Re: duomo di Milano
The volume on the sundial in the Cathedral of Milan, very complete and with a lot of technical and historical news, described by Giovanni Barbi and published in 1976, is now out of print. A small volume, with a short description of the sundial, has been published in 2001 and is in sale in the cathedral. The cost is 5 euro (around 5 US $) Probably it can be asked also at the address [EMAIL PROTECTED] Publisher VENERANDA FABBRICA DEL DUOMO - 2001 Carlo Ferrari dal Passano - Carlo Monti - Luigi Mussio La meridiana solare del Duomo di Milano - 25 pag. - 10 photos Some data on the sundial. Since the Milan cathedral has the direction East-West (entry in the West side), the meridian line crosses the naves of the church and it is traced at few meters from the principal entry. Design and construction: Giovanni Angelo De Cesaris (astronomer of the Observatory of Brera) -1786 Height of the Hole 23.82 m Diameter of the hole 25.2 mm (1/945 of the height) Since the meridian line is longer than the width of the cathedral it is developed on the floor for 53.85m and then it climbs on the North wall for around 2.90 m The dimensions of the image of the Sun change from around 0.26 x 0.26m on summer Solstice to around 1.27 x 0.55m on November 20. The speed of the movement of the image on the floor is between 4 mm/sec (winter) and 1.7 mm (summer) The sundial has been verified and restored in 1827, in 1921 and in 1976, Originally, plates of marble with the zodiacal signs were present but they have been removed in the 1827 restauration: only the plate of the Capricorn sign remains. Some sundials in other Italian churches (as. that in the church of S. Petronio in Bologna - see Heilbron volume) were built mainly as astronomical instruments to determine the ecliptic inclination, the dates of the equinoxes, etc. On the contrary, the sundial in Milan was built as official clock to determine the instant of the noon with which to regulate the city clocks. On October 23rd 1786 the authority emanated a decree in which it was established that from December 1st 1786 in Lombardy (the italian region in which Milan is) the ancient system of the italic hours had to have abandoned and replaced from the system of the French hours (the modern hours with the beginning of the day at midnight) In 1786, Lombardy belonged, from 1713, to the Austrian Empire. Gianni Ferrari 44° 39' N 10° 55' E Mailto : [EMAIL PROTECTED] -
Persian, Arabic and Kufic
Dear dialists, And just by sake of curiosity: does anybody have the original arabic quotation written in kufic symbols? (I know that Omar Khayyam was Iranian but, to my knowledge he used to write in arabic, didn't he?) No, he wrote in Persian. Persian, Perse, Pharasee, Farsee, Farsi... are all variants of the same word. Iran, which is related to Aryan was adopted as the name of the country starting in 1936 to replace Persia for reasons too complicated to to into, partly as a result as an attempt to curry favor with Nazi Germany but also due to reasons of internal ethnic inclusiveness. Persian/Farsi is written using the Arabic alphabet, but the Persian (Farisi) language is completely unrelated to Arabic. Actually, it's an Indo- European language, and as such is a distant cousin of our more familiar romance and germanic groups. Arabic is a Semitic language and has a completely different structure from Farsi. So if you can't understand Arabic or Persian and see a written sample, they look pretty much the same, just as English and Finnish might look the same to a Chinese reader looking at printed material. Kufic is a type of stylized arabic writing that was in vogue during the 8th through the 10th century. It uses an angular, non-slanted block style particularly suitable for inscriptions in stone, as opposed to the traditional flowing cursive arabic script normally written with a pen . Saying ...written in Kufic symbols is like saying ...written in helvetica sans serif type So what you want is the original Persian quotation written in Arabic script or Arabic letters. Jack -
Re: Construction Project
Hi Tony et al, Yes, I did some experimental dials in anodised aluminium a few years ago, following your excellent advice. I haven't had the actual dials outside all the time, but I have had an Equation of Time plaque made by the same method on the south wall of my house (in the full glare of English sunshine!) for four years. It's silver (natural) anodised with black lines and lettering. As far as I can tell by eye, it's suffered no degradation at all. Although the black-on-silver is close to perfect for shadow visibility, my customers are a very traditional bunch and prefer brass/bronze, so there's not much call for the anodisation. Regards, John -- from:[EMAIL PROTECTED] date:Mon, 07 Jul 2003 15:46:22 to: sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de subject: Re: Construction Project Rudolf Hooijenga asked: Hello Tony and other readers of the list, either I was not subscribed then, or I skipped it because I was not going to work on aluminium, but I would be really interested in a repeat now. Would you please? Hi Rudolf, As it is a text only message I'll risk boring everyone by repeating my original postings some of which were in response to other queries. I have to say that while many years ago I did dozens of projects in creative anodising none of them ever included an actual sundial. John Davis on the other hand has experimented with this and might wish to comment on its potential in particular durability and resistance to ultra violet light which was queried last time around. Best wishes Tony M. Dr J R Davis Flowton Dials N52d 08m: E1d 05m -
