Sundials in the Ticino Region in Switzerland

Sundials featured on all the village churches in  Maggie Valley Located in the  Ticino Region in the South of Switzerland. Is this an early indication of the Swiss horological excellence which was to follow in later years?

 

 

 

I recently visited the land of my ancestors, the village of Gordevio which is located in the Swiss Alps in the Ticino Region in the south of Switzerland. The area has retained its heritage and is spotted with small villages of houses made from the local rocks found in the rivers and on the mountains.

 



 

 

 Every village has a scattering of fountains which were the source of water for the villagers, and a church for worship. These churches are very old, some dating back to as early as  the 15^th , 16^th  and 17^th centuries  are elaborately decorated with frescoes and each has a bell tower. Also common in the area are shrines or grottos dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but many of these were erected in the early 1900’s rather than during the time my ancestors were living there.

 



 But what struck me most (excuse the pun) were the sundials found on each church. Early evidence I think of the Swiss’ fixation on horology and timekeeping.

 

My great great grandfather and his 17 year old son my great grandfather left this amazing land in the 1860’s, driven by poverty and lack of food to the shores of Australia and finally New Zealand in search of the elusive gold to feed their wives, children and families. The area looks more like Hobbit territory than Otago in New Zealand where this great series by director Peter Jackson was filmed. This amazing mountainous area is so beautiful with the snow capped Alps as a backdrop and laced with rivers, lakes and waterfalls and  not to mention the greenest of  green pastures and vegetation sprinkled with spots of vibrant color from the many flowers growing there. Hydrangeas, geraniums and others were so intensely colored like I had never seen before. It is easy to see why my great grandfather chose Otago to settle in. My great great grandfather chose to return to his family in Gordevio.

 

Sundials are devices that tell the time of day by the position of the sun. In the more common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from the style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. Interestingly though sundials do not adjust for daylight saving and we found that the sundials we saw in Switzerland in June were an hour out.

 

 

The part of sundials which casts the shadow in order to tell the time is called a gnomon. The style is the edge of the gnomon and is usually a thin rod or a sharp, straight edge. As the sun moves across the sky, the shadow-edge aligns with different hour-lines. All sundials must be aligned with their styles parallel to the axis of the Earth's rotation to tell the correct time throughout the year. The style's angle from the horizontal will thus equal the sundial's geographical latitude.  Note that inexpensive mass-produced decorative sundials usually do not have  the correct hour angles and  cannot be adjusted to tell correct time so they can only be used for  decorative purposes.

 

Apart from these sundials there was plenty of evidence with Switzerland’s fixation on horology and their enthusiasm for horological excellence. Watch shops selling all the best of Swiss watch brands were everywhere and the displays in the shops were amazing. The testimony to this is Baselworld which I discussed in my previous blog. A trip to this beautiful southern area of Switzerland and Northern lake district of Italy is well worth the effort. Amazing scenery, amazing architecture, amazing churches, amazing shrines to the Virgin Mary and amazing sundials..