Flavio Gioja or Gioia (c. 1300) is reputed to have been an Italian mariner and inventor, although modern scholarship disputes that he ever, in fact, existed. He was supposedly a marine pilot and has traditionally been credited with perfecting the sailor's compass by suspending its needle over a fleur-de-lis design, which pointed north. He also enclosed the needle in a little box with a glass cover. The sailor's compass, however, had been in use long before by Mediterranean navigators. (Gioia was said to have introduced the fleur-de-lis design in deference to Charles of Anjou, the French king of Naples.)
Art - Sculpture
Links: en.wikipedia.org
By: Matheus_
