A View from Afar: Petruccio Ubaldini’s Descrittione del Regno di Scotia

Ubaldini’s Descrittione del Regno di Scotia, et delle Isole sue adjacenti, a translation and revision of Boece’s Chronicle of Scotland, dedicated to Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was published in 1588 in London by the enterprising printer John Wolfe who, as he had done on previous occasions, used a fictitious place of publication, indicating on the frontispiece Antwerp rather than the English capital. This chapter investigates the Descrittione in view of its dedicatee and of the circumstances in which Ubaldini wrote it. Ubaldini was an Italian diplomat who had come to London in 1564, carrying letters from Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, to Arundel and William Paget, two Catholics at the English court, with the avowed intent, however, of working for the Protestant Tudor court. He visited Ireland (1579), the French court (1580) and the Low Countries (1586) as a diplomat, but there is no record of a visit to Scotland. An analysis of his Descrittione helps to throw light on Anglo-Scottish relations ‘under Italian eyes’, highlighting how Ubaldini exploits Boece’s material by giving it a new ideological slant, and turning it to use in his campaign to ingratiate himself with English political potentates.