Abstract

This article aims at the reconstruction of Lucio Gambi's complex research history, dealing mainly with two aspects that are still crucial nowadays. The first aspect is the geographical concept of landscape. The object of Gambi's criticism in the 1950s and '60s, the concept of landscape played a much more important role in the scholar's later work, developing in the most prolific years of his research, the 1970s, down to 1980s and '90s. The revision of this concept - which was not limited to the strictly geographical sphere - is chiefly associated here with the application of landscape analysis to territory planning and the protection of the historical and environmental heritage. In this per¬spective the article also highlights how the influence of history and philology contributed to Gambi's resistance to the dominant ideas of spatialism and culturalism. In fact, the other issue the article deals with is the relationship between history and geography. More specifically, we analyse the role played by historical reviews such as "Annales E.S.C." and "Quaderni Storici" - with their approach to human geography, especially French - in the shaping of Lucio Gambi's geographical theories and practice.