had become famous, this small but indefatigable republic assumed the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures and productions of the East, and that trade proved then, as has been the case in all ages, a source of immense profit. Though the city contained only fifty thousand inhabitants, its wealth was enormous, and its merchants, who had correspondence with all parts of the coasts of the Mediterranean, dealt largely in the commodities of both Arabia and India. Their settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. No city or seaport of those days contained more mariners who excelled in the theory or practice of navigation and astronomy than Amalfi; indeed, it was long supposed, that to the skill of one of the seamen of this city, the world owed the discovery of the mariner's compass.[1]
A.D. 1137. But, after three hundred years of great prosperity, arising entirely from the energetic, and, at the same time, honest pursuit of commerce, Amalfi, oppressed by the arms of the Normans, was at last brought under their rule. Shorn of its independence, and depressed in spirit, the city was soon after attacked by the jealousy of Pisa, one of its commercial rivals;
- ↑ There seems much doubt about the story of the invention of the mariner's compass by Flavio Gioga, an Amalfite, in A.D. 1307. The city had ceased to have any commercial importance since its sack by the Pisans in A.D. 1137 (Sismondi, i. p. 303); while, on the other hand, Hallam shows that the compass was known as early as A.D. 1100 (Mid. Ages, iii. 394); and Wachsmuth proves that it was used in Sweden in A.D. 1250 (Ersch und Grüber's Encycl. iii. 302). The Italian bussola, from the French boussole, comes again from the Flemish Boxel (box);—hence, probably, our term of "boxing" the compass. It was most likely a northern discovery.
