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^PUTM^^
SfUQ
Medieval Pilot-Book
MEDIEVAL
acteristically
cosmology, astrology, and geography are charcombined in La Sfera by Gregorio Dati (1363is
because of the nautical instruments mentioned in it and the maps that illustrate it. The Library has recently acquired a tnanuscript copy of the work. It is a folio of twenty leaves, in a fair :lear script, ornamented only by the elongation of the consonants in the iirst lines of the stanzas. The colophon gives the name of the scribe md the date of bis writing. ""Written at Pesaro by Gaspar de Fidelis, son of Antonio Fidelis," it states, "and completed on Aujust 7, 1484, after the twenty-third hour had struck." E. G. R. Taylor (in an appendix to a work published by the Hakluyt Society') complains that the copies of La Sfera that bave urvived are elaborately illustrated, prepared for presentation jurposes, with the result that the maps and charts bave lost in accuracy. rhose in the Library's manuscript are drawn in ink on the marjins of the text. They are indeed the mcst distinctive and valuable eature of the volume. Gregorio Dati was a Fiorentine merchant and public officiai, a listorian of bis native city, who' had also the reputation of a mathenatician and astrologer. Among bis writings was // Libro Segreto, a 'secret journal" which has been printed. Here he recorded mainly the his inancial concerns of bis business and bis domestic affairs our successive marriages and the births of his twenty or more :hildren. In a matter of fact way, he enumerated also his election :o many public offices: he was made Console dell' Arte for the ileventh time, he was a member of a municipal council of Pisa, he
,vas
Gonfaloniere
(standard-bearer)
of justice,
in
Dther positions
of trust.
More
significant
the Li-
jrary's manuscript
co Spain. It
were
Gregorio's brother Leonardo, a Dominican who became the General of his Order in 1414. G. C. Galleti, editor of the text printed in
1863, leaves the question unsettled.^
1.
hrief
Smnme
of Geographie by
intro-
duction and notes by E. G. R. Taylor. London, 1932, p. 184. 2. The Library of Congress enters La sfera under Leonardo Dati as supposed author, with the added entry of Gregorio Dati.
/gK)wei-
of thought that seems to inspire bis etching needle. Sp^iding some time with these prints, one seems to look past and\eyond the possibilities which have not been brojaght to light inSLogan's creative talent. His work assuredly, ]5uts forth a distinctSmd personal style, wbich augurs weU for continuai
accompIishiT^t in the future. One may look forward to a series of plates bringing greater stature to his wOKk, which, besides tifose represented in the permanent coUectioivs of England and France, may also be found in the MetropoK^n Mjuseum in New York, the New York Public Library, th^N^lbrary of Congress, the National
Gallery, the Smithsonia.n'iEnHitution, the
Fine Arts, Boston PubLibrary, Brooklyn Museum,\^yman AUyn Art Museum, lic New London, and the Yale University /Vrt Gallery. The possibilities of Logan's future remain outside the scope
of this article.
Mu^um of
However,
that he
wLtli
an etcher of unusual ability with inexhaustible ideas, N^ qualities that have not been fuUy tried.
is
and liglit explained by Those human beings who are boru under the influence of the sun are of great wisdom and goodness. The author characterizes Venus, Mercury, and the moon, and explains both solar and lunar eclipses. Beneath the sphere of the moon is that of fire, next come the air and water, and the earth, "a solid and heavy body," is in the middle of the whole system. This Ptolemaic Bummary has a medieval climax: "There is nothing beneath it ex:ept the inferno, the place of the damned." The diameter of this ilace is given as seven thousand, and the circumference as twentyanalog_v of the T^init]^^
Numerous stanzas treat of physical geography climate, the of marshy valleys and of mountains on health; of rain, now, hail-storms, and the tides drawn by the moon. If the earth vere like the water, the air, and the fire that is, made of subnon-resistant stufi
in any part of the hard bones." Follow'ng a charming descripton of the seasons is an explanation of the our elements, "which render the body ili or well' according as they larmonize," and the four humors that mark human types. There are eight winds "for navigating," which the author names. Then he calls attention to the map on which the winds, the ports, md ali the sea are drawn. With this chart merchants and pirates ravel by sea, the ones for gain, the others for rapine, and in a noment they may be rich or ruined. At this point occurs the mention
lile
"With the compass tempered by the star, magnet toward the north," the mariner steers his course and, when he has deviated from it, rights the ship with the rudder. He lowers or raises the lateen-yard according to the wind, and when the wind changes, he has to be very alert, for suddenly there may be danger of death. An hour-glass^ shows how many hours the ship
jf
nautical Instruments
the
has gone with the wind. Great skill is required in entering a port, and inexperienced mariners may wreck their vessels. The author explains the famous T chart, which appears as an illustration. "A T within an O shows how the world is divided into three parts." Asia occupies the upper half of the circle, and Europe and Africa the two sections of the lower half, with the Mediterranean between them. This circle. Dati writes, represents much less than half of the sphere, and ali the rest is sea. Asia is the first
5.
G. Libri, Histolrc dcs Sciences mathmatiques, II, 221, quotes the stanza
bere referred to with some variation from the Library's manuscript. The latter reads: "Bisogna lucido (?) per mirare"; Libri quotes (also from manu." .." Galletti's edition of 1863 reads "l'oriolo scripts) "Bisogna l'orlogio
:
is
in part
which developed from the simple charts used by seamen in the thirteenth century and perhaps earlier. N. A. E. Nordenskiuld, the Swedish explorer and authority on the history of navigation, thinks that the portolan atlases from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries represent only variations of the "normal" portolano. The forerunners of the latter, he writes, "consisted of rude drawings of certain often used fair-ways along the coasts and of the sailingdirections for skippers trading between the more important places on the coasts. No such works are now extant, but I believe that I bave found some slightly altered copies of them among the marginai ornaments in some manuscripts of Leonardo [ !] Dati's celebrated cosmographic poem La sfera."^ The poem takes its name from the first, the properly cosmographic part, which gives the mariner a general background of knowledge. It is written in ottava rima, which closes with a couplet. The first five stanzas are a dedication "to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," and one cannot help remarking that they excel
was a true Renaissance man for whom faith and poetry, science and sea-faring were not separate categories. The exposition of the place of the terrestrial sphere in the cosmos begins with a mention of the pole-star, which navigators look for "when daylight fails." The author points out the north and the south poles, the equator, and the inhabited places "between this hot and the two cold zones." Of stars there is an infinite number, and each exerts its influence on human bodies. The signs of the zodiac are explained, then the "seven planets in seven spheres."
the others in lyric grace. Dati, the Fiorentine merchant,
The
first of
these
is
who
are
The second planet is Jove, "which moves in the sphere like clear crystal," and its influence imparts power and magnificence. Next is Mars whose followers naturally are
ferocious
"but
if
in virtue
one wants to take the better part and in strength they bave great art."*
Now follow seven stanzas of apotheosis to the sun, "more noble than anj' other star." While in modem times philosophical principles are sometimes explained by analogies from the physical world, in the fourteenth century the procedure was in reverse; thus one
3.
P-
45
ff-
4.
"Et
se
voglio pigliar
la
miglior parte
arte."
De
virt e de forzie
hanno grande
of the Tigris
and Euphrates and other rivers he mentions the spices imported from India and Ethiopia to the West, the shipments of merchandise brought by caravans to Alexandria and Damascus, the latter being of a greater antiquity than any other city on earth. In some fifty stanzas he gives geographical information about the regions bordering on the Mediterranean and the cities of Asia Minor and
Western Asia.