Call for Papers | History of Map Collecting

Posted in Calls for Papers by Editor on February 21, 2025

History of Map Collecting: Vienna, Central Europe, and Beyond
University of Vienna, 12 June 2025

Organized by Eva Chodějovská and Silvia Tammaro

Proposals due by 17 March 2025

This one-day event will be held on 12 June 2025 at University of Vienna. Organised jointly by the Vienna Center for the History of Collecting (University of Vienna, Austria) and the Moravian Library in Brno (Czech Republic), the conference will be accompanied by a poster exhibition on Bernard Paul Moll (1697–1780) and his map collection, formed in 18th-century Vienna and now preserved at the Moravian Library.

Vienna—thanks to personalities of international fame such as the archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Eugene of Savoy, Albert von Sachsen-Teschen, and others—was one of the most important centres of collecting in the early modern period. This international conference aims to go beyond the general public’s conceptions of the collecting of paintings, drawings, and sculptures in two ways. Firstly, to enlarge the group of collected objects to printed sheets with a special focus on maps; secondly, there are important pieces of collectors’ interests of this kind kept in Vienna worth displaying and discussing (including the world-famous Blaeu-Van der Hem Atlas preserved in the Austrian National Library). Based on a long-lasting scholarly discussion of maps as objects of art and products of science, we welcome case studies addressing the practices of map collecting from the 17th to 20th centuries, including the creation of composite atlases in Central Europe.

A paper title, an abstract of 5–8 sentences, and a short CV in English are welcome by 17 March 2025. The acceptance notification is scheduled on 31 March 2025. Presentations should be 20 minutes. The conference language is English. Travel costs will be reimbursed up to €200. The conference is supported by “Stadt Wien Kultur/City of Vienna Culture.” Should you have further questions, please contact the organisers, Eva Chodějovská (chodejovska@mzk.cz) and Silvia Tammaro (silvia.tammaro@univie.ac.at).