Page 37 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

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PORTUGUESE VOYAGES TO 1498
1434 Date of Portuguese arrival

tion. The magnetic properties of iron when being dipped in oil it was set to float in a pan of cisco da Costa in the seventeenth century in his
rubbed against natural magnets was a phenom- water. Over the years this elementary device Arte de Navegar (Art of Navigation), is that its
enon that had long been known. At about the was greatly modified, and when the pilot Joao use in navigation originated with an Italian
time the needle was introduced, there are vari- of Lisbon described it in 1514, it had already from Amalfi named Flavio Gioia. The origin of
ous written references to it, the most important become an effective nautical instrument. The the device may be Chinese (although when
of which is that of Pierre de Maricourt (or origin of the magnetic needle and its introduc- historians do not know the origin of a technical
Petrus Peregrinus). The needle was first used tion to navigation are still obscure. A dubious innovation in the Middle Ages they show a
on ships in a rather rudimentary manner: after and late suggestion, repeated by Father Fran- great tendency to attribute it to distant China!).

36 CIRCA 1492