Grata pictura and mapa duplex. Paolino Minorita’s Late Medieval Map of Rome as an Epistemological Instrument of a Historiographer

Interest in the well-known so-called oldest medieval map of Rome, a drawing in the Chronologia Magna di Paolino Minorita executed in the first half of the fourteenth century, has until now focused mainly on its representation of the historical city itself. This article seeks instead to draw attention to the codicological and theoretical context of the map, i. e. the historical interest of its commissioner in the chronological and topographical order of history. The author, Paolino Minorita, explains in his prologues the values of the grata pictura (a compilation of data in chronological order that allows an overview) and the mapa duplex, which comprises visual and verbal signs. Seen from this perspective, the map becomes an epistemological instrument of the historiographer and helps us to understand why the first (at least the first known) medieval map of Rome was drawn in this context.