The Making of Borders: Cartography and Early Modern Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic
Thu, Mar 19
|Museum of Vancouver
A talk by Dr. Katharina N. Piechocki (University of British Columbia) followed by a round table with Heritage Branch archivist Genevieve Weber and toponymist Thomas Trent – In English – In person and on Zoom
Time & Location
Mar 19, 2026, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. PDT
Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9, Canada
About the Event
The Dante Alighieri Society of BC in Vancouver, in collaboration with the Museum of Vancouver and the Consulate General Italy in Vancouver, invites you to an in-person talk by Dr. Katharina Piechocki
"The Making of Borders: Cartography and Early Modern Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic"
How did mapmakers, historians and poets imagine Europe’s ever-changing borders at the dawn of modernity? Drawing on a multilingual archive of maps and texts from Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Poland,
Dr. Piechocki explores the arbitrary emergence of Europe’s eastern and western boundaries–from the Black Sea to the Atlantic–and traces today’s concept of linear national borders back to the fifteenth century and Europe’s transatlantic expansion.
The talk will be followed by a round table with Heritage Branch archivist Genevieve Weber and toponymist Thomas Trent, who will discuss map naming and the coexistence of Indigenous, English, and French place names in Canada. The discussion will…