Acknowledgements
When I first laid eyes on the section in Pieter de Graeffâs inventory entitled âDe Boeken kamerâ my interest was immediately piqued. The note at the end of the section mentioning a âquantity of booksâ housed within further sparked my curiosity to find out more about this library and its contents. Although I had begun to imagine what the library might have looked like, I had not yet grasped that this seemingly minor case study from my postdoctoral research would provide material ample enough to evolve into a monograph. I am much indebted to Paul Hoftijzer, who first saw the potential of this research when he read the drafts of two (admittedly too long) articles I had written on this library and suggested that they could be the basis for a book on the subject. Paul has been a pillar of support throughout the research process, offering insightful commentary that has greatly improved the manuscript. Our numerous discussions on various aspects of this library have always left me energized and inspired, each time with a renewed sense of curiosity to delve deeper into the topic. I would also like to thank the Library of the Written Word series editors Andrew Pettegree for enthusiastically accepting the manuscript proposal and for his encouraging feedback on the first draft, and Arthur der Weduwen for his availability in answering my question on the USTC records and his final check to the manuscript draft.
I started this research during my postdoctoral appointment in the NWO- funded Virtual Interiors project (2018â2022). This project has given me the opportunity to immerse myself in the fascinating world of seventeenth- century Amsterdam and to work within an interdisciplinary and inspiring team. I thank the project initiators Charles van den Heuvel, Julia Noordegraaf and Gabri van Tussenbroek and my fellow team members Weixuan Li, Hugo Huurdeman, Bart Reuvekamp and Saan Rashid. Their complementary expertise, diverse perspectives and innovative approaches have fostered engaging discussions and fruitful exchanges. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Bart Reuvekamp for helping me explore the De Graeff family archive and for preparing transcriptions of several of the entries from De Graeffâs VOC almanacs and the probate inventory of the Herengracht house that I used in this monograph. A special thanks goes to Judith Brouwer (Huygens Institute), who meticulously checked and integrated Bartâs and my transcriptions. This work has served me as excellent palaeographical training in getting used to De Graeffâs handwriting and language. Without it, I would not have been able to read his almanacs and other archival documents myself in order to extract and piece together the information needed for this monograph. Working with Weixuan Li on the analysis of Pieter de Graeff and Jacoba Bickerâs painting collection, on the other hand, has deepened my understanding of the dynamics of self-representation and status display of the Amsterdam elite. Many thanks also to Gabri van Tussenbroek, who has been an invaluable resource for my questions on the building historical aspects of Herengracht 573, and to Julia Noordegraaf, a reference point throughout this research.
Besides Paul Hoftijzer and Andrew Pettegree, who read and commented on the entire manuscript, I am grateful to Paul Dijstelberge, Frans A. Janssen, Gabri van Tussenbroek and Kees Zandvliet for their feedback on individual chapters. I would like to thank also Alex Alsemgeest, Astrid C. Balsem, Dirk Jan Biemond, Yuri van der Linden, Frédérique Hamm, Dirk van Miert, Otto Lankhorst, Emile Schrijver, Maria Tkachenko, Jeroen Vandommele, Pieter Vlaardingerbroek and Heide Warncke for sharing their knowledge with me as well as helping me retrieve materials for this research. I express my gratitude to the personnel of the Rijksmuseum, Allard Pierson and Leiden University libraries and the Amsterdam City Archives for their helpful assistance. I would also like to acknowledge the digitization efforts of these institutions, which considerably facilitated my research and will offer exciting new opportunities for further exploration and analysis of historical documents.
I prepared the interactive and annotated 3D environment of the library within the Pure3D project, led by Costas Papadopoulos and Susan Schreibman (Maastricht University). I thank the Pure3D project team and my fellow Pure3D participants for their support and feedback during the process, and Kelly Gillikin-Schoueri in particular for her help with the technical issues I encountered. Thanks also to the reviewers of the 3D environment for their useful comments and suggestions. My deepest appreciation goes to the Smithsonian team who developed the Voyager web viewer that we used for creating and annotating our 3D scenes. It is very exciting to see how the field of enriched 3D publications is expanding and progressing. I would like to express my gratitude also to my colleagues at the 4D Research Lab of the University of Amsterdam for its always stimulating and inspiring work environment and to Leon van Wissen (CREATE) for his suggestions on the standardized ontologies to include in the book catalogueâs annotated transcription. Special thanks to Jim Gibbons for his copyediting of the text and help in preparing the bibliography for this monograph. At Brill, I would like to thank Liesbeth Hugenholtz and, more recently, Ivo Romein, Arjan van Dijk, Wai Min Kan and Theo Joppe, who ensured a smooth publication process.
Completing this book would not have been possible without the unwavering support and encouragement from my family. As always, my husband Jan, and our daughters Alice and Aurora have been my cornerstone. They were able to inject a healthy dose of humour that lightened up and put into prospective whatever obstacle I came across in this research. They also made sure to burst my seventeenth-century bubble and bring me back to the twenty-first century when I mentioned my latest findings once too often, and they never missed the opportunity to make fun of me when I accidentally wrote contemporary Dutch words with seventeenth-century spellings or used words that are nowadays out of fashion.
Finally, my parents, Maria and Renato, have been an invaluable support through this research. They were engaged with this topic from the start and offered practical help. Working together via Skype on checking the book auction catalogueâs transcription or on transcribing and translating De Graeffâs diploma has helped us navigate the long time we were kept apart during the covid-19 pandemic. Sadly, my father could not see this work brought to completion. I dedicate this book to him.