302 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR, 



hogs, and cheese; manufactured goods of silk and leather; 

 cordage, sail-cloth, wax, candles, sulphur, and verdigris, were 

 articles of export. The imports comprehended manufactures, 

 timber, dye-stuffs, drugs, salt fish, wool and wax, hardware 

 and metals, some of which reached Ancona only in course of 

 transit. 



OTHER ITALIAN STATES. 



The republics of Italy were so numerous in the Middle Ages, 

 and their struggles and vicissitudes of fortune so frequent, that 

 even to enumerate a few facts concerning each would be too long 

 a task. 



Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Lucca, Milan, Mantua, Brixen, 

 Como, and Verona must be passed with the briefest reference. 

 These and other Italian cities prescribed customs' duties for 

 themselves, and carried on trade. Many new manufactures 

 were likewise established, the knowledge of these having been 

 gained at Constantinople. In the year 1131 Roger Guiscard 

 was crowned king of the Two Sicilies, at Palermo. He brought 

 artisans from Athens, and founded a silk manufactory in this city 

 in 1146. The sugar-cane was brought from China and planted 

 in Sicily in the same century. The introduction of many plants 

 and animals of economic importance, from their native habitats, 

 about this period, widened the range of industry and trade. 

 Under the name of Lombards, Italian capitalists were found in 

 every European city, competing with the Jews as bankers and 

 money-changers. A bankers' district of the city of London 

 still retains the name of Lombard Street. All important as 

 banking has been to society, its practice at first was held in 

 as low esteem as pawnbroking. Bankers were in ill repute 

 for the iisury they exacted, arising from mutual ignorance of 

 the principles that should govern the borrowing and lending 

 of money. To charge interest on a loan was in feudal times 

 thought wrong. Judging from the failures of the chief bankers 

 of Florence, in consequence of the non-payment of enormous 

 sums lent to our Edward III., it would appear that there 

 were, earlier than Pistol, debtors who thought that "base is 

 the soul that pays." In a similar spirit, St. Louis of France pub- 

 lished an ordinance relative to the Jews, the predecessors of the 

 Lombards in his dominions, whereby " for the salvation of his 

 own soul, and those of his ancestors, he releases to all Christians 

 a third part of what was owing by them to Jews." Louis at 

 the same time claimed a per-centage upon the savings thus 

 effected. 



CHAPTER XX. COMMERCE OF BARCELONA. 

 BARCELONA, the chief town of the province of Catalonia, lays 

 claim to a genealogy extending further back than the founda- 

 tion of Borne. It was in turn a Carthaginian and a Eoman 

 colony. In the Middle Ages it was alternately the possession of 

 Christians and Moors. In 1164 the whole province became ab- 

 sorbed in the kingdom of Aragon. As a commercial state, the 

 history of Barcelona dates from the middle of the thirteenth 

 century. At this period the Catalans began to emulate the 

 enterprise of the maritime cities of Italy, both in war and com- 

 merce. Their vessels sailed to every part of the Mediterranean 

 and other European seas. Barcelona was a formidable rival of 

 Genoa, with which city it was engaged in frequent hostilities. 

 Its rank was highest in the fifteenth century, when Venice alone 

 exceeded its maritime power. It was the depot of Eastern 

 wealth for distribution in Christian Spain. After the conquest 

 of the New World, Barcelona became the great manufacturing 

 centre of cutlery and fire-arms for the Spanish adventurers, yet 

 its commerce never attained such a magnitude as it had for- 

 merly reached. The privileges granted to the Catalans by the 

 kings of Arragon were such as to secure to them almost the 

 independence of a sovereign state. Personal liberty was so 

 guarded, that no one could be arrested on board a ship for an 

 offence, provided he offered security for his surrender to justice 

 after the voyage. The Catalans became so experienced in ship- 

 building, that other nations resorted to their dockyards for 

 the purchase of merchant-vessels. They excelled the Genoese 

 mariners in intrepidity, while as manufacturers they were espe- 

 cially expert and industrious. The nobles were as eager for 

 the profits of commerce as the common people, and thus all 

 ranks were united for the common benefit. 



Barcelona possessed, besides its ship-yards and wharves (now 

 unimportant from the deterioration of the harbour), a custom- 

 house, a fine arsenal, foreign warehouses, manufactories, banks, 



and exchanges, where Jews and Lombards, French, Italian, and 

 German traders, attracted by the enlightened spirit of its laws, 

 carried on their business. Among others, we read in 1400 of 

 fifteen Dutch and thirteen Savoyard houses of business. 



