Mapping the Enlightenment

Mapping the Enlightenment is an attempt to map the intellectual networks of the Enlightenment in Europe. It aims to map both the scientific centers in Europe and the travels of scholars between these centers. Through visualizing these intellectual networks and the movements of scholars Mapping the Enlightenment hopes to provide an insight into the exchange of knowledge that shaped European science and technology in the 18th Century.

Currently Mapping the Environment has mapped the travels of a number of Greek-speaking Enlightenment scholars. You can overlay the known movements of one or more of these scholars on top of the website's interactive map. You can also select major scientific centers in Europe to view all the scholars routes that passed through the selected location. It is also possible to view the scholars' movements on the map filtered by different scholarly contexts, for example teaching, publishing or political activity.


The Enlightenment's influence on cartography can be best seen in the maps of the Cassini family. The Carte de France or the Cassini Maps were created by four generations of the Cassini family in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Cassini Maps were the first truly accurate national survey based on geodetic triangulation. This first scientific trigonometric national survey owes much to the Age of Enlightenment and its belief in reason, the scientific method and constitutional government.

You can view all 182 pages of the Cassini Maps overlaid on top of Google Maps at the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.