^64 A. D. 1200. 



ers claim the honour of the invention of the compafs for John Goia, 

 or Flavio Gioia, a citizen of the commercial city of Amalfi, who, they 

 fay, firfi; ufed it in the year 1302, or 1320 : and, as a proof, they ad- 

 duce a line of Antony of Palermo, a Sicilian poet, wherein he fays, 

 ' Prima dedit nautis ufum magnetis Amalfi.' 

 (Amalfi firfl: to feamen did impart 

 The fkill to fleer by the magnetic art.) 



But this line, perhaps a poetical flourifli, gives us no date : and we 

 have already feen from better authority, that the inventor, or importer 

 of the invention from the Eaft, whether he lived in Amalfi or elfe- 

 where, muft have lived above a century before the age afiigned to Goia 

 or Gioia. 



From the fimple contrivance of laying the magnetic needle on a float- 

 ing ftraw, as defcribed by Guiot, navigators, by gradual improvements 

 in the courle of time, came to add the ufe of a circular card aflfixed to 

 the needle, and traverfing with it, on which were drawn lines repre- 

 fenting the various winds. It is probable, (and in this cafe we can 

 have no better than probability) that Gioia of Amalfi was the firft, who 

 thought of ufing a card, and that only eight winds, or points, were 

 drawn upon it *. 



The French, the Venetians, the Germans, and the Scandinavians (or 

 people of Norway and Denmark), have all difputed with the Amalfitans, 

 and with each-other, the honour of being the original difcoverers of 

 this moft noble inftrumcnt. It would be too tedious to adduce the ar- 

 guments of each ; and we may fatisfy ourfelves with fuppofing, that 

 fome praife is due to every one of them, and, as is generally allowed, 

 alfo to the Englifh, for improvements made upon the original inven- 

 tion. It may, however, be obferved, that the two French writers, from 

 whom we have the earliefl: knowlege of the appUcation of the magnet 

 to the fervice of navigation, have not a fingle word to fupport their 

 countrymen, or indeed any other nation, in pretending to the honour 

 of the difcovery. 



In the year 1263 the compafs, fitted into a box (' pyxis nautica') as 

 now, though probably without a card, was in common ufe among the 



* ' Ciica annum 1320 rem pulclierrimam uti- proof may be eftimated by thofe, who have had 



' IKTimamque navignntibus invcnit quidam Flavins occafion to examine the caufe and origin of the 



« Gioia civis Ama!philanii3, nempe ufum pyxidis particular parts of armorial hearings. 

 ' nauticie c/ji2//<rque ad uavitrandum.' [_Bt\ncmuu, If it be ncceflary to give further proof, that 



D'ljferlatto prima de rep. Amnlph. § 22, iid cahem the compafs was known in Europe before the he- 



HiJI. pande8arurn.'\ S'"n'"g °f ^"^ fourteenth century, tlie writings of 



A compafs with eight points and eight wings, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Peter 



fuppoicd to repti'fent the e'<?ht winds, and having Adfigcr (for whom fee Cavallu on magnetijm, fecond 



a ftar befide it, is the armorial bearing of the editiou) may be confulted, who all flouriflied in the 



Principato eitra, in which Amalfi is fituated. [See thirteenth century, and all knew the polarity of the 



the defcription in Brcncman, or tlie delineation in magnet. 

 Blncu't Atlas, part iii, /. lol-] The value of this 



