Epact Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe

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Diptych Dial
Unsigned
circa 1600; Italian
Ivory and brass; 45 x 56 x 16 mm

The outer sides of both leaves of this oval dial are blank.

The inner side of the upper leaf has a string gnomon dial adjustable for latitude 40? and 50? with two eccentric circles at the centre forming a half-moon. Italian hours are marked from 12 to 24 with dots for the half hours and a half moon decoration in the centre.

The inner part of the lower leaf has a compass with card painted in blue, red and black, inscribed in the hour plate of a string gnomon dial with hours marked from V to XII to VII for the latitudes 40? and 50?.

See P. Gouk, The Ivory Sundials of Nuremberg 1500-1700 (Cambridge, 1988).

Ilaria Meliconi

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
Inventory number 53675

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