FOOTNOTES:
[351] Gibbon, ch. liii. Constantine, Vit. Basil. ch. lxxiv-lxxvi.
[352] Voyage of Benjamin of Tudela, book i. ch. v. p. 44-52.
[353] Gibbon, c. liii.
[354] Gibbon, c. lv.
[355] Gibbon, c. lv.
[356] Gibbon, c. lv.
[357] Gibbon, c. lv.
[358] 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.
[359] Hallam remarks that “it was the singular fate of this city to have filled up the interval between two periods of civilization, in neither of which she was destined to be distinguished. Scarcely known before the end of the sixth century, Amalfi ran a brilliant career as a free and trading republic, which was checked by the arms of a conqueror in the middle of the twelfth.”—Mid. Ages, iii. 300.