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The sundials of Montiglio Monferrato
(translated by Richard Thomas)
SUN, SHADOW, MAN, TIME… THE SUNDIALS
What then is time?
If no one asks me, I know what it is;
But if I must explain to one who asks, I do not know:
And yet I can assert with certain knowledge that
If nothing were to pass then there would be no past;
If nothing were to happen there would be no future for you;
If nothing were to exist, then you would have no now…”
St. Augustine
AN INTRODUCTION TO SUNDIALS
Text and pictures taken from the thesis – Sundials of the Piedmont: Province of Asti – by
Architect, Erika Buson, whom we thank for her kind collaboration
Since
antiquity, the moon and the sun, the alternation of day and night, the eternal sequence of the seasons have been of extraordinary importance in the development and survival of ancient
civilizations. The sun, the moon and the natural cycles became objects of
worship. The first attempts to measure time were bound to the times of sowing and
harvesting.
Beginning with the megaliths of Stonehenge (1500 B.C.) in England, and with the experience of the Chinese (1200
B.C.), the studies of shadows cast by the sun became ever more scientific, ending in the discovery of the laws that govern the measurement of time.
Sun clocks or sundials indicating the hours, phases of the moon, months and position of the sun in the zodiac were
invented, according to Vitruvio da Beroso, by Babylonian astronomers. According to Pliny the inventor was Anassimene of
Miletus. Others claim that it was Plato who brought them to Greece after his travels in the Orient.
Finally, according to Herodotus (484-424 B.C.), the Greeks learned to construct sundials from the
Babylonians. The knowledge of sundials then passed from the Greek world to that of the
Romans.
In Rome, sundials were introduced only after the capture of Catania (263 B.C.).
Indeed, before the war against Carthage, the criers of the consuls shouted the noon when the sun could be seen from the Curia between the Rostrum and the Street of the
Greeks. The first solar clock was placed in the Forum, but was not able to mark the exact hour because it had been constructed for the latitude of Catania, a difference of some five degrees from that of
Rome. Only two centuries later, in 56 A.D. was a sundial calculated for the latitude of
Rome.
Later, the Emperor Augustus had a great sun clock constructed in the Field of Mars (Campus
Martius). This clock had, as a gnomon (pointer), an obelisk 37 meters high which had been brought from Egypt. This same obelisk can still be admired in the Piazza
Montecitoria.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and with Europe invaded by
barbarians, knowledge of astronomy also fell into obscurity. However, by the Middle ages sundials were to be found on the walls of
convents, churches and palaces, places frequented by many people, thus benefiting the whole community. They were above all widespread in country villages well exposed to the
sun, a real engine for the solar clock faces, becoming an integral part of life in the
fields.
Around the year 1000 the construction of horizontal sundials began in Italy, using openings in the vaults of the
cathedrals. Such use lasted for several centuries ending with the perfect sundial constructed by the astronomer Cassini in 1655 at St Petronio in Bologna.
In the thirteenth century a further innovation spread from its roots in Islam: the use of a pointer or stylus orientated parallel to the axis of the Earth and no longer perpendicular to the face of the dial on the wall. Thus was born the Polar Axis sundial which indicates equinoctial time (solar year).
This tradition remained uninterrupted until the end of the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the 1800s the spread of ever more accurate clockwork
time-pieces, affirming the industrial revolution, marked the start of the decline of the
sundial. In a short time they fell into disuse, frequently destroyed to make a place for the mechanical
clocks. In the more fortunate cases they were simply abandoned to the ravages of time and man.
In our times sundials have lost their original practical purpose. In the era of the atomic clock and the global village they may seem
anachronistic. However, perhaps they still have something to teach. They can help us rediscover the mysterious course of the stars and the cycle of the
seasons, showing on their faces the immutable shadow of time.
Testi ed immagini tratti dalla
tesi MERIDIANE IN PIEMONTE - LA PROVINCIA DI ASTI
dell'architetto Erika BUSON
che si ringrazia per la gentile collaborazione.
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