Sundial of the Sorbonne - Paris - Sundial at Sorbonne, Paris - Sundial of the...

Sundial of the Sorbonne - Paris - Sundial at Sorbonne, Paris - Sundial of the Sorbonne. (Paris, Veme) Dial built in 1676 by Abbe Jean Picard (1620 - 1682). The dial was retraced in 1898 by Charles Wolf, then director of the Paris Observatory, who added around the midday line an 8 curve allowing to know the average time. The style, of rare design, is drilled with four holes, the centres of which occupy the vertices of a square. So it is the shadow, in the middle of the square, that makes it possible to read the time. Above the dial, a gilding depicts Phebus driving the tank of the Sun. In the lower part, a bronze low relief depicts two angels, measuring the dimensions of the globe by comppas. The motto of the dial is “” Sicut umbra dies nostri”” (nowadays flee like shadow)