REFERENCES.--Hœfer, “Nouv. Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XIII. pp. 21–50, the last-named page containing an unusual number of citations; “Biblogr. Dantesca,” by Colomb de Batines, Prato, 1845–1846; “La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XIII. pp. 887–901, embracing many additional references; the note at p. 154 of Plumptre’s “Dante,” also Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 629; Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Math.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. pp. 164, etc.; Frederic C. Harrison, “The New Calendar of Great Men,” London, 1892, pp. 310–315. [Illustration: Dante Alighieri. “La Divina Commedia,” Mantuae 1472, the first page of what is by many regarded as the oldest edition of the earliest known poem written in the Italian language. Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris.] =A.D. 1266.=--It is shown by Th. Torffæus (Latin for Thormodr Torfason), an Icelandic scholar (_b._ 1636, _d._ 1719), who published “Historia Rerum Norvegicarum” (Hafniæ, 1711, IV. c. 4, p. 345), that at this date the northern nations were acquainted with the mariner’s compass. In the “History of Norway” here alluded to, he mentions the fact that the poem of the Icelandic historian, Jarl Sturla (Snorri Sturlason) written in 1213, on the death of the Swedish Count Byerges, was rewarded with a box containing a mariner’s compass. REFERENCES.--Suhm, “In effigien Torfæi, una cum Torfænis”; “Nouv. Biogr. Générale de Hœfer,” Vol. XLV. p. 495; “New Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. XII. p. 263; Jessen, “Norge,” pp. 83–99; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 312; Michaud, “Biog. Univ.,” Vol. XLI. p. 683. =A.D. 1269.=--Peregrinus (Petrus), Pierre Pélerin de Maricourt, Méhéricourt--Magister Petrus de Maharnecuria, Picardus--doubtless a Crusader, was, as Roger Bacon tells us (“Opus Tertium,” cap. xi) the only one, besides Master John of London, who, at this period, could be deemed a thoroughly accomplished, perfect mathematician, and was one who understood the business of experimenting in natural philosophy, alchemy and medicine better than any one else in Western Europe. Peregrinus is the author of a letter or epistle, “Written in camp at the Siege of Lucera (delle Puglie--Nucerræ) in the year of our Lord 1269, on the 8th day of August,” addressed to his _Amicorum intime_, a soldier, by the name of Sygerus de Fontancourt--Foucaucourt--Foucancort. Of this epistle, which is the earliest known work of experimental science, there are but few reliable complete manuscript copies. Most of these have been very ably analyzed by P. D. Timoteo Bertelli Barnabita in the exhaustive Memoirs published by him in Rome during 1868, and still better detailed by Dr. Silvanus P. Thompson in his several valuable printed researches and lectures on the subject, but there has been of it only one printed issue in book form, that of the Lindau physician, A. P. Gasser, which appeared at Augsburg during 1558.