Edge of the Old World

The post on the meridians pointed out a few important prime meridians and waited for information on further local prime meridians. From the description of the post it is clear that there are two main types of them.

The absolutely local meridians essentially all fix on the floor the trace of a light beam projected through a hole in the dome or high ceiling, a camera obscura, thus demonstrating the passing of time throughout the year. Such was the one made by G. D. Cassini in Bologna, but they designed similar ones almost everywhere, where extensive closed spaces were available. It was certainly a pleasant feeling to follow on the floor the path of the little light dot, the circular image of the Sun, passing through the line of the meridian, indicating both the noon and the place of the months and days.

The camera obscura designed in the vault of the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna, and the image of the Sun at noon

The much more important local meridians were marked practically in every major observatory, since the basis of any observation is the precise setting of the local noon.

Accordingly, a large number of local prime meridians are known. As many observatories, as many local meridians. But only a few of them had the privilege to be accepted by the international society of cartographers as a generally valid prime meridian. Besides the already mentioned London and Paris meridians, the so-called Ferro meridian, that is, the meridian passing through El Hierro enjoyed a certain priority, which is also worth to mention because of its Central European reference. Indeed, the Austrian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and the inter-war military maps all used it as the 0° of their geographical coordinates.



How was this location picked out? Already in Ptolemy’s system of longitudes and latitudes, the westernmost point of the then known world was chosen as a prime meridian, thus providing a positive value to all the meridians in the continent. During the geographical discoveries it turned out that the Canary Islands are located much further west than any part of Europe. Thus they defined the prime meridian here, at the farthest point of the Old World – due to the inaccuracies of the measurement, round twenty degrees west of Paris.

The cartographers, by following the traditions of their place of operation, widely used the Ferro meridian as well as the generally accepted London and Paris meridians.

One of the earliest maps produced in Hungary was the work of students-engravers in Debrecen who, under the direction of Ézsaiás Budai, designed and printed the first school atlas in Hungarian language. Both the Paris and Ferro degrees were indicated on the edge of the maps: below that of Paris, and at the upper edge that of Ferro.

Frontispiece of the Oskolai magyar új átlás (New Hungarian school atlas) and the map of France in it

Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (as well as its succession states) officially published all topographic maps with the Ferro meridian as long as the end of the Second World War.

1:200 000 scale general map of the Monarchy – TRIEST 31°46°

The 1:200 000 scale map of Trieste, for example, bears in the name the Ferro latitude and longitude running through the midle of the map section, and only that. After the war they at least started to mark with guard lines on the edge of the sections the Greenwich degrees as well.

The 1:75 000 military map of Sopron from the interwar period. The frame already indicates by guard lines the Greenwich degrees, too

But in order to see a printed country map which, in contrast to the international custom, was printed with a local longitude system: in 1753 András Frisch designed his map of Hungary on the basis of the data of Sámuel Mikoviny, the renowned 18th-century engineer and cartographer, with a longitude system based on the Pozsony (today Bratislava) prime meridian.

TABULA NOVA INCLYTI REGNI HUNGARIAE juxta nonnulas Observationes Samuelis Mikoviny. Concinnata Ab Andrea Erico Fritsch Posonii 1753

And once we spoke about Trieste…

Trieste is an important location in the Hungarian geodetic and engineering practice. As many prime meridians, as many zero sea levels to specify any geographic altitude. You only need a sea to it. But where, when which one? The zero sea level of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was for example established and fixed with a “golden nail” in 1875 on the basis of the observations of many years of the mareography of Trieste’s Molo Sartorio, using it as a starting point for altitude measuring throughout the Empire.

The sea level observation stations in Trieste and Kronstadt

In addition, because of the great distances, the exact altitude above the sea level was recorded, by way of multiple measurements, in a granite quarry of Nadap above the Velencei Lake in Hungary, assuming that granite is relatively stable, and the altitude fixed there will not change during the slow movements of the Earth’s crust.

The starting point of Hungarian altitude measuring, the Basic Sign of Nadap

At present, in Hungary they officially use the Baltic zero sea level, deduced from the sea fluctuations at Kronstadt for the Soviet system maps. When connecting the two basic levels, it turned out that the Adriatic values were approximately 67 centimeters lower than the Baltic ones.

And to satisfy the request of the previous post on meridians: the prime meridian of the above 18th-century map of Hungary, the Meridionalis Posoniensis has not passed without a trace either. The memory of this prime meridian has been immortalized under the castle, on the promenade along the Danube.

