A hydrochronometer is a kind of
water clock
A water clock, or clepsydra (; ; ), is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount of liquid can then be measured.
Water clocks are some of ...
.
In 1867 Fr. Giovan Battista Embriaco, O.P., inventor and professor of the
College of St. Thomas
The University of St. Thomas (also known as UST or simply St. Thomas) is a Private university, private Catholic Church, Catholic research university with campuses in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Fo ...
in Rome, created a hydrochronometer
and sent it to the
Paris Universal Exposition of 1867, where it received many prizes. It had the shape of a wooden pinnacle made of cast iron fused as a tree trunk, while its four dials were visible from all directions.
In 1873, the water clock was returned to Rome and placed in
Villa Borghese gardens
Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums (see Galleria Borghese) and attractions. It is the third-largest public park in Rome (80 hectares or 197.7 acres), after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphi ...
into a fountain realized by the architect Gioacchino Ersoch. It is still there and works constantly.
In June 2007, after two years of restoration a
ELIS School it was restarted by the Town Mayor of Rome.
Another hydrochromometer can be found at Palazzo Berardi,
rione Pigna, Rome.
Notes
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20100419133812/http://www.orologiodelpincio.it/en/homepage
Water clocks
1867 introductions
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