Queen Mary’s Scotland ...as viewed from Venice
FOR an Italian who had never even visited Scotland, it’s not bad for a first attempt.
Drawn up in 1560 by cartographer Paolo Forlani, it is the oldest printed map of Scotland, offering a fascinating insight into place names and boundaries during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots.
The map, which was used by Venetian merchants and traders, was drawn largely based on latitudinal and longitudinal co-ordinates and stories provided by travellers.
It goes on display from today at the National Library of Scotland and is one of only three of Forlani’s original Scotland maps known to still be in existence.
They reveal interesting geographic discrepancies and different spellings of towns and cities from those used in the modern world.
National Library of Scotland map curator Paula Williams said: ‘For someone who never visited Scotland, I’m impressed by how close to accurate the map is. It’s a lot better than I could do if I were drawing freehand.
‘It’s been beautifully engraved backwards against a plate of copper.
‘There are some interesting rearrangements as Arbroath and Montrose seem to have swapped places and been moved much closer to Edinburgh.
‘And the spellings of different towns and places are not as we know them today. But back then there were no wrong ways of spelling different places.
‘Owning a map would also have been used as a status symbol from the higher classes and would obviously be handy for those, mostly based in Venice, who wanted to trade with Scotland.’
Edingburg (Edinburgh), Aberdonia (Aberdeen) and Enuernes (Inverness) are all positioned in roughly the right position.
Much of the map’s focus is on the East Coast as the major trading centre of that time, with hubs illustrated by castles and cathedrals.
Scotland’s largest city today, Glasco (Glasgow) is not given much prominence, with most of it still to be built.
The map’s largest inaccuracies can be seen in the Western Isles, which have an unrecognisable shape and are bundled much closer together than in reality, while Fifa (Fife) has shrunk.
Forlani, who came from Verona but worked as a cartographer in Renaissance Venice, also drew up maps of the Americas as well as European countries.