The Lion of the Low Countries
by Ian McKayUNDOUBTEDLY one of the more famous of cartographic curiosities, the ‘Leo Belgicus’ map, in which the 17 provinces of the Low Countries are depicted in the form of a lion, was first introduced by Michael Eitzinger as part of a topographical and historical account of the Netherlands, published in Cologne in 1583.
It may have been just an inspired piece of superimposition, or perhaps the idea was suggested by the…