Giovanni Botero (1533-1617) was born in Bene, Piemonte. He received a Jesuit education and entered the Order, becoming a teacher of rhetoric and philosophy in Italy and France. He was one of the greatest economists of the sixteenth century and considered a precursor of Malthus. He was expelled from the Order after delivering a sermon where he criticized the worldly authority of the Pope. His first geographical work, Le Relationi Universali, was published in 1591 but contained no maps.
(Hubbard)