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Brass nautical magnetic compass, signed Sestrel London circa 1870
About the Item
Brass nautical magnetic compass, signed Sestrel London from the second half of the 19th century and housed in its original wooden box with slot lid, fitted with pins and handle brass for wall mounting.
Box size cm 16x16x11 - inches 6.3x6.3x4.4.
The compass consists of a cylindrical-shaped brass vessel called a mortar, on which fund is fixed a hard metal stem, called the sensing element, on which the suitably constrained wind rose is placed so that zero coincides with the magnetic polarity.
Sestrel is a registered trademark of Henry Browne & Son, which was an important English firm producing high quality compasses, inclinometers, sextants, etc. founded in the second half of the 19th century. The brand is a name that results from the initials of the qualities that the brand itself embodies: SEnsitive -STeady - RELiable. Indeed, Sestrel is a name synonymous with quality and precision, as evidenced by the number of instruments with that mark, vintage and ancient, still in use today.
The earliest hints of the use in Europe of instruments that harnessed magnetic force for navigational orientation date back to the late 12th century, mainly due to the knowledge brought by Arab merchants and navigators: we find hints of this in Alexander Neckam's work "De nominibus utensilium" and in the works of Guyot de Provins in which the magnet is referred to as the "sailor's companion." The inventory of a 13th-century Sicilian ship, the San Nicolo, also mentions the presence of a magnet and a "ligno compass" on board.
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