Approximately seven meters under the street level in Via del Campo Marzio 48, under ten centimeters of limpid water illuminated by appropriate lamps, appears a great slabs of “travertino” marble on which, in horizontal and vertical bronze lists, like parallels and meridians, are reproduced the zodiac signs of the constellations of the Ram, the Taurus, the Lion and the Vergine. Draft of a “slice” of the great solar clock (a sundial), realize from the Emperor Augusto in the 10 a.C. that extended itself in a wide zone of the Campo Marzio (included between Via della Lupa and the public square of S. Lorenzo in Lucina).
Piazza Montecitorio
The great obelisk, that you can now see in Piazza Montecitorio, served as “gnomone” (the part of the sundial which showed its shadow on the the face indicating hour, day and month).
In the past, every year during the sunset of the 23 september (in the day and at the hour of the Emperor Augusto’s birthday) the sundial projected a shadow on the “Ara Pacis”, as a homage to the Emperor of the peace. The great and magnificent “clock” worked for approximately 50 years then it was ruined by earthquakes and by the alluviums of the Tiber river which, in those circumstances, deposited wide layers of mire on the wide slabs of the clock-calendar.
In the past, every year during the sunset of the 23 september (in the day and at the hour of the Emperor Augusto’s birthday) the sundial projected a shadow on the “Ara Pacis”, as a homage to the Emperor of the peace. The great and magnificent “clock” worked for approximately 50 years then it was ruined by earthquakes and by the alluviums of the Tiber river which, in those circumstances, deposited wide layers of mire on the wide slabs of the clock-calendar.
Ara Pacis
