Marissa Griffioen is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, where she researches map encounters: cartographic experiences in the early modern period. She holds a BA in History from Leiden University and completed the MA in Book Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2019, specialising in the history of maps and mapping. After graduating, she worked on several cartography‑related research projects, including as a Brill Fellow (Scaliger Institute/Leiden University Libraries) and as a project assistant for the Maps in Context project (https://mapsincontext.nl/).

Her PhD project, Map Encounters in the Dutch Republic, focuses on map use and the development of cartographic literacy. Rather than the maps themselves, it centres on contextual sources in which map encounters are described and depicted. Using these sources, she investigates the material culture and cultural history of early modern maps, as well as the interaction between cartographic 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 development of cartographic literacy and the cultural history 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