Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck

Current position

Marianne Ritsema van Eck is assistant professor in medieval history at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam since January 2024. 

Academic interests

Marianne is a historian of religion specialized in late medieval and early modern period, with a particular interest in religious expressions at the intersection of visual, material, and textual culture. Her areas of expertise are Franciscan studies, the cult of the saints, pilgrimage and travel to the Middle East, historical cartography, and Italian sacri monti.

As Postdoctoral Fellow at the Norwegian Institute in Rome, she developed the project St Helena and the city of Rome: re-inventing the late antique Christian past in early modernity (ca. 1450-1650). This project investigated the social, ideological, and political agendas behind the creation of an innovative early-Christian topography for the city of Rome in early modernity (ca. 1450-1650) through the figure of Empress Helena (ca. 250-330). While previously there had been few links between Helena and Rome, new heritage locations and histories were being invented in early modernity. The project addresses the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of this process, which have remained unexplored so far, because historians and art historians have focused either on texts or images. Therefore, I chart the development of the Roman Helena legend by studying material culture (sacred sites and objects) and textual culture (stories) in tandem. Moreover, this legend offers an excellent case study to assess how history may be re-written through a complex cross-fertilization between stories, iconic objects and locations. 

Courses taught

• ROMA2020 – Roma – place and symbol
• KUN2500 – Aktuelle temaer i kunsthistorie / KUN4500 – Aktuelle temaer i kunsthistorie (2022 & 2023: medieval religious objects and images).

Background

Before coming to the Norwegian Institute in Rome, I was assistant professor in medieval history at Leiden University in the Netherlands. In June 2017 I defended my PhD dissertation at the University of Amsterdam with the distinction cum laude.

Publications

Monographs

• The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650): Theology, Travel, and Territoriality. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2019.

Journal articles 

• “After Francis, Towards the Holy Land. Ritsema van Eck legge Evangelisti”, Storica. Rivista quadrimestrale 81 (2021): 197-211.
• “Genealogy as a Heuristic Device for Franciscan Order History in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity: Texts and Trees”, Franciscan Studies 77 (2019): 135-169. 
• “Custodes de l’Espace Sacré: La Construction de la Terre Sainte Franciscaine au Travers des Textes et des Sacri Monti (vers 1480-1650): Position de Thèse”, Études Franciscaines, n.s. 12, no. 1 (2019): 187-91
• “Graffiti in Medieval and Early Modern Religious Spaces: Illicit or Accepted Practice? The Case of the Sacro Monte at Varallo”, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 131, no. 1 (2018): 51-72.
• “Encounters with the Levant: The Late Medieval Illustrated Jerusalem Travelogue by Paul Walter von Guglingen”, Mediterranean Historical Review 32, no. 2 (2017): 153-188.

Book chapters

• "Helena on the Move: The Makings of a Medieval Saint,"  in Writing Holiness. Genre and Reception across Medieval Hagiography edited by Jessica Barr and Barbara Zimbalist, Cursor Mundi, 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), pp. 35-64.
• "Mapping Imagined Territory. Quaresmio's Chorographia and Later Franciscan Holy Land Maps," in Constructing and Representing Territory in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Mario Damen & Kim Overlaet (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021): 319-347.
• “Franciscaanse Jeruzalems in Italië: drie Sacri Monti nader bekeken (ca. 1480–1520)”, in Jeruzalem: Van Eden tot Heden, ed. by Thomas Hart & Josephine van den Bent, as part of Zenobia book-series (Hilversum: Verloren, 2020): 217-231.

Public engagement

• Book chapter: "1593 - A Combination of Scholarship and Piety. Van Adrichem's Influential Theatre of Biblical History," in Maps that made history: 1000 years of world history in 100 old maps, ed. by Martijn Storms et al. (Tielt: Lannoo, 2022): 40-43.

• The same in Dutch: "1593 - Een combinatie van geleerdheid en religiositeit. Van Adrichems invloedrijke theater van Bijbelse geografie" in Kaarten die geschiedenis schreven: 1000 jaar wereldgeschiedenis in 100 oude kaarten, ed. by Martijn Storms et al. (Tielt: Lannoo, 2022): 42-45.

• Blog post: “A Spectacular ´Map Theatre´: The 1593 edition of Christiaan Adrichem´s Theatrum Terrae Sanctae at Leiden Special collections,” in Leiden Special Collections blog (Leiden University, April 2020).
• Blog post: “Fake news in fifteenth-century Rome: The miraculous discovery of the Titulus Crucis relic”, in Leiden Medievalists Blog, ed. by Marlisa den Hartog, Thijs Porck, and Jerem van Duijl (Leiden University, May 2018).