Pieter Pourbus’ Map of the Liberty of Bruges (1561-1571). An Overview of the State of Research

This paper aims to bring a state of the art of the research into Pieter Pourbus’ painted map of the Liberty of Bruges. The often-alleged ‘unicity’ of the map is taken as a starting point to explore the state of research about this map. First, we try to reconstruct a so-called ‘travelogue’ and examine how the map and its copy were transmitted over the ages. Next, an overview of the main researchers and the prevailing perspectives is followed by the question if and why the map has received relatively little academic attention so far. Further, we analyse the way Pourbus’ map of the Liberty and his cartographic oeuvre at large, was rooted in both 16th-century pictorial art and land surveying, after which we problematize modern classifications of 16th-century mapmaking. Finally, we provide a summary of all the technical aspects of Pourbus’ map of the Liberty of Bruges and combine this with the proposition of a new research agenda with specific research questions.