Handbook for travellers in southern Italy

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 Excerpt: ...introduced the wellknown ornament of the _fleur dc lis, which the compass has retained to the present day. Of the inventor himself the Italian writers do not pretend to know more than the mere name, and even upon this point they manifest so great a decrepaney that some give his Christian name as Giovanni, and others as Flavio, while his surname is variously given as Gioja, Gira, Giri, and Gisa. Not a trace exists of any fact which can throw light on his history or his pursuits, and there is not even a tradition as to the place of his burial. So little in fact is known of him or of his family, that some advocates of his claim are constrained to meet the doubt which has been expressed whether such a name ever existed at Amalfi, by advancing, as evidence, the circumstance that in some monastic deed, of the date of 1630, Angiola Gioja is mentioned as a nun in one of the convents. Others adduce, as a proof of the alleged discovery that a compass is borne on the city arms, and on those of the province of Principato Citra, but we have no authentic account of the true blazonry of these arms, or of the period when they were granted; and if they have not been altered, as some suppose, to square with the popular tradition, there is little to be proved by an er-post-faclo argument founded upon an heraldic question, which, to say the least, is doubtful. Others, in their anxiety to establish the claim of Amalfi, have lost sight of the alleged date of Gioja's discovery, and have contended that the cross of the compass was emblazoned on the Amalfitan standard during the crusades, and was subsequently adopted as the banner of the Knights Hospitalersl Amidst these numerous conjectures, we look in vain for any contemporary record of Gioja or his discovery. The oldest wr...