Memorial stone of the Pozsony (Bratislava) prime meridian, which points at the northeastern tower of the castle.

If the interested readers will report on the prime meridians known to them, would they also be so kind to tell whether there are any other zero sea level marks, and where? In Britain, in the Netherlands… Anywhere where they produce relief maps, and indicate on it the altitudes above sea level.

A Tale of Meridians

Moving south by train from Prague via Salzburg, past Austrian Alps that shine like gods in the afternoon sun, then in darkness through solid rock under mountain borders, the fluorescent tube lighting of the long train tunnels sweeping the interior of my compartment like a photocopier, I at long last descended to the port city of Trieste, on a seaside strip of Italian land, cupped within Slovenian mountains.


The story of Trieste, founded by Illyrians, ruled by Rome, then Byzantium, then enduring conflict with the Most Serene Venetian Republic and then, unsteadily, coming under the Hapsburgs, Napoleon, or intermittently finding purchase as a free city state, finally gives us today an Italian city braided also with thick Slavic and Germanic strands. James Joyce made it his home for many years, and his friendship with Italo Svevo helped make the latter a treasured voice in Italian literature. Each is memorialized in his own city landmark.

But our subject here is another Triestine landmark, an understated one of almost vanishing subtlety. It is no higher than the pavement on which it rests, and few that pass pay it any heed. Most people that I observed, Triestines and travellers alike, tread callously upon it as they go about their activities. I came across it simply as an accident of my haphazard wanderings and, as such things often do, it struck a resonant chord. I am speaking of the Trieste Meridian.


The word “meridian” is from the Latin words “meridianum” and, as such, it marks the line over which the sun is always at its daily zenith the year round for a given location. This is the noon or “midday” alluded to in the Latin above; that is, the middle of the day.

If I define a meridian in geodetic terms, saying that it is any section of a great circle on the terrestrial sphere that has both planetary poles as endpoints, we can understand, with perhaps a bit of effort, what is meant. But there is the lingering feeling that language this precise, ironically, starts to sound meaningless. In simpler terms, we may say that any straight north-south line on the earth’s surface is a meridian. And that there are infinitely many of them. In choosing this meridian, and making it manifest on the pavement, the Triestines are saying that it is somehow special.

London and Paris

It is special, but not unique. There is, for example, the consensus Prime Meridian that passes through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, a London borough, and, at 0°, is the meridian from which all other conventionally understood longitudes are measured. Before this was accepted, however, the meridian at Paris was considered by many a competitor for the honor. On many maps of French origin, in fact, you can still see both meridians are referenced in the margins.

During the International Meridian Conference in 1884, held in Washington, U.S.A., a good many alternative meridians were discussed, some on the basis of political neutrality and others for reasons of tradition. One proposal supported placing the Prime Meridian at El Hierro (Ferro), in the Canary Islands, a practice established in 1634 by the French, but based on a tradition dating from Ptolemy, who considered the “zero point” to be the westernmost point in the known world (or, in 1634, the “old world”). But as Greenwich had become the de facto standard gradually over time, it was generally felt, I suspect, that it would be best to leave it be. The French had to leave the conference dissatisfied.

But there is (was!) also a system of local prime meridians, intended to serve the limited chonometric needs of the people in their surroundings. Their august presences have dissipated over time from having been essential local features and exemplars of the timekeepers’ art, until now they are little more than atrophied historical appendages, modest curiosities at best. My favorite kind, as a matter of fact: the withering obscurity. For the curious, Wikipedia tells more about the Prime Meridian, and even offers a list of other prime meridians that are of merely local importance.

Here I will share what I've managed to find, in summary form, about the two prime meridians I've happened to trip over and, at the end, I wonder aloud how many more exist.

Trieste

The Trieste Meridian (13°46´11˝ E) is marked by three inscriptions on a narrow strip of pale stone cutting a swathe through the cement paving slabs of the Piazza della Borsa. The first simply identifies it as “Meridiano di Trieste” and the next gives instructions for how to make oneself the gnomon of a sundial, and read the time of day with your own shadow. The final inscription memorializes the efforts of its designer, the Friulian scientist Antonio Sebastianutti, who accomplished the work in 1820. The meridian strip’s northern end terminates at the base of the outer wall of the Camera di Commercio (Chamber of Commerce).


