International symposium

Mapping aristocratic estates: manors, forests and gardens (Europe, 16th–19th centuries)

Organisers : Centre de recherche du château de Versailles

Whether for the purpose of surveying or describing the land, developing it, exploiting it or promoting it, the map gradually established itself as one of the primary tools for the appropriation of aristocratic estates in modern Europe. This cartography, widely used by historians of parks and gardens, forests and estates, has, however, rarely been studied in its own right [BOUDON, 1977, BOUDON 1991, ROSTAING, 2005; FRICHEAU, 2010]. This conference therefore aims to examine the methods of its production, use and dissemination, whilst exploring its role in the transformation of the environment and in the reconfiguration of an aristocracy that placed land ownership at the very foundation of its social identity.