatic, conception of Christianity. Bibliander’s and Sartori’s prospect was undoubtedly a Christian one. For them the final aim of apprehending the religious ‘Other’ still consisted in its inclusion within Christianity. However, their ideas contain in embryonic form the future developments of the modern attitude to ‘other’ cultures and religions and to religion itself. This research therefore points to identify some significant elements of the birth of the modern idea of religious tolerance.
