important posts in the ministry of marine. In 1808 the French invasion led to his withdrawal to Andalusia, and the rest of his life was entirely devoted to literature. In 1819 appeared, as an appendix to the Academy’s edition of Don Quijote, his Vida de Cervantes, and in 1825 the first two volumes of the Coleccion de los Viajes y Descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los Españoles desde fines del Siglo XV. (3rd vol., 1829; 4th vol., 1837). In 1837 he was made a senator and director of the academy of history. At the time of his death, on the 8th of October 1844, he was assisting in the preparation of the Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de España. His Disertacion sobre la Historia de la Nautica (1846) and Biblioteca Maritima Española (1851), were published posthumously.
NAVARRO, PEDRO (c. 1460–1528), Spanish military engineer and general, of obscure parentage, was born probably about 1460.
He began life as a sailor; and was employed later as mozo de
espuela, or running footman, by the Cardinal Juan de Aragon;
on the death of his employer in 1485 he enlisted as a
mercenary in a war between Florence and Genoa; and was subsequently
engaged for some years in the warfare between the
Genoese corsairs and the Mahommedans of Northern Africa.
Navarro was not more scrupulous than others, for in 1499 he was
at Civitavecchia, recovering from a gunshot wound in the hip
received in a piratical attack on a Portuguese trading ship.
When Gonsalvo de Cérdoba was sent to Sicily, to take part with
the French in the partition of Naples, Navarro enlisted under
him; and in the expulsion of the Turkish garrison from Cephalonia
in 1500 he helped by laying mines to breach the walls,
though not at first with much success. The Spanish commander
gave him a captain’s commission. During the campaigns of
1502 and 1503 he came to the front among the Spanish officers
by the defence of Canosa and of Taranto, by his activity in
partisan warfare on the French lines of communication, and
by the part he took in winning the battle of Cerinola. But his
great reputation among the soldiers of the time was founded
on the vigour and success of his mining operations against the
castles of Naples, held by French garrisons, in 1503, and he was
undoubtedly recognized as the first military engineer of his age.
When the French were expelled from Naples he received from
Gonsalvo a grant of land and the title of count of Olivetto.
In 1506 he was in Spain, and for several years he was employed
in wars on the north coast of Africa. In 1508 he took Velez de
Gomera, largely by means of a species of floating battery which
he invented. In 1509 he accompanied Ximenez in the conquest
of Oran, and did excellent service. Till 1511 he continued in
service in Africa, and took Bougie and Tripoli in 1510. The
disasters at Gerba and Kerkenna did not materially affect his
reputation. There was some talk of appointing him to command
the army of the league formed against the French in 1512;
but his humble birth was thought to disqualify him. He was,
however, sent as subordinate general. At the battle of Ravenna
he covered the orderly retreat of the Spanish foot, and was
struck from his horse by a shot which failed to pierce his armour.
Being taken prisoner by the French, he was sent to the Castle
of Loches. Ferdinand, whom the soldiers called an Aragonese
skinflint, would not pay his ransom, and after three years of
imprisonment he entered the service of Francis I. in a pique.
The rest of his life was spent as a French officer. He distinguished
himself in the passage of the Alps, at the battle of
Marignano, by the taking of the citadel of Milan, and in the long
siege of Brescia. He was at the battle of Pavia, and in 1522
was taken prisoner at Genoa by his own countrymen. He was
confined at Naples till the peace of 1526, but beyond the confiscation
of his estate at Olivetto no punishment was inflicted for his
treason. His last service was in the disastrous expedition of
Lautrec to Naples in 1527, which was ruined by the plague. He
died near the end of 1528.
A life of Navarro by Don Martin de los Heros, is published in the Documentos inéditos para la Historia de España, vol. xxv. (Madrid, 1854).
NAVE, ecclesiastically considered, that part of a church
appropriated to the laity as distinguished from the chancel,
the choir or the presbytery, reserved for the clergy. In a 14th-century
letter (quoted in Gasquet’s Parish Life in Medieval
England, 1906, p. 45) from a bishop of Coventry and Lichfield
to one of his clergy, the reason for this appropriation is given.
