St. Augustine

As we all know, renaissance was a time of great discoveries and explorations of the New Worlds. Before the great discoveries of Columbus and Magellan, our civilization knew only for European continent and very little beyond that. At that time, in the 14-th century, traveling was very difficult and dangerous. Most of the people could not read or write, and there were only a few maps that could actually help the travelers of that time. We are aware of what Columbus and Magellan have done with the explorations of the New World, but we rarely ask ourselves what made these great discoveries possible.

Thanks to two main inventions, new navigational instruments, and completely new methods of shipbuilding, we know the world as it is today.

Probably the most important navigational instrument of the Renaissance was the compass, even though it was invented much earlier. The compass that Columbus used to use, had the handle of the spoon which always pointed south. Later on, that compass was improved with needles of magnetized iron and it has changed into a navigational tool as we now today. However, there were many other instruments that were in common use in that time like; astrolabe, nocturnal, sandglass, chilandre etc.

As I mentioned before, the second factor that made these explorations possible were new methods in shipbuilding. At that time completely new types of ships were made; they were bigger, faster, and they were able to cross much bigger distances than ever before. Probably the most important type of ship which was made at that time was a Full-rigger. The Full-rigger was a sailing vessel with three or more masts, all of them square rigged. It was designed to be fast and still able to resist the Atlantic. The biggest difference in this ship from the previous ones is that this one was moving only thanks to the wind. Before, ships were moving with the strength of the slaves, and the masts were only there as a help. Of course, this kind of vessel was much harder to control so the sailors had to pass a lot of training and the captains had to have a lot of school, and they've used to come from noble families.