Commerce rather than manufactures was the pursuit of this 

 enterprising people. It would have been useless to compete 

 in manufacturing industry with the skilful Moors of Seville, 

 Toledo, Xativa, Malaga, Granada, and Almeria. Numerous guilds 

 of artificers existed notwithstanding, and these proved invaluable 

 to Barcelona after the expulsion of the Moors, making it then the 

 most important manufacturing town in Spain. The manufactures 

 consisted chiefly of woollen, cotton, and silk goods, lace, linens, 

 paper, leather, and cordage. 



Much of Catalonia was rocky and barren, but part was very 

 fertile, producing cereals, flax, hemp, liquorice, madder, saffron, 

 almonds, filberts, chestnuts, figs, citrons, grapes, olive-oil, and 

 silk ; of mineral produce, copper, lead, zinc, mangar.ise, cobalt, 

 with coal, nitre, rock-salt, barilla, and marble occurred. A good 

 deal of wine was made, and there existed forests of the cork-oak 

 as well as of timber fit for ship-building. Upon these founda- 

 tions the Catalans built up a great commerce, extended by even 

 a greater transport trade. They held intercourse with the 

 Spanish ports of Valencia and Lerida. They possessed a Catalan 

 quarter in the French markets of Beaucaire and Troyes, carrying 

 thither especially Moorish or Morocco leather. They took cloth, 

 saffron, and Eastern goods to Sicily, bringing away grain and silk. 

 Their commerce with Barbary, Egypt, and Syria provided them 

 with herbs, spices, drugs, raw and spun cotton, ivory, indigo 

 of two varieties, carmine, gums, balsams, rhubarb, aloe-wood, 

 coral, pearls, and porcelain brought by the Arabs from China. 

 These commodities they again dispersed abroad. 



Flanders, the principal centre of their trade with North Europe, 

 received from them logwood, saffron, cotton-thread, dates, sugar, 

 anise, lac, and furs. Their ships were shut out from Constan- 

 tinople and the Black Sea by the opposition of the Italians, 

 but with Cyprus, Ehodes, and Candia they had an extensive 

 trade. 



We owe to Barcelona the establishment of the first bank of 

 deposit for the convenience of private merchants (1401), and also 

 the earliest well-authenticated regulations for marine insurance, 

 germs of which came under our notice in the history of Ancient 

 Commerce. 



RECREATIVE SCIENCE. XXII. 



THE WHEEL ANIMALCULE BEALE'S DANCING SKELETON. 



IN the wheel animalcule both wheels move usually in the same 

 direction ; and when the head of the animal is towards tho 

 observer, the direction is generally the same as that ef the hands 

 of a clock. Baker states, however, that he has seen them move 

 in opposite directions, and also has seen the motion first discon- 

 tinued and then reversed in the same wheel. The velocity is not 

 always the same, but varies with the efforts of the animal to catch 

 its food. Whatever the mechanism of the parts, the result is that 

 currents are established in the water towards the head of the 

 animal, which currents pass off outward from the edges of the 

 apparent wheels ; and little particles floating in the water may 

 be seen to pass towards the head, and be suddenly thrown off 

 at the edges of the wheels with considerable force. So striking 

 are the appearances of these animalcules, that men of much 

 practice in microscopical observation are at this day convinced 

 they do possess wheels, which actually revolve continually in 

 one direction. The struggle in Mr. Baker's mind between the 

 evidence of his senses and his judgment illustrates this point in 

 so lively a manner, that we may be excused quoting his account- 

 of it : " As I call these parts wheels, I also terjn the motion of 

 them a rotation, because it has exactly the appearance of beiny 

 such. But some gentlemen have imagined there may be a de- 

 ception in the case, and that they do not really turn round, 

 though indeed they seem to do so. The doubt of these gentle- 

 men arises from the difficulty they find in conceiving how or iii 

 what manner a wheel or any other form, as part of a living 

 animal, can possibly turn upon an axis supposed to be another 

 part of the same living animal, since the wheel must be a part 

 absolutely distinct and separate from the axis whereon it turns ; 

 and then, say they, how can this living wheel be nourished, as 

 there cannot be any vessels of communication between that and 



