Astronomical Images : The little ship of Venice: rectilinear sundial

Oronce Fine

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This book was one of the period's best accounts of all sorts of fixed and portable sundials, including the nocturnal, and various horary quadrants. Equinoctial, lunar, pillar and ring dials are treated, as well as astronomer's rings. Fine also describes a clepsydra, and gives a detailed account of the astrolabic quadrant, credited to him by Gallucci. The illustration here shows the so-called 'little ship of Venice', where the hour lines and sights are carried by the hull of the ship, and the mast ' adjustable for latitude and solar declination ' has the suspension point for the plumb line. The 'ship' may be an allusion to the Admiral of France, as the volume from which this image is taken included a dedication by Oronce's son, Jean, to Odet de Coligny (1517-71), Cardinal at Chatillon, Bishop and Count of Beauvais, who deputised as Admiral of France during 1557-9, while his brother, the Huguenot leader Gaspard II de Coligny, was imprisoned in Spain.</p>