[1] Montfaucon, notwithstanding all his researches in France and Italy,
was not able to discover any charter or diploma written on common
paper, older than the year 1270. Paper, however, made of cotton, is
said to be much older, and to have been introduced into Europe by the
Arabs. If we can believe an Arabian author, who wrote in the thirteenth
century, quoted by Casiri, in Biblioth. Arabico-Hispana, vol. ii. p.
9, paper (doubtless of cotton) was invented at Mecca by one Joseph
Amru, about the year of the Hegira 88, or of the Christian æra 706.
According to other Arabian authors, quoted by Casiri and Abulfeda, the
Arabs found a manufactory of paper at Samarcand in Bucharia, when they
conquered that country in the year of the Hegira 85, or of our æra
704. The art of making paper from silk was, as some pretend, known to
the Chinese 180 years before Jesus Christ. See a letter from Father
de Mailla to Father Etienne Souciet, in Mémoires des Inscript. et des
Belles Lettres, vol. xv. 520.
[2] The oldest picture, known at present, painted in oil-colours on
wood is preserved in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. It was painted in
the year 1297, by a painter named Thomas de Mutina, or de Muttersdorf,
in Bohemia. Two other paintings in the same gallery are of the year
1357; one of them is by Nicholas Wurmser of Strasburg, and the other
by Thierry of Prague. It appears therefore that painting in oil was
known long before the epoch at which that invention is generally fixed;
and that it is erroneously ascribed to Hubert van Eyck and his brother
and pupil, John van Eyck, otherwise called John of Bruges, who lived
about the end of the fourteenth century, and not the beginning of the
fifteenth, as is commonly supposed. [There is evidence in the books of
the Painters’ Company, under the date of the 11th of Edward I. (1283),
that oil painting was in use at that time. See a communication from Sir
Francis Palgrave given in the new edition of Carter’s Ancient Sculpture
and Paintings in England, page 80.]
[3] The person who first speaks of the magnetic needle and its use in
navigation, is a Provençal poet, who lived in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, and who wrote a poem entitled Bible Guyot. This
work is a satire, in which the author lashes with great freedom the
vices of that age. Comparing the Pope to the polar star, he introduces
a description of the compass, such as it appears to have been in
its infancy. This invention however is claimed by the Italians, who
maintain that we are indebted for it to a citizen of Amalphi, named
Flavius Gioja, and in support of this assertion quote commonly the
following line of Panormitanus:
Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalfis.
[4] Of the use of gunpowder in Europe no certain traces occur till
towards the middle of the fourteenth century. It seems pretty well
proved, that artillery was known in France after the year 1345. In
1356, the city of Nuremberg purchased the first gunpowder and cannon.
The same year the city of Louvain employed thirty cannon at the battle
of Santfliet against the Flemings. In 1361, a fire broke out at Lubec,
occasioned by the negligence of those employed in making gunpowder. In
1363, the Hans-towns used cannon for the first time, in a naval combat
which they fought against the Danes. After 1367, the use of fire-arms
became general throughout Italy, into which they had been introduced
from Germany.
[5] The invention of printing has given rise to many researches.
Meermann in his Origines Typographicæ, published in 1768, endeavours
to prove that Laurence Coster of Haarlem was the inventor, about the
year 1430. Most authors however agree that John Gutenberg was the
inventor of moveable types, but they differ respecting the place of the
invention. Some make it to be Strasburg, others Mentz, and some fix the
epoch of the invention at 1440, and others at 1450.
[6] Vasari, in Vite de’ Pittori, vol. iv. p. 264, ascribes the
invention of engraving on copper to a goldsmith of Florence, named
Maso Finiguerra, about 1460. The oldest engravers whose names and
marks are known, were Israel de Mecheln, of Bokholt, in the bishopric
of Munster; Martin Schœn, who worked at Colmar in Alsace, where he
died in 1486; and Michael Wolgemuth of Nuremberg, who was preceptor
to the famous Albert Durer, and engraved the plates in the well-known
Nuremberg Chronicle. It may be proper here to observe, that the art of
engraving on wood seems to be older than the invention of printing, to
which perhaps it gave rise. The names of the first engravers on wood
are however not known. [In the Athenæum Journal for 1845, page 965, is
given a fac-simile of a large wood-engraving, bearing the date of 1418,
which was discovered at Malines in 1844, and is now preserved in the
public library at Brussels.]