On the Magnet

and infers its antiquity with certain reasons; but he does not explain the occult miracle he professes. In the Kingdom of Naples, the people of Amalfi were the first of all (as they say) to construct the mariner's compass; and as Flavius Blondus reports that the people of Amalfi do not boast incorrectly, they were taught by a certain citizen named John Goia in the year of our Lord 1300. That town is in the Kingdom of Naples, not far from Salerno, situated near the promontory of Minerva, for whose principality Charles V gave the great naval commander, Andrea Doria, to reward his outstanding service. And it is certain that nothing has ever been devised by human arts that has been more beneficial to the human race than that compass. Some, however, think it was discovered earlier by others and admitted into maritime arts, judging from ancient writings and certain arguments and conjectures. The knowledge of the little nautical box seems to have been brought to Italy by Paul the Venetian original: "Paulum Venetum" — likely referring to Marco Polo., who learned the art of the compass among the Chinese around the year 1260. Yet I would not want the people of Amalfi to be deprived of such honor, because it was first commonly manufactured by them in the Mediterranean Sea. Goropius attributes the invention to the Cimbri or Teutons, namely because the names of the 32 winds inscribed on the compass are pronounced in the Teutonic language by all ship-captains, whether they are French, British, or Spanish; but the Italians describe them in their own vernacular language. There are some who think that Solomon, King of Judea, knew and indicated the use of the mariner's compass to his ship-captains in great voyages, when they brought back such a great amount of gold from the West Indies: for which reason Arias Montanus contends that the regions of Peru, which abound in gold, were named from the Hebrew word Parvaim. But it is more likely from the coast of lower Ethiopia, as others mention, from the region of Cephala. But it might seem less true, because the Phoenicians, who were neighbors to Judea and most experienced in voyages in earlier centuries (whose talents, labors, and counsel Solomon used in other works, as in the building of ships and in the expeditions themselves), did not know magnetic aids or the art of the marine compass. For if it had been in use among them, without doubt the Greeks, the Italians, and all the barbarians would have understood a thing so necessary and ennobled by common use, and it would never have perished in oblivion, being such a famous, easily known, and highly sought-after thing; but the discipline would have been handed down through the hands to those who followed, or some monument of it would exist in writings. Sebastian Cabot was the first to discover that magnetic iron varies. Gonzalo de Oviedo is the first to write in his history that iron does not vary on the meridian of the Azores. Fernelius, in his book On the Hidden Causes of Things, says that the cause in the magnet is hidden and abstruse; elsewhere he calls it celestial, producing nothing except the unknown through the more unknown. For that is rude, thin,