FLAVIO**, an Italian navigator and mathematician of the fourteenth century. His native place was Pasitano, near Amalfi. He has been frequently asserted to be the inventor of the mariner’s compass in consequence of his having properly applied it to navigation; but before his time that valuable instrument was known in Europe. It is most likely that the secret of this use of the magnetic needle was brought to Italy by Marco Polo in the year 1260 A.D., after his visit to the East.