The inscription also alludes to a “camera obscura” as part of the ensemble, but for that, you must enter the abutting building. The meridian as demarcated outside continues into the interior of the building, where an indiscernible opening high in the wall allows a shaft of sunlight to penetrate and project the solar disc onto a series of markings on the floor of the entry hall, which discloses the precise time of day. When it was devised, the purpose of this elaborate, and strikingly elegant, system was to provide a precise method for ships long out at sea, upon returning to port, to calibrate their chronometers, which in those days were vital to navigation.

Prague

The start of my journey to Trieste began in Prague, a city that, interestingly, also boasts its own prime meridian. The Prague Meridian (14°25´17˝ E) passes through Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square), and, if you can manage to elbow your way through the crowds of tourists, you will see that it is marked by a brass rule and plaque embedded among the cobbles, pointing obliquely in the general direction of the memorial to Jan Hus. But this ensconcement is merely a historical ghost, marking a trace of a shadow of a hint of something that no longer exists.


Until the spread of railroads and the subsequent introduction of Standard Time, the city of Prague, like probably every other city and town in the industrialized world, had its own local time. The local time for each place varied, for the simple and logical fact that the sun was at zenith at a different time in each location, depending on its longitude. Prague by tradition and convention established that midday was the precise time that the Mariánský sloup (Marian Column), a 16-meter-high devotional column topped with a shining effigy of the Virgin, cast its shadow along a true north-south line onto the pavement. The line of that fleeting shadow is the Prague Meridian.

A separate, but connected, inscription among the paving stones of Old Town Square marks the former site of the Marian Column.  The column was pulled down shortly after Czechoslovak independence in 1918 by a certain group of scoundrels, still smarting from the Bohemian defeat at the Battle of White Mountain 300 years before, claiming that the column still represented Hapsburg repression.

The column, although erected in the period of the many so-called “plague columns” that appeared throughout central Europe during the era, does not strictly fit that archetype. It was begun in 1650 “…in thanksgiving to the Virgin Mary Immaculate for helping in the fight with the Swedes,” according to Wikipedia. Its aim seems at least partly political: Golo Mann, writing in “Das Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges,” from the Propyläen-Weltgeschichte, reports the curious fact that, officially, the Virgin Mary had been appointed the commander-in-chief of the Austrian army during their wars with the Protestants. The Battle of White Mountain against the Hussites was their first victory after having done so.

To this day there are unfulfilled initiatives to re-erect the structure, and the City of Prague has taken it under advisement. But still no decision on the matter has been handed down. It remains controversial. At issue are, not only the cost of the reconstruction, but also concerns by architectural experts that the existing documentation of the original column is insufficient to create a historically correct structure. The inscription marking the site of Marian Column reads “Here stood and will stand again the Marian Column,” but the words “and will stand again” have apparently been intentionally chipped away by person or persons unknown.

And now, You

After stumbling upon these two lesser meridians, that their local communities evidently find of enough significance to devote treasure and effort to their commemoration, I am left to wonder, what other minor prime meridians are out there that few but local citizens know about? We have Wikipedia’s list (linked above) to tell us of some, but, for the sake of the game, I am going to presume that there are many more.

So, please, dear reader, I ask you, if you should know of one, maybe in your home city, or that you’ve come across in your own travels, will you please leave a comment to this post with some small bit of information about it? And if you should have a picture of it, could you a share a copy with us? I believe it could form a very interesting collection of crowd-sourced knowledge that anyone interested in such things might benefit from.

In Closing

We all know that the features that appear on a good map correspond to features that appear somewhere on the Earth. The model for understanding mapped space is abstracted and distorted, projected onto a two-dimensional space so that it can be printed on flat paper. The map is peppered with dots representing population centers, squiggled with borders, and ruled with lines allowing coordinates to be plotted for quick reference. But what happens when we turn the idea around and begin to place markers on the earth that correspond to the way space is organized on maps? Our geodetic techniques give us crystalline constructs of pure imagination, an idealized conception that helps clarify relationships, sometimes at the expense of precise detail. In marking these imaginary lines upon the face of the earth, the brain’s inner theatre exercises its will in form and matter. The pure constructs of mental effort protrude into the very space they are attempting to describe, and therefore change it. So now there is something new on the earth, a monument to a meridian line. In turn, it now it must appear on some map, lest the map become outdated and false.

But this is a tangled hierarchy that I will leave to Borges and the philosophers.