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. 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. After studying in Paris 1549-54 he returned to Scotland and became a Parish Priest. Climbing the ranks he became Queen Mary’s ecclesiastical advisor. After one of his visits to her whilst in jail in England he himself was arrested for conspiracy. 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. Provenance: private English collection since 1980. Adams L541; Fleet, Christopher, Margaret Wilkes and Charles W. J. Withers. (2011). ‘Scotland. Mapping the Nation’ pp. 40 & 48; Moir, D. G. (1973). ‘The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850’ pp. 163-5; Skelton, Raleigh A. (1951). ‘Bishop Leslie’s Maps of Scotland’, 1578, in Imago Mundi VII pp. 103-6.