SINE SOLE SILEO

An Italian wall sundial with the writing: "Torna il Sole, non
il tempo" (tr. "sun will return, your time won't"). The rooster and the owls
are the symbols of the dawn and the sunset, the time span of the sundial
being of 12 hours. 

SINE SOLE SILEO (Latin)=NO SUN, NO SHADE. 

Many years before solar panels were invented, solar clocks made their entrance into the world of useful tools operated by the sun and usually accompanied by inspiring sayings mostly written in Latin. In Italy, the making of solar clocks, specifically "sundials", was considered as an art including scientific studies of longitudes, latitudes and other astronomic data of places of interest. Sundials in Italy are usually part of walls, rarely laying flat which is how they originally started in the dawn of time, the first examples going back to the 3rd millennium B.C. in China.

Herewith follow some examples of Latin sayings that may be found on sundials in Italy: 

Non sine lumine (tr. not without light), Utere hora quae hodie tua (tr. use your time today), Sol omnibus lucet (tr. sun shines for all), Omnia Mutantur (tr. everything changes), Omnia habet tempus (tr. everything has its time).  

"Sine Sole Sileo" is Latin and literally means "Without the sun, I am
dumb" or as a free translation: "No sun, no shade".  Example of a modern
project for sundials with classical horoscope signs and
Roman numbers. 

The difficult part is now that I do not know how to read these clocks. This is the problem of lost traditions, it takes a longer time to understand them and use them in this case. In these works of art, there are usually pieces of information regarding the months of the year (by the help of horoscope signs), of the equinox and of seasons. The seasons of the year are usually written in Latin and they are as follows: Autumnus (fall), Hiems (winter), Aestas (summer), Ver (springs) with several short information about the coordinates of the place (see the example on the above image): LONG stands for "longitudine" (longitude), LAT stands for "Latitudine" (latitude), DEC stands for "Declinazione della Parete" or "Azimut" (wall declination or Azimuth), C stands for "Costante Locale" (local constant) and Slm stands for "Sul Livello del Mare" (above sea level) It takes an engineer to make a sundial or an amateur of astronomical geography, nevertheless to cope with this difficult task there are nowadays dedicated computer programs.  

A flat (horizontal) sundial with Roman numbers and motto in English
"I Tell Only Sunny Hours". The stick is called gnomon
and is necessary to create the shade which will catch the time. Metal.  

Sundials are usually slow compared to modern and perfect wristwatches, usually by half an hour. Slow vs Fast, the two adjectives in use for time measuring. Slow makes me think of Slowness (vs Speed) which has been a new concept in modern lifestyle for several years now: i.e. slow food, slow art, slow travel, an invitation to slow down in a world where the rhythms of industrial technologies seem to teach us about a fast way to live our personal life, which on the contrary needs slow times in order to fully enjoy health, peace and joy. In this regards the beauty of slowness is described by the famous Renaissance motto of Cosimo de' Medici which is "Festina Lente" (Italian translation: agisci presto ma con calma - English translation: act quickly but calmly) which is apparently an oxymoron but rather the description of art itself, the Art of Slowness that may be applied to the modern era and help us fight stress, anxieties and frustrations, going hand in hand with the benefits of contemporary technologies but with us mastering the time, which is a precious tool in our hands, therefore something to use wisely.

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- Original Posts by Roberta Niccacci -

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