Comment seen on substack.
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Here’s a semi-annual reminder to all my Northern Hemisphere comrades (the North Wind People): we live under the tyranny of a calendar designed by a Mediterranean pope—a man who probably thought of “winter” as the time to bring a warmer linen shirt to the beach—and that’s a big part of why you feel like garbage right now.
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I wouldn’t blame the pope himself since the calendar was gradually evolved from Babylonian through Roman tradition. Our clock and calendar were defined by secular Roman emperors, not the later religious Roman emperors. But the basic point is sharp.
Italy is warm all the time, no need for hurry or hibernation. Italians and other warm-weather people have a slow clock because work is always possible.
Northern peasants lived by the real seasons, and their landlords and churches had to live by the same real seasons if they wanted to prosper. Work had to be packed into the short growing season, with little rest time available. Rest happened in the long winter. The English year started on March 25, not arbitrarily on Jan 1. Festivals happened when people needed to rest and recover, not when some random saint died.
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Early clocks were calibrated to the length of day. Sundials did it naturally. Some clockmakers adjusted hours to fit seasons. The most interesting example was the Fan Clock.
Fan clocks might be nothing more than an idea, or might