Editing Compass rose (section)

=== Mariner's ===
{{main|Points of the compass#Traditional Mariner's compass points|l1=Traditional Mariner's compass points}}

In Europe, the Classical 12-wind system continued to be taught in academic settings during the Medieval era, but seafarers in the Mediterranean came up with their own distinct 8-wind system. The mariners used names derived from the [[Mediterranean lingua franca]], composed principally of [[Ligurian language (Romance)|Ligurian]], mixed with [[Venetian language|Venetian]], [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]], [[Provençal dialect|Provençal]], [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Arabic]] terms from around the Mediterranean basin. [[File:32-point compass (traditional winds).svg|thumb|400px|32-wind compass with traditional names (and traditional color code)]]
* (N) Tramontana
* (NE) Greco (or Bora)
* (E) Levante
* (SE) Scirocco (or Exaloc)
* (S) Ostro (or Mezzogiorno)
* (SW) Libeccio (or Garbino)
* (W) Ponente
* (NW) Maestro (or Mistral)

The exact origin of the mariner's eight-wind rose is obscure. Only two of its point names (''Ostro'', ''Libeccio'') have Classical etymologies, the rest of the names seem to be autonomously derived. Two [[Arabic]] words stand out: ''Scirocco'' (SE) from ''al-Sharq'' (الشرق – east in Arabic) and the variant ''Garbino'' (SW), from ''al-Gharb'' (الغرب – west in Arabic). This suggests the mariner's rose was probably acquired by southern Italian seafarers; not from their classical Roman ancestors, but rather from [[Norman-Arab-Byzantine culture|Norman Sicily]] in the 11th to 12th centuries.<ref>Taylor, E.G. R. (1937) "The 'De Ventis' of Matthew Paris", ''Imago Mundi'', vol. 2, p.&nbsp;25.</ref> The coasts of the [[Maghreb]] and [[Mashriq]] are SW and SE of Sicily respectively; the ''Greco'' (a NE wind), reflects the position of Byzantine-held Calabria-Apulia to the northeast of Arab Sicily, while the ''Maestro'' (a NW wind) is a reference to the [[Mistral wind]] that blows from the southern French coast towards northwest Sicily.{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}}

The 32-point compass used for navigation in the Mediterranean by the 14th century, had increments of 11{{frac|1|4}}° between points. Only the eight principal winds (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) were given special names. The eight [[half-wind]]s just combined the names of the two principal winds, e.g. Greco-Tramontana for NNE, Greco-Levante for ENE, and so on. [[Quarter-wind]]s were more cumbersomely phrased, with the closest principal wind named first and the next-closest principal wind second, e.g. "Quarto di Tramontana verso Greco" (literally, "one quarter wind from North towards Northeast", i.e. North by East), and "Quarto di Greco verso Tramontana" ("one quarter wind from NE towards N", i.e. Northeast by North). [[Boxing the compass]] (naming all 32 winds) was expected of all Medieval mariners.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}