Hi Nicola
Your comment regarding the placement of armillary dials too high to be read is
very interesting. I am sure that you are correct.
This practice continues (nearly) to the present day. We have a few ‘dials’
like that in Britain and it does indeed seem sometimes to have been the
practice to add focus to a garden by placing what is effectively a ‘false’ dial
on a very tall column.
A particular one that I recall dates (I think) from the 1920s and is one which
I managed to photograph close up some time ago. It is at Snowshill Manor in
Gloucestershire (UK) where it is complete as a dial, even to the inclusion of a
nodus. It does not however have a time scale.
That dial is mounted on a 4m high octagonal column and as a consequence it is
remarkably difficult to photograph against the sky let alone view any of its
detail from the ground.
Thank you for providing the historical background to this interesting practice.
Patrick
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