As some time happens,
we start from a point and we go forward. So we started from the painting
seen by Sam Muller, and we are to Gabriel Rossetti. Actually Sam asked for
other pictures and Beata Beatrix of Rossetti has taken me in these last
time in a discussion on his sundials.
As we can see in BSS Bulletin 97.4, in the article titled "Ultima
Nonna"(sic!), writed by Denis Shneider, Rossetti made other images with
sundials expecially two engravings representing Sain Cecile that play the
pipe organ. The sundials there are completely wrong, just imagined.
The same happen with the painting of Beata Beatrix the sundial is
completely wrong, but we can see in that picture a symbolic meaning.
Rossetti is representing the great beloved of Dante Alighieri: the best
Poet of the 1300 in Italy. Her name was Beatrice (Beatrix), and she died
very young, according with the scholars at 24 years and 3 months old,
probably like the whife of the same Rossetti.
Shneider, the author of the article, make a little confusion about the
measuring of time in Italy in the 13/14th centuries. At that time in Italy
they measure the time with the medieval way, that is temporal (seasonal)
and canonical hours, and in this specific case, the numeral nine is not
referred to the ninth hour of the day.
The sundial painted by Rossetti is wrong because, the position of the
ciphers, the kind of hours used there and so the kind of sundial, and the
gnomon is reverted (pointing south).
The title of the article, "ULTIMA NONA?" which meaning is "last Nones?" or
"last nine". But there is again an error, because Dante writes in the Vita
Nova that she died the first hour of the ninth day and month, counting in
the Arabic way. This means that she left this world the first hour of the
night of the 9th of June of the 1290. Therefore a mass or medieval dial
could not show the ninth hour, just because it was night at the moment of
her death. Exactly the first temporary hour of the night.
The nine have a philosophical meaning in Dante's times, surely badly
understood by Rossetti, that being one of the best member of the
pre-raffaellism movement, could not escape from the hermetic fashions.
So the number nine is not referred at the hour of the death but only at a
series of combinations in the dates (number of the day, of the month, of
the year: 9 / 9 / 1290).
After all Dante thinks in his philosophy that the number nine is the most
perfect (and this is why he try with any way to associate the moments of
the life of his beloved to this number). Three multiplied by himself, that
is for thee times. And in Christianity this number is related with the
Lord's Passion.
About the picture cited by Sam Muller, I don't know much, but reading his
description, it seems a copy of a particular older medieval sundial painted
in many medieval texts on wich I'm working for an article. It would be nice
to see the image of it.
Regards
Mario Arnaldi
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MARIO ARNALDI
Viale Leonardo, 82
48020 Lido Adriano RAVENNA
ITALY
E-Mail - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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