During the year 1272 Lully published his “De Contemplatione,” which was followed by “Fenix de las maravillas del orbe” in 1286, and by his “Arte de Naveguar” in 1295. In these he states that the seamen of his time employed instruments of measurement, sea charts and the magnetic needle (tenian, los mareantes, instrumento, carta, compas y aguja), and he describes the improvements made in the astrolabes (designed for the determination of time and of geographical latitudes by meridian altitudes and capable of being employed at sea) from the period that the astrolabium of the Majorcan pilots was in use.
The application of the astrolabe to navigation, Mr. Irving says (“Hist. of the Life ... of Columbus,” London, 1828, Vol. I. pp. 76–78), was “one of those timely events which seem to have some thing providential in them. It was immediately after this that Columbus proposed his voyage of discovery to the crown of Portugal.”
Lully also confirms the fact that the Barcelonians employed atlases, astrolabes[11] and compasses long before Don Jaime Ferrer penetrated to the mouth of the Rio de Ouro, on the western coast of Africa, which was about fifty years after the date of the last-named work.
Incidentally it may be added that Lully, posing as an alchemist, is said to have in the presence of the English King, Edward I, converted iron into gold, which latter was coined into rose-nobles (Bergman, “Hist. of Chem.”; Louis Figuier, “L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes,” Paris, 1860, p. 148).
References.—For Lul. Raimon, or Raymundus, or Lullius (1235–1315), “Dict. of Philos. and Psych.,” by J. M. Baldwin, New York, 1902, Vol. II. p. 32; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. pp. 629–631, 670, and 1859, Vol. V. p. 55; Miller, “Hist. Phil. Ill.,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 217; Whewell, “Hist. Ind. Sc.,” 1859, Vol. I. p. 169; also his “Phil. of the Ind. Sc.,” London, 1840, Vol. II. pp. 320–323; “Journal des Savants,” 1896, pp. 342, 345–355; “Biogr. Génér.,” article “Lulle”; Helfferich, “Raym. L.,” Berlin, 1858; Nicolai Eymerici, “Direct Inq.,” Rome, 1578; Bolton, “Ch. Hist. of Chem.,” pp. 1000–1001; Ueberweg, “Hist. of Philos.” (Morris’ translation, 1885), Vol. I. pp. 457, 459; “Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers,” by Arthur Edward Waite, London, 1888, pp. 68–88, in which is given, at pp. 276–306, an alphabetical catalogue of all works on Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy; Humboldt, “Examen Critique,” Paris, 1836, Vol. I. pp. 7, 283.
For the Dominican Giordano (Jordano) Bruno, see “The Course of the History of Modern Philosophy,” by Victor Cousin, New York, 1872, Vol. II. pp. 56–58; “English Cycl.” (Biography), Vol. I. p. 979; Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Mathém.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. I. p. 141; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. VIII. pp. 258–259, reviewed in the “London Athenæum,” Nov. 28, 1903, p. 711.
Vincent de Beauvais. “Speculum Naturale.”
Page taken from the 1473 copy, now in the Bibliothèque, Ste. Geneviève, Paris.
A.D. 1250.—Vincent de Beauvais, another Crusader, writes his “Mirror of Nature” (“Bibliotheca Mundi, Speculum Majus, Speculum Triplex”) for St. Louis and his consort, Marguerite de Provence, and speaks therein of the polarity of the needle (“Speculi Naturalis,” Vol. II. lib. ix. cap. 19). He cites Aristotle as having written a book, “De Lapide,” containing a notice of the magnet’s use in navigation, but none of Aristotle’s known works appear to have the passage given. Cabæus and others rather judge that book to be the work of some Arabic writer (Thomas Creech, “Lucretius”). Libri, however, says that a translation or abrégé of the MS. of “De Lapide” is at the Paris Library—MSS. Arabes, No. 402 (“Hist. des sc. Mathém.,” Vol. I. p. 101).