Dear Frank and friends, thanks for you comments. Yes this is a very curious (and unique) sundial. Like John Davis, also I and my friend Riccardo Anselmi, thinking the sundial was setted for London or Irish latitude. The strange thing: on location, I have see that this strange sundial, inclined, show the hours correctly! I cannot see the precision, but the orientation is good. Only, I think the iron gnomon in this sundial is not the original. I believe it was take from the second iron sundial present in the clouster, dated 1720. The personal of Villa Cimbrone, not know about the second sundials! It was swowed me only the inclined sundial in the Rose Garden! A thing is sure: the charm of this sundial live thogheter the charm of the Villa Cimbrone and his incredible "Terrace of the Infinity". Nicola Severino
---------- Initial Header ----------- >From : "Frank King" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To : "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc : "sundial" [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date : Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:31:05 +0100 Subject : Re: Ravello Sundial > Dear Nicola, > > Thank you for your message. I enjoyed > your photographs of the dial that you saw > on vacation in Ravello: > > > http://gnomonices.blogspot.com/ > > You say that the dial appears to be marked > out correctly for a horizontal sundial at the > Latitude of London. > > Let me speculate... > > The gardens of the Villa Cimbrone in Ravello > were laid out by Lord Grimthorpe, who was a > noted Englishman in the mid-19th century. > > Lord Grimthorpe knew about many things (though > not always as well as he imagined). He certainly > knew about sundials and clocks. He designed the > Great Clock at Westminster which is incorrectly > referred to as Big Ben. > > It is possible that he had a favourite sundial > in London (latitude 51 deg 30') which he wanted > to set up in Ravello (latitude 40 deg 40'). > > This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do... > > You just prop up the south edge of the dial so > the dial plate, in Ravello, slopes downwards > to the north at an angle of 10 deg 50' to the > horizontal. > > I can imagine the instructions being misinterpreted > and the local gardener propped up the north edge > instead of the south edge. Also, he got the wrong > angle and propped it up by the latitude instead of > the *difference* in latitude. > > Of course, these mistakes would have the dial > sloping at 40 deg 40' which is a little more > than the slope in your photographs but I guess > this gardener wasn't very good at using a > protractor either :-) > > It is not uncommon to move a sundial... > > When the Royal Greenwich Observatory moved from > Hurstmonceux Castle to Cambridge they took a > sundial with them. They set this up on a > concrete platform which was inclined to the > horizontal by an angle of 1 deg 21'. This > (correctly) compensated for the change in > latitude. > > Sadly, the Observatory has now moved from > Cambridge but you can still see the concrete > platform. On Google Earth it is at: > > 52 deg 12' 53.80 N 0 deg 5' 45.57 E > > I hope this starts off a more serious discussion > about this curious sundial!! > > Best wishes > > Frank King > Cambridge, U.K. > > --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
