Abstract: This article charts the dramatic shift in Antonio Tabucchi's representation of Portuguese empire, from a romanticized, Eurocentric depiction of imperialism in the 1984 text "Notturno indiano" to a portrayal of a brutal and repressive empire in his 1991 collection "L'angelo nero" and his 1997 novel "La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro." This abrupt change is located within the historiographical debates regarding empire which took place in Italy and Portugal from the 1970s onwards, and it is suggested that such a shift may be usefully viewed against the reassessment of Italian colonialism which occurred in Italy in the 1990s.