The invention of the astrolabe is ascribed to Hipparchus, and Chaucer’s description in 1391 is the first book treating of it in time and importance. In Chaucer’s “Treatise on the Astrolabe,” he declares his intention of making use of the calendars of the reverend clerks John Somer and Nicholas of Lynne. His reference here is to the Minorite astronomer John Somer—Semur—Somerarius—and to the Carmelite Nicholas, who was lecturer in theology at Oxford (“Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” Vol. LIII. p. 219).
See the illustrated description of an astrolabe by S. A. Ionides, in “Geog. Journ.” for Oct. 1904, pp. 411–417, accompanying references to other works treating of astrolabes; “Le Courrier du Livre,” Quebec, 1899, Vol. III. p. 159, alluding to three works on the astrolabe of Samuel Champlin and Geoffrey Chaucer; “Canada,” by J. G. Bourinot, London, 1897, p. 79, with cut of Champlin’s lost astrolabe made in Paris during 1603; also the entry for Nicholas Bion to be found herein at A.D. 1702.
[12] Vincent de Beauvais desired to facilitate the pursuit of learning by collecting into one large work everything useful to be known in art, history, natural science and philosophy, “so that the great edifice of science should be once more presented with all its halls and porticos forming one harmonious whole, domed over, if we may so express ourselves, with theology and surmounted by the Cross” (“Eccl. History,” Rohrbacher, Vol. XVIII. p. 444, quoted at pp. 86 and 89 of “Christian Schools and Scholars,” London, 1867). His “Speculum Majus,” of which the most trustworthy edition was that published at Strasbourg in ten large folio volumes during 1473, consisted of three parts: “Speculum Naturale,” 32 books and 3718 chapters; “Speculum Doctrinale,” 17 books and 2374 chapters; “Speculum Historiale,” 31 books and 3793 chapters, a total of 80 books and 9885 chapters (“Encycl. Britan.,” ninth ed., Vol. XXIV. p. 235; “Paris et ses historiens,” Paris, 1867, p. 100, note, indicating that, according to Fabricius, the “Speculum Naturale” mentions as many as 350 different names of Arabian, Greek and Latin authors). The influence of the mediæval encyclopædias of Vincent de Beauvais, Brunetto Latini and Bartholomew Anglicus on Western Literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is presented in Liliencron’s “Festrede,” München, 1876 (J. E. Sandys, “Classical Scholarship,” 1903, p. 558).
[13] In his “De Mineralibus” (Lyons ed. 1651, Treat. III. lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 243), Albertus says: “One angle ... is to the zohron (north) ... but another angle of the magnet opposite to it attracts to the aphron (south).” Cardan (“De Subtilitate,” Lugduni, 1663); Salmanazar (Book II. “of the Egyptian Hermitus, 19 stars, and 15 stones, and 15 herbs, and 15 figures”: “on one side the magnet attracts iron, on the other side repels it); Pietro d’ Abano (“Conciliator Differentiarum,” Mantuæ, 1472, Diff. 51, p. 104, or the 1520 Venice edition, p. 73: “know that a magnet is discovered which attracts iron on one side and repels it on the other”).
[14] Albertus was the first schoolman who lectured on the Stagirite, and who in his unbounded range of knowledge comprehends the whole metaphysical, moral, physical, as well as logical system of Aristotle (“History of Latin Christianity,” by the Rev. H. H. Milman, London, 1857, Vol. VI. pp. 270, 277). The first knowledge of the Aristotelian philosophy in the Middle Ages was acquired by translators of Aristotle’s works out of the Arabic. The Arabian commentators were considered the most skilful and authentic guides in the study of his system (“Hist. of the Reign of Charles V,” Robertson and Prescott, Philad., 1883, Vol. I. p. 308; Conring, “Antiq. Acad.,” Diss. III. p. 95, Supplem. p. 241; Murat, “Antiq. Ital.,” Vol. III. p. 392; “Aristotle and the Arabs,” at pp. 257–268 of “Classical Studies in Honour of Hy. Drissler,” New York, 1894; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1860, Vol. II. pp. 215–216).
[15] See “Omar Khayyám and his position in the History of Sufism,” to be found at end of the singularly attractive volume entitled “Sufi Interpretations ...” by C. H. A. Bjerregaard, New York, 1902. For an account of Omar Khayyám—Kheyyám (died in 1123), who was a very distinguished Persian philosopher, mathematician, poet and astronomer, also Director of the Bagdad Observatory, consult the ninth ed. of the “Encycl. Britann.,” Vol. XVII. pp. 771–772; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. XXV. pp. 372–373; “The Universal Cyclopædia,” Chas. Kendall Adams, New York, 1900, Vol. VIII. p. 588.
[16] Identified by some authors as John Peckham, a disciple of St. Bonaventura, who became Archbishop of Canterbury from 1278 to 1293 (“Christian Schools and Scholars,” by Augusta Th. Drane, London, 1867, Vol. II. p. 172).
[17] To Peregrinus is due the first inception of the terrella. He makes the magnet round, and says, “You must know that this stone bears in itself a likeness of the heavens and contains two points, one North and the other South, thus resembling the poles of the sky....” In his Memoria Prima, “Sopra P. P. de Maricourt,” 1868, P. D. Timoteo Bertelli Barnabita states (Chap. VI. p. 22) that, besides the terrella, Gilbert appropriated other observations and experiments of Peregrinus, and, farther on (Chap. VII. p. 28), he gives us the following extract from Thévenot: “L’on voit encore que la pluspart des choses que l’on attribue à Gilbert et qui luy ont donné la réputation de Père de la Philosophie de l’Ayman estaient scües dès le treizième siècle.” This, says he (in a note, pp. 28–29), is doubtless an exaggeration. That Gilbert took from P. Peregrinus his terrella and many excellent scientific plans on magnetism, the ideas of others also, is probable, but it is indubitable that much was his own, and that, for his time, his work is a veritable chef-d’œuvre of inductive and experimental method and the most finished treatise on magnetism which had up to that time appeared.
In this connection, Bertelli adds (Part III. p. 92): “We must conclude that historical truth was undoubtedly distorted when, for so long a period, it was asserted and repeated, without any sufficient mature investigation, that the famous William Gilbert of Colchester was the real and sole founder of magnetism and of the inductive method in experimental science. We certainly must not deny him the no small merit which is his due, nor the share he had in the discoveries at the commencement of the seventeenth century, but we must, likewise, confess that the copious collection of facts which he gives us, and the experimental and discursive method with which he presents them is neither altogether his own nor is it new” (see W. Wenkebach, “Sur Petrus Adsigerius,” Rome, 1865, p. 8; “Universal Lexicon,” Leipzig, 1741; N. Cabæus, “Phil. Magn.,” Ferrara, 1629, p. 23).
[18] In this same sense does Ristoro d’Arezzo write in his “La Compositione del Mondo ... del 1282,” transcribed by Enrico Narducci, Roma, 1859, pp. 172, 316, xi, xii. Ristoro calls the needle angola (lib. xxxix. p. 326,), which, says he, guides the mariner and which is itself directed (per la virtu del cielo) by the star called tramontane (pp. 110, 263–4, 326); see “Pietro Peregrino,” Bertelli, 1858, pp. 55, 130.