need only quote the words of Sir H.
Yule (_Book of Marco Polo_):--"Respecting the mariner's compass and
gunpowder, I shall say nothing, as no one now, I believe, imagines Marco
to have had anything to do with their introduction."

When, and by whom, the compass card was added is a matter of conjecture.
Certainly the _Rosa Ventorum_, or _Wind-rose_, is far older than the
compass itself; and the naming of the eight principal "winds" goes back
to the Temple of the Winds in Athens built by Andronicus Cyrrhestes. The
earliest known wind-roses on the _portulani_ or sailing charts of the
Mediterranean pilots have almost invariably the eight principal points
marked with the initials of the principal winds, Tramontano, Greco,
Levante, Scirocco, Ostro, Africo (or Libeccio), Ponente and Maestro, or
with a cross instead of L, to mark the east point. The north point,
indicated in some of the oldest compass cards with a broad arrow-head or
a spear, as well as with a T for Tramontano, gradually developed by a
combination of these, about 1492, into a _fleur de lis_, still
universal. The cross at the east continued even in British compasses
till about 1700. Wind-roses with these characteristics are found in
Venetian and Genoese charts of early 14th century, and are depicted
similarly by the Spanish navigators. The naming of the intermediate
subdivisions making up the thirty-two points or rhumbs of the compass
card is probably due to Flemish navigators; but they were recognized
even in the time of Chaucer, who in 1391 wrote, "Now is thin Orisonte
departed in xxiiii partiez by thi azymutz, in significacion of xxiiii
partiez of the world: al be it so that ship men rikne thilke partiez in
xxxii" (_Treatise on the Astrolabe_, ed. Skeat, Early English Text Soc.,
London, 1872). The mounting of the card upon the needle or "flie," so as
to turn with it, is probably of Amalphian origin. Da Buti, the Dante
commentator, in 1380 says the sailors use a compass at the middle of
which is pivoted a wheel of light paper to turn on its pivot, on which
wheel the needle is fixed and the star (wind-rose) painted. The placing
of the card at the bottom of the box, fixed, below the needle, was
practised by the compass-makers of Nuremberg in the 16th century, and by
Stevinus of Bruges about 1600. The gimbals or rings for suspension
hinged at right-angles to one another, have been erroneously attributed
to Cardan, the proper term being _cardine_, that is hinged or