[64] See résumé concerning the Astrolabe at A.D. 1235–1315—Raymond Lully.
[65] Sacro Bosco, here alluded to, is John Holywood or Halifax—in Latin, Johannes de Sacro Bosco or Sacro Busto—an English mathematician, said to have studied at Oxford and to have afterwards become a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Paris about the year 1230. Sacro Bosco was one of the first, in the Middle Ages, to avail himself of the Arabian writings on astronomy and is believed to have condensed pretty much all the science therein contained in his own well-known “Tractatus de Sphæra.” Of the latter, which was the second astronomical work to appear in print and which was first issued at Ferrara in 1472, there were, it is said, as many as twenty-four more editions published before the year 1500. Houzeau says this “Tractatus” was the standard for three centuries, and the writer in “La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XXIX. p. 44, states that there were more than seventy Latin editions of it published between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries.
He is also the author of numerous other works, including “De Astrolabio” and a very meritorious “Tractatus de Arte Numerandi,” which latter is reproduced at pp. 1–26 of the “Rara Mathematica” of Jas. Orchard Halliwell, London, 1839.
The best commentary ever written on the astronomy of Sacro Bosco is the “Commentarius in sphæram ... of Christopher Clavius,” called the Euclid of his country. Clavius was born at Bamberg in 1538, died at Rome in 1612, and, according to Houzeau, was the author of as many as twenty-six different works on mathematics and astronomy. An almost equally valuable Commentary on the Sphere of Sacro Bosco was written by the famous encyclopedist Cecco d’Ascoli (1257–1327) whose real name, as we have already been informed, was Francesco degli Stabili (Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Mathém.,” Vol. II. pp. 191–200, 525–526; Hœfer, “Hist. de l’Astronomie,” Paris, 1873, p. 285; Alex. Chalmers, “Gen. Biog. Dict.,” Vol. IX. pp. 1–3; Rose, “New Gen. Biog. Dict.,” Vol. VI. p. 153; “Encycl. Brit.,” 1876, Vol. V. p. 282; Bertelli, “Pietro Peregrino,” 1868, p. 129).
[66] Eudoxus, not before mentioned in this “Bibliographical History,” was a native of Cnidus, Asia Minor, who flourished about 370 B.C. He was a pupil of Plato, and is frequently mentioned by Aratus, Archimedes, Aristotle, Cicero, Hipparchus, Proclus, Ptolemy, Seneca, Strabo, Vitruvius and others. Cicero calls him the greatest astronomer that has ever lived, and Strabo quotes him as a very distinguished mathematician.
[67] Apollonius of Tyana, a Pythagorean philosopher who lived in first century after Christ and who, in the account of his extraordinary travels through India, reports having seen the precious stone pantarbes casting rays of fire, and attracting all other gems, which adhered to it like swarms of bees (“Engl. Cycl.,” Chas. Knight, Biography, Vol. I. p. 266).
[68] Comte (Isidore Auguste Marie François-Xavier) (1798–1857). Very celebrated French philosopher, founder of Positivism, called Le Fondateur de la religion de l’humanité. Consult: Caird (Edward), “The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte.”
[69] With reference to the real discoverer, we can add here with propriety the words of John Fiske: “No ingenuity of argument can take from Columbus the glory of an achievement which has, and can have, no parallel in the whole career of mankind. It was a thing that could be done but once!”
[70] “... Aristotle adds that some say the earth being situated in the centre, is rolled around the pole, as it is written in the Timæus ... there are three significations of the pole with Plato. Thus, in the Phædo, he calls heaven the pole, and also the extremities of the axis about which the heaven revolves. But, in other places of the Timæus, and also in the present passage he calls the axis the pole” (“The Treatises of Aristotle,” Thos. Taylor, London, 1807, p. 235; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 695, note). The Earth “is said by Plato to be conglobed about the pole, which is extended through the universe; because she (the Earth) is contained and compressed about its axis. For the axis also is the pole. And the pole is thus now denominated because the universe revolves about it ... on this account, the pole is said by Plato to be extended through the universe, as entirely pervading the centre of the Earth” (“The Six Books of Proclus,” Thos. Taylor, London, 1816, Book VII. chap. xxii. pp. 172–173).
[71] It was for a copy of the valuable works of this popular Arabian physician, which he borrowed from “La Faculté de Médecine” of Paris, that Louis XI had to deposit in pledge a large quantity of plate and had, besides, to procure a nobleman to join him as surety in a Deed binding himself under great forfeiture to restore these extraordinarily scarce books (Gabr. Naudé, “Additions à l’histoire de Louis XI,” par Comines, Vol. IV. p. 281). Rhazès was born and brought up at Rai, the most northern town of Irak Ajemi, where he is said to have died A.D. 923 or 932 (“Engl. Cycl.,” Vol. V. pp. 69–70).