A VERTICAL SUNDIAL AND THE ENIGMA OF HOURS WATCH

This watch, made for the counter of the Duomo of Florence by Paolo Uccello in 1443. Here is the simplest explanation of why the clock of the Duomo of Florence seems so strange to our eyes. Moreover the current clocks are moved to effect an agreement on how it should be measured over time, our daily life and the rules applied to it are the result of conventions, or prevalence of some rules than others. On a vertical meridian, the time is marked with the projection of the shadow of a dial counterclockwise. So also does the clock hand on the counter of the Duomo of Florence. The dial measures 435 x 435 is located approximately 15 meters in height, is composed of a circle that falls within a square. The dial of the measuring time is divided into 24 segments marked 1 to 24 in Roman numerals placed in ascending order counterclockwise. Defining a counterclockwise movement of a watch is quite weird, but this definition is to help people better understand the true motion of the hand work of art of which we speak. At the center of the dial a lancet-shaped beam of elongated star indicating the second time '"Hora Italica", namely the 24 hours it was sunset and the first hour of the night. In the corners of the square that contains the clock, depicts 4 prophets , evangelists and their eyes follow the viewer is facing in any direction. It is these faces that damage to the fresco a three-dimensional vision, unlike the two-dimensionality of the dial.The arrangement counterclockwise is not really a quirk, but the transposition of the hours marked by vertical sundials, where the shadow was moving to move from east to west of the sun. This watch is so divided, placed in the first hour of the night and early in the 24th end of the light, then the end of the workday and which corresponded to the bell-Maria.