Saint Sulpice Gnomon
by Joan Carroll
Title
Saint Sulpice Gnomon
Artist
Joan Carroll
Medium
Photograph - Digital Art
Description
Dan Brown and Da Vinci Code fans will remember this gnomen in St Sulpice Church in Paris. Indeed, while I am not the sort of person that goes on pilgrimages to historic places found in novels, I just happened to have been rereading the Da Vinci Code right before my trip to Paris. I just had to have a look to see if the gnomen was really there! In The Da Vinci Code, Silas the monk uses the line (which you can just see starting at the bottom of the obelisk and then running up the center) as a reference point in his quest for the Holy Grail. This Astronomical Gnomen in eglise Saint-Sulpice was commissioned in order to determine the exact date of Easter, and the winter and summer equinoxes. At 113 metres long, 58 metres in width and 34 metres tall, St Sulpice is only slightly smaller than Notre-Dame and thus the second largest church in the city. It is dedicated to Sulpitius the Pious. Construction of the present building, the second church on the site, began in 1646. In 1727 Jean-Baptiste Languet de Gergy, then priest of Saint-Sulpice, requested the construction of a gnomon in the church as part of its new construction, to help him determine the time of the equinoxes and hence of Easter. A meridian line of brass was inlaid across the floor and ascending a white marble obelisk, nearly eleven metres high, at the top of which is a sphere surmounted by a cross. The obelisk is dated 1743. In the south transept window, a small opening with a lens was set up, so that a ray of sunlight shines onto the brass line. At noon on the winter solstice (21 December), the ray of light touches the brass line on the obelisk. At noon on the equinoxes (21 March and 21 September), the ray touches an oval plate of copper in the floor near the altar. Constructed by the English clock-maker and astronomer Henry Sully, the gnomon was also used for various scientific measurements. It’s been long enough since publication of The Da Vinci Code that crowds of tourists were no longer here. However, at the time, the church posted a note saying: “Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel, this [the line in the floor] is not a vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. It was never called a ‘Rose-Line’. It does not coincide with the meridian traced through the middle of the Paris Observatory which serves as a reference for maps where longitudes are measured in degrees East or West of Paris. Please also note that the letters ‘P’ and ‘S’ in the small round windows at both ends of the transept refer to Peter and Sulpice, the patron saints of the church, and not an imaginary ‘Priory of Sion’. Nevertheless, the visit was a fun way to re-imagine the book.
Uploaded
April 11th, 2016
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