n a letter written from
Venice, after extolling in too rhetorical a manner the commerce of that
republic, he mentions a particular ship that had just sailed for the
Black Sea. Et ipsa quidem Tanaim it visura, nostri enim maris navigatio
non ultra tenditur; eorum vero aliqui, quos haec fert, illic iter
[instituent] eam egressuri, nec antea substituri, quam Gange et Caucaso
superato, ad Indos atque extremos Seres et Orientalem perveniatur
Oceanum. En quo ardens et inexplebilis habendi sitis hominum mentes
rapit! Petrarcae Opera, Senil. 1. ii. ep. 3, p. 760 edit. 1581.

[607] Hist. de Languedoc, t. iii. p. 531; t. iv. p. 517. Mem. de l'Acad.
des Inscriptions, t. xxxvii.

[608] Capmany, Memorias Historicas de Barcelona, t. i. part 2. See
particularly p. 36.

[609] Muratori, Dissert. 30. Denina, Rivoluzione d'Italia, 1. xiv. c.
11. The latter writer is of opinion that mulberries were not cultivated
as an important object till after 1300, nor even to any great extent
till after 1500; the Italian manufacturers buying most of their silk
from Spain or the Levant.

[610] The history of Italian states, and especially Florence, will speak
for the first country; Capmany attests the woollen manufacture of the
second--Mem. Hist. de Barcel. t. i. part 3, p. 7, &c.; and Vaissette
that of Carcassonne and its vicinity--Hist. de Lang. t. iv. p. 517.

[611] None were admitted to the rank of burgesses in the town of Aragon
who used any manual trade, with the exception of dealers in fine cloths.
The woollen manufacture of Spain did not at any time become a
considerable article of export, nor even supply the internal
consumption, as Capmany has well shown. Memorias Historicas, t. iii. p.
325 et seqq., and Edinburgh Review, vol. x.

[612] Boucher, the French translator of Il Consolato del Mare, says that
Edrissi, a Saracen geographer who lived about 1100, gives an account,
though in a confused manner, of the polarity of the magnet. t. ii. p.
280. However, the lines of Guiot de Provins are decisive. These are
quoted in Hist. Litteraire de la France, t. ix. p. 199; Mem. de l'Acad.
des Inscript. t. xxi. p. 192; and several other works. Guinizzelli has
the following passage, in a canzone quoted by Ginguene, Hist. Litteraire
de l'Italie, t. i. p. 413:--

In quelle parti sotto tramontana,
Sono li monti della calamita,
Che dan virtute all'aere
Di trarre il ferro; ma perche lontana,
Vole di simil pietra aver aita,
A f