hayf (SW) hur jūj (W) dabūr (NW) mahwa (NNW) jirbiyā The Mariner's Windrose The sudden emergence of Mediterranean portolan charts in the early 1300s, originally in Genoa, but soon in Venice and Majorca too, are believed to be constructed on the basis of sailing directions long written down in the piloting handbooks (portolani) of Mediterranean seafarers. The directions, maps and nautical magnetic compass, which emerged almost simultaneously, were articulated in an eight-point compass system, with the following names: (N) Tramontana (NE) Greco (E) Levante (SE) Scirocco (S) Ostro (SW) Libeccio or Garbino (W) Ponente (NW) MaestroFrom these eight principal winds, 16-wind roses could be constructed with half-winds (NNE, ENE, etc.) which merely combined the names of the principal winds (e.g. NNE would be Greco-Tramontana, ENE Greco-Levante, and so on). 32-wind roses, which were already present in the early 1300s charts, relied on placing quarter-winds in between (the names of the quarter-winds were also just combinations of names of the principal winds (see Boxing the compass). The eight compass winds are evidently from the Italian-tinged lingua franca in the Mediterranean Sea during the High and Late Middle Ages. Of the eight winds, only two can be traced to prior Classical winds – Ostra (S) from the Latin Auster, and Libeccio (SW) from the Greek Lips – but the others seem to be largely conceived autonomously. Levante (rising, E) and Ponente (setting, W) are self-evidently related to the sun's position, but are etymologically quite different from the classical terms (which might refer to lightness, darkness or the sun itself, but none explicitly refer to the verbs rising or setting). Tramontana (N), Italianate for "over the mountains", most probably relates to the Alps of northern Italy, has nothing to do with the classical Aparctias-Septentrio (although it may have a faint connection with the old Greek Boreas, which lingered in Venetian parlance as the Bora of the Adriatic Sea). The Maestro is, as noted, the west Mediterranean Mistral, a wind already given in the Latin rose as Circius, but the name here is novel. Two Arabic words stand out: Scirocco (SE) from the Arabic al-Sharq (east) and the variant Garbino (SW), from the Arabic al-Gharb (west) (both of which, incidentally, translate to rising and setting respectively). In addition, there is the puzzle of Greco (NE). As Greece lies to the southeast of Italy, this suggests strongly that the Greco wind was named in the