“Not only the decrees of the holy fathers but the approved
existing customs of the Church order that the place in which
the clerks sing and serve God according to their offices be
divided by screens from that in which the laity devoutly pray.
In this way the nave of the church . . . is alone to be open to
lay people, in order that, in the time of divine service, clerics
be not mixed up with lay people, and more especially with women,
nor have communication with them, for in this way devotion
may be easily diminished.” The word “nave” has been
generally derived from Lat. navis, ship. Du Cange (Glossarium,
s.v. “Navis”) quotes from the Chronicon Moriniacense, of the
12th century, as to the popular origin of the name, Exterius
etiam tabernaculum, quod ecclesiae navis a populo vocatur . . . .
Salmasius in his commentary on Solinus (1629) finds the origin
in the resemblance of the vaulted roof to the keel of a ship, and
refers to Sallust (Jugurtha, 18. 8) where is noticed a similar
resemblance in the huts (mapalia) of the Numidians. The use
of the word navis may, however, be due to the early adoption
of the “ship” as a symbol of the church (see Skeat’s note on
Piers Plowman, xl. 32). The Greek ναός, Attic νεώς (ναίειν,
to dwell), the inner shrine of a Greek temple, the cella, has also
been suggested as the real origin of the word. This derivative
must presume a latinized corruption into navis, for the early
application of the word for ship to this part of a church building
is undoubted.[1]
Architecturally considered the nave is the central and principal part of a church, extending from the main front to the transepts, or to the choir or chancel in the absence of transepts. When the nave is flanked by aisles, light is admitted to the church through clerestory windows, some of the most ancient examples being the basilica at Bethlehem and the church of St Elias, at Thessalonica, both of the 5th century; numerous churches in Rome; and in the 6th century the two great basilicas at Ravenna; in all these cases the sills of the clerestory windows were raised sufficiently to allow of a sloping roof over the side aisles. When, however, a gallery was carried above the side aisles, another division was required, which is known as the triforium, and this subdivision was retained in the nave even when it formed a passage only in the thickness of the wall. In Late Gothic work in England, the triforium was suppressed altogether to give more space for the clerestory windows, and roofs of low pitch were provided over the side aisles.
The longest nave in England is that of St Albans (300 ft.), in which there are thirteen nave arches or bays on each side; in Winchester (264 ft.) there are twelve bays; in Norwich (250 ft.) fourteen; Peterborough (226 ft.) eleven; and Ely (203 ft.) twelve bays. Most of these dimensions are in excess of those of the French cathedrals; Bourges is 300 ft. long, but as there are no transepts this dimension includes nave and choir. Cluny was 230 ft. with eleven bays; Reims is 235 ft. with ten bays; Paris 170 ft. with ten bays; Amiens 160 with ten bays; and St Ouen, Rouen, 200 ft. with ten bays. In Germany the nave of Cologne cathedral is only 190 ft., including the two bays between the towers. The cathedral at Seville in Spain is 200 ft. long, with only five bays. In Italy the cathedral at Milan is 270 ft. long with nine bays; at Florence, 250 ft. long with only four bays; and St Peter’s in Rome 300 ft. long with four bays. On the other hand, the vaults in the nave of the continental cathedrals are far higher than those in England, that of Westminster Abbey being only 103 ft. high, whilst the choir of Beauvais is 150 ft. The result is that the naves of the English cathedrals not only are longer in actual dimensions, but appear much longer in consequence of their inferior height.
- ↑ Vessels resembling boats or ships are familiar in medieval art and later. Thus “Incense-boats” (navettes) somewhat of this shape are found in 12th-century sculptures. By the 16th century they approximated still more c osely to a model of a ship. A large vessel, also in the shape of a boat or ship, and known as a nef, was used at the table of princes and great personages to contain the knives, spoons, &c. Some very elaborate examples of these survive, such as the 15th-century nef of St Ursula in the treasure of the cathedral at Reims, and that of Charles V. of France in the Musée Cluny. A 16th-century nef, adapted for use as a cup, is in the Franks Collection at the British Museum. (See Drinking Vessels.)
