This essay concentrates on the representation of the Romany community, located outside Florence, in Tabucchi’s Gli Zingari e il Rinascimento: Vivere da Rom a Firenze (1999). Tabucchi’s short text, which combines personal reflection and reportage, contrasts Florence’s reputation as the cradle of the Renaissance and its capitalization on this image for commercial purposes, with the plight of the marginalized Rom living in camps on Florence’s outskirts. Drawing on theories of identity, alterity and violence (Sen) and language (Faloppa), this chapter examines how Tabucchi, while clearly attempting to champion the cause of the disenfranchised Rom, in certain instances links them with images of abjection. Working with the notion of spaces of exclusion (Sibley, Cresswell) or heterotopias and ethnic alterity, this piece analyzes Tabucchi’s depiction of the nomadic community and its neglect on the part of Florentine authorities, whereby this liminal space or becomes emblematic of ethnic and socio-economic oppression.