GLI INIZI DELLA CARTOGRAFIA UMANISTICA TRA PETRARCA E PAOLINO DA VENEZIA: DALLA PICTURA ITALIAE ALLA GRATA PICTURA DELLA PENISOLA ITALIANA ABSTRACT In order to better understand and rediscover the past, Petrarch wanted to define the toponyms of classical literature, which serve to both physically characterize the world of Antiquity, and scientifically explain the works of the classics. The poet started a diachronic redefinition of geography, and compared texts and maps to establish, with philological accuracy, the geographical references of the Greek and Roman traditions. According to Flavio Biondo’s Italia illustrate, the results of Petrarch’s research culminated in the drawing of a pictura Italiae—a map of Italy—which was a physical representation of Italian geography, attributed to the poet. In the past, scholars doubted the map’s existence. Nevertheless, recent studies by Nathalie Bouloux and Paolo Pontari proved that the pictura did, in fact, exist. This map has been compared to those of Paulinus of Venice, a Franciscan bishop of Pozzuoli and a regular of the Angevine court during the same years. Like Petrarch, Paulinus considered geography an instrument to better understand history, and he included geographical treatises and maps in his manuscripts, including the first known geographical and chorographical representations of the Italian peninsula in the codex Vat. Lat. 1960. Modern scholars consider Paulinus’s maps to be an independent work that probably influenced Petrarch. As a result of the similarity in the work, however, other scholars believe that Biondo may have wrongly attributed Paulinus’s maps to Petrarch as the pictura Italiae. In my article, I analyze the relationship between Petrarch’s and Paulinus’s works, review and dispute previous studies, and propose a new interpretation of the connection between Petrarch and Paulinus. I demonstrate that Paulinus’s maps are not the result of independent research and work, but probably copies of Petrarch’s original, now lost, material. Therefore, Petrarch should be considered not only the first geographer, but also the first cartographer of the modern era, which revived and launched a new humanistic discipline. KEYWORDS Petrarch, Paulinus of Venice, Map of Italy, Cartography, Geography La riscoperta dei classici avviata da Petrarca nel XIV secolo coinvolse, tra gli altri, gli studi geografici grazie al recupero delle opere dei geografi latini, in particolare la Chorographia di Pomponio Mela, la Naturalis historia di Plinio e il De fluminibus, fontibus, lacubus, nemoribus, paludibus, fontibus, gentibus, per litteras libellus di Vibio Sequestre, e di quelli greci, nello specifico la Geographia di Tolomeo e la Geographica di Strabone. Nei primi anni del XV secolo forte impulso alla ricerca venne dato dalla traduzione in latino dell’opera tolemaica da parte di Iacopo di Angelo da Scarperia: superando le mappae mundi medievali, il cui scopo era di rappresentare schematicamente il mondo conosciuto e delineare didatticamente le zone climatiche e i diversi popoli all’interno di una forma