Marissa Griffioen (1993) studied History at Leiden University and completed her M.A. in Book Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2019, specialising in historical cartography. After graduating, she worked as a Brill Fellow (Scaliger Institute/Leiden University Library) on map annotations in the Bodel Nijenhuis Collection and on the Maps in Context project - a searchable and relational web database.

Since 2022, she has been working as a PhD Candidate at the University of Amsterdam on the project Map Encounters in the Early Modern Dutch Republic, focusing on the circulation and use of maps in early modern society. She focuses on object-oriented research, with a particular interest in the material culture and cultural history of early modern maps, as well as the interaction between objects and their users. Marissa is a member of the Explokart research group and co-author of the Dutch handbook on historical cartography, Oude kaarten lezen (2023).

Key themes
Material Culture, Map Circulation and Use, Early Modern History, Materiality, Visual Culture, Reception History

Summary

This PhD project examines map encounters, focusing on cartographic experiences documented in early modern textual and visual sources. Traditionally, historians have concentrated on the content of maps and their makers. More recently, however, scholarship has shifted towards materiality and the material culture of maps (e.g., Dillon 2007; Carlton 2015; Brückner 2017; Rossetto 2019). This project explores a new encounter-oriented approach to maps. By analysing the spaces where maps were kept and used, the people involved, and the (sensory) experiences associated with these encounters, the project sheds new light on the circulation and use of maps in the past. The central research question is: how common and widespread were cartographic objects in early modern society?

To answer this question, the project focuses on the Dutch Republic – one of the European centres for maps in the early modern period. By tracing, collecting, and analysing these in visual and textual sources – including paintings, prints, travel journals, inventories, advertisements, and other records of map encounters – the project analyses what happened to cartographic objects after they were produced. How and why were they used? By whom, and in what ways? Addressing these questions will contribute to a deeper understanding of the cultural history and societal significance of cartographic objects in early modern Dutch society.

Supervisor(s): prof. dr. Bram Vannieuwenhuyze, dr. Djoeke van Netten
Affiliated with the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM), Explokart research group and Allard Pierson, Amsterdam
Duration of appointment: 2022-2027