GEOGRAPHERS from Italy

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Italian Geographers of all time. This list of famous Italian Geographers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Fra Mauro (1385 - 1459)

With an HPI of 59.79, Fra Mauro is the most famous Italian Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages on wikipedia.

Fra Mauro, O.S.B. Cam., (c.1400–1464) was an Italian (Venetian) cartographer who lived in the Republic of Venice. He created the most detailed and accurate map of the world up until that time, the Fra Mauro map. Mauro was a monk of the Camaldolese Monastery of St. Michael, located on the island of Murano in the Venetian Lagoon. It was there that he maintained a cartography workshop. He also was employed by some very powerful men like Prince Henry the Navigator.

2. Vincenzo Coronelli (1650 - 1718)

With an HPI of 56.90, Vincenzo Coronelli is the 2nd most famous Italian Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (August 16, 1650 – December 9, 1718) was an Italian Franciscan friar, cosmographer, cartographer, publisher, and encyclopedist known in particular for his atlases and globes. He spent most of his life in Venice.

3. Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485 - 1557)

With an HPI of 50.74, Giovanni Battista Ramusio is the 3rd most famous Italian Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Giovanni Battista Ramusio (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista raˈmuːzjo]; July 20, 1485 – July 10, 1557) was an Italian geographer and travel writer. Born in Treviso, Italy, at that time in the Republic of Venice, Ramusio was the son of Paolo Ramusio, a magistrate of the Venetian city-state. In 1505 young Giovanni took a position as secretary to Aloisio Mocenigo, of the patrician Mocenigo family, then serving as the Republic's ambassador to France. Ramusio would spend the rest of his career in Venetian service. He was keenly interested in geography, and his position ensured that he would receive news of all the latest discoveries from explorers around Europe as they were sent back to Venice. A learned man, fluent in several languages, he began to compile these documents and translated them into Italian, then the most widely understood of the European languages. He died in Padua.