SUNDIALS
The large family of sundials includes a great variety of instruments among which the “vertical” ones stand out, i.e. those frescoed on the walls and facades of houses and buildings, and the “horizontal” ones, the so-called garden sundials, and the armillaries spheres. I create and manufacture sundials on commission, making every single one of them unique and exclusive.
Sundials can keep time with a one-minute precision. However, they must necessarily be designed for the place where they will be placed. This is why I personally take care of all the phases of the project, from the astronomical calculation to the installation of the work or its realisation on-site, as regards the frescoed quadrants.
I handle the execution of all phases of creation: reliefs, planning, artistic drawing, and fresco. The vertical quadrants may be frescoed on walls or painted on windows. In addition to frescoed sundials, I create garden sundials of all shapes and sizes, made with different techniques and materials: marble, bronze, bronze with 24 Kt gold finish, cor-ten steel, stainless steel, stoneware and other materials.
STATE-OF-ART DESIGN
The design of a sundial begins from the applicant’s proposal and from sharing, since the early stages, the purposes for which a sundial is desired, to be able to immediately provide the customer with examples of possible sundials that are best suited to satisfy their desires. At the same time, an evaluation of the place where the sundial is intended to be installed is carried out, including data on its geographical coordinates of latitude and longitude, and in the case of frescoed or stained-glass dials, an accurate survey of the wall is conducted, to establish its orientation. These are indispensable data for the development of the calculations that lead to the creation of the routes. The project is shared with the client in all its aspects and during all phases, up to the final installation of the work.
SUNDIALS: TRUE WORK OF ART
Sundials and astronomical sculptures are truly valuable works that give value to gardens and homes. These are works of art that establish a dialogue with the values of our individual and collective identity. They are works capable of crossing the threads of time of a thousand-year-old tradition, rereading it in a current and modern vision. They are works in which time serves to show the fascinating celestial mechanics that move the tool, and not just to tell us what time it is. The common sundials found on the market in cast iron, terracotta, ceramic, marble, or painted panels, ready for use and to be hung merely represent an image of the sundial, and are purchased and exhibited for their sole symbolic and decorative value, without any chronometric value. They are completely foreign to the astronomical principles and precise mathematical rules indispensable for the creation of both wall and garden sundials, which, if carefully designed, may reach the precision of one minute.