Spring Equinox: Reading the Sun on Ancient Sundials

Area:	Institute
Start:	20 March 2010
End:	27 March 2010
Description:	As part of the "Firenze Scienza" exhibition, the Institute and Museum of the History of Science together with the Istituto Geografico Militare, the Natural History Museum and the Opera per Santa Maria Novella Church repeated the astronomical observations with the event: "Equinozio di Primavera: il Sole sulle antiche meridiane" (Spring Equinox: Reading the Sun on Ancient Sundials). On March 20, 2010 the meridian line positioned on Santa Maria Novella's floor allowed the participants to observe the Sun's passage through the gnomonic holes opened by Egnazio Danti, cosmographer of Cosimo I de' Medici. The special event was also repeated on March 21, 23 and 27, at the Natural History Museum's zoological section "La Specola" in the wonderful Sala delle Cicogne, where the Sun's passage was observed on the meridian line built in 1784 by Giuseppe Slop in the old observatory.
Link:	www.firenzescienza.it/meridiane.phtml

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