An extremely rare Italian derivative of Bishop Leslie’s folio map of 1578, one of the earliest printed maps of Scotland. The first known printed map survives in just the one known example and is given the date c.1561 (Bifolco I p. 780). It resides in the National Library of Scotland and is thought it might be the work of Paolo Forlani. This is followed by the small engraving in Tommaso Porcacchi’s ‘L’Isole Piu Famose del Mondo’ of 1572. The following year heralded the great map by Abraham Ortelius followed by a reduction at the hand of Philip Galle in 1577. In 1578 Bishop John Leslie published his history of Scotland entitled ‘De Origine, Moribus, et Rebus Gestis Scotorum’ in Rome. It contained this small map of Scotland. A larger version by Natale Bonifacio (1538-92) was separately issued in the same year. It is modified from the Ortelius of 1573.

John Leslie (1527-96) was born in Inverness-Shire and graduated from the University of Aberdeen. He studied for five years in Paris between 1549 and 1554 before he returned to Scotland and became a Parish Priest. Climbing the ranks he became Queen Mary’s ecclesiastical advisor. He was arrested for conspiracy in England following a visit to her whilst in jail. After a short stay in the Tower of London he was released and shortly after left the country, settling in Rome in 1575 in order to represent the Queen at the Papal Court. Following this publication he took a position in Rouen before dying near Brussels in 1596. (Fleet, Wilkes etc.)

Moir cites that the XI Bishops referred to in the Bonifacio map are copied here as ‘XL’. Also the districts of Marria and Gariotha are combined into one toponym – ‘Magarriothat’. Provenance: private English collection since 1980. Refer Bifolco & Ronca (2018) I p. 782 (Bonifacio map); Fleet, Wilkes and Withers (2011) pp. 40 & 48; Moir (1973) pp. 163-5; refer Skelton (1951). ‘Bishop Leslie’s Maps of Scotland, 1578’, in Imago Mundi VII pp. 103-6.