----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Hollands <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Sundial <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2001 7:11 PM
Subject: Hello and a question
My name is Carlo Valdameri and this is the first time I write to the list
(please excuse me for my english).
I am not a gnomonist but I follow your interesting discussions.I actually
care about medieval iconography and expecially about iconography connected
with orientation.
I wanted just to point out that the orientation of the medieval churches and
the "strange" differences of degrees usually depend on many reasons (one of
them is certainly the presence of older building in the same site).
Nevertheless, medieval documents and many recent and older studies
demonstrate that the main reason is just connected with the way of
timekeeping with "orientated windows".
The name of the field of study that cares about it is "medieval
archaeoastronomy" (they could find a better name, in my opinion) and Steve
Mc Cluskey is one of the most famous autors caring about this matter.
If , by any chance, somebody would like to know what "timekeeping with
orientated windows" (I hope I've found the correct terms) exactly means, I'm
afraid that my rough english doesn't allow me to explain it in the best way
and
in a few words (and I actually don't know if it can be interesting to
gnomonists). So I can just say that one of the best books dealing with this
subject is Mladen Pejakovic's "Le pietre e il sole" ("Stones and sunshine"
italian title).
People who feel like translating some pages from italian can find something
in
http://web.infinito.it/utenti/e/enigmagalgano/contributi/iltempo.html
Kind Regards
Carlo Valdameri
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