VERTICAL DECLINING SUNDIAL S/O

The sundial is located on the South wall of the building looking in the West direction with a 24° declination on the East/West axis; therefore, the sundial will generally show the late morning and afternoon times starting from 10 a.m.

The hour lines all depart from the same oblique gnomon, which is parallel to the Earth rotational axis (North Star).

These lines have been deliberately truncated at the juncture with the solstitial curves (from solis statio: the Sun appears to be still and is inverting its apparent motion. It has reached its maximum negative declination on the Winter Solstice on December 21st - Capricorn, or positive declination on the Summer Solstice on June 21st - Cancer ).

The stylus' shadow with the gnomonic hole will therefore move in the course of the solar year inside these two curves, on a surface divided by a straight line indicating the Spring Equinox of March 21 (Aries ) and the Fall Equinox (Libra ). On these two dates, the day's length matches the night's length, and the straight line joins the cardinal points East and West, while the arrow indicates the direction of Earth's rotation.

The noon hour line shows Papariano's true noon time, and the other hour lines are those of the true local time, different from those shown on regular clocks which, for obvious reasons, cannot show each town's time but display the general Central European Time.
Therefore, in order to determine from the sundial's reading the Central European Time, we must add or subtract from the time equation(caused by the elliptic and not circular apparent orbit of the Sun around the Earth) the 6 minutes and 20 seconds which separate Papariano's time from Central European Time (15°-13° 25"= 1° 35"= 6 m. 20 s.).


Finally, on the sundial's noon hour line you can find Teresa and Sergio's wedding date (February 12), while in the lower portion is depicted the coat of arms of Mezzocorona, Sergio's birthplace.