FLAVIO GIOJA. 187 



There are two well known features of the modern com- 

 pass which Peregrinus' instrument lacks; and these are of 

 importance. The needle passes through a vertical pivot 

 shaft, so that the pivot and needle turn together, while 

 the modern compass needle rotates on a fixed point ; and, 

 besides the scale marked in degrees around the circle, the 

 modern instrument has also the so-called card on which 

 appears a species of star of 32 points, each having its 

 appropriate name, as N. E., N. N. E., S. W., W. S. W., 

 and so on. Almost the first piece of nautical learning 

 acquired by the young sailor is the learning of the names 

 of these points of the compass in their order, or, as it 

 is commonly termed, "boxing the compass." The older 

 seamen of to-day still steer by the same points; but the 

 modern fashion is to go back to the idea of Peregrinus 

 and to lay a course from north so many degrees east, for 

 example, instead of designating it by the arbitrary name 

 of the point toward which the vessel is steered. The star 

 itself has been known for centuries as the Rose of the 

 Winds, and it is likewise inscribed on very old charts to 

 show the direction of the various points. The earliest 

 maps on which it has been found are Genoese, and date 

 from 1318, and hence it has been supposed that both the 

 star and the pivoted needle were invented by Mediter- 

 ranean rather than by northern mariners, at some period 

 between the time of Peregrinus' letter and the above- 

 named year. 



The suggestion that any part of the compass is of Italian 

 origin recalls at once the man whom the world, for scores 

 of years, believed to be the inventor of the entire instru- 

 ment, and whom many modern encyclopaedists, and Italian 

 writers generally, still delight as such to honor. Flavio 

 Gioja, 1 or Giri, or Gira (for the name is in doubt), lived 



*See Nuova Enciclopsedia Italiana. Boccardi, Turin, 1880. The most 

 elaborate arguments in favor of Gioja's claims are given by G. Grimaldi 

 in Memorie dell' Acad. Etrusc. di Cortona. See also Brechmann : Hist. 

 Pandectarum Amalphi, Diss. i, No. 22. Inter Scriptores Rerum Neapo- 



