La Meridiana di Barbaresco

Painted on a façade in Barbaresco's central square, the monumental sundial by gnomonist Lucio Maria Morra combines a seasonal calendar, a true-solar clock and a universal meridian line with imagery drawn from agricultural life.

Why it matters

The sundial joins scientific measurement with the agricultural traditions of a village shaped by viticulture. Its three functions and its imagery from Pietro de' Crescenzi's medieval agricultural treatise make it a contemporary civic work grounded in the history of rural knowledge.

What to notice

The motto Da laborem dabo fructus—give labour, and I will give fruits—frames the work's connection between cultivation and time. Twelve illustrations inspired by Crescenzi's Ruralia Commoda depict seasonal rural tasks. The gnomonic design names forty cities around the world, placing Barbaresco within a network of solar meridians.

Context and history

Morra created the sundial in June 1999 at the municipality's commission. The iconography draws on the Ruralia Commoda, a widely copied agricultural handbook from the early fourteenth century. Its placement on a building façade in the main square gives a scientific instrument the role of a public monument.