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Description: | This gilded silver pocket compass sundial was made in the first quarter of the eighteenth century by the French mathematician Nicolas Bion (1652-1733). His workshop was located in the historic Quai de l'Horloge, within the Palais de Justice in Paris.
Bion worked by royal appointment as the maker of mathematical instruments to the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, and subsequently Louis XV. He wrote a major work on the design and construction of mathematical instruments in 1709 (-Traité de la construction et des principaux usages des instruments de mathématique) that included a detailed account of the manufacture, decoration, calibration, and use of this exact model of sundial.
This style of octagonal horizontal compass sundial is often called the Butterfield' type, after the English manufacturer Michael Butterfield, who worked in Paris from the mid 17th century onwards, and popularised the bird-shaped adjustable gnomon.
The sundial can be used over a number of different latitudes. It is inscribed with several 24-part scales, including Babylonian hours (beginning at sunrise) and Italian hours (beginning at sunset). The latitudes of notable European cities, principally French, are inscribed on the reverse, and the little bird' gnomon is itself marked with a latitude scale.
This particular example has, at some point in its lifetime, had a replacement compass fitted. The replacement is silver, and features the incorrect spelling 'NORT' (instead of the true French 'NORD'). The engraving on the replacement compass is cruder than that of the original work, and large rivets have been used to affix it to the main dial. It may have been manufactured and fitted by a British silversmith or metal craftsman, without knowledge of the French language. | Subjects: | horology; dial; chronology; chronometer | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Address: | University of Glasgow,
University Avenue,
G12 8QQ | Creator: | Shan Macdonald | Contributor: | First lent to Hunterian in 1981, donated November 2010 by Margaret Morris | Identifier: | C-0096 |
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