146 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



the invention of printing as well as before it : l 

 popularity chiefly due, we may believe, to il 

 suggestiveness, which caused many of the learne 

 to enrich the Sphere of Sacrobosco with their ow 

 notes and observations. One of the first to do g 

 was Michael Scot. His commentary on the wor 

 of Holywood contains several subtle inquiries an 

 determinations regarding the source of heat, tr. 

 sphericity of the heavenly bodies, and other matter 

 which have been repeated by Libri with the remar 

 that their author must have been far in advance i 

 his times. 2 



We may notice here a curious legend of Napl< 

 to which Sir Walter Scott has drawn attention i 

 the account he gives of his great namesake. 3 

 would seem to suggest that this age, perhaps I 

 means of Michael Scot, was acquainted with phiL 

 sophical instruments rarer if not more useful tha 

 the astrolabe. The romance of Vergilius tells ho 

 that hero founded ' in the middes of the see a fay< 

 towne, with great landes belongynge to it ; ... an 

 called it Napells. And the fandacyon of it was i 

 egges, and in that towne of Napells he made a towj 

 with iiii corners, and in the toppe he set an apflj 

 upon an yron yarde, and no man culd pull awa 

 that apell without he brake it ; and thoroughe th| 

 yren set he a bolte, and in that bolte set he a egfl 

 And he henge the apell by the stauke upon a cheynl 

 and so hangeth it still. And when the egge styrretl 

 so shoulde the towne of Napells quake; and when th 

 egge brake, then shulde the towne sinke.' 

 reference here is of course to the Castel del Ovo a 



1 See Narducci's Catalogue of the Boncompagni MSS., Rome, 1862. 



2 Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques, 



3 Lay of the Last Minstrel, Author's Edition, Note 3 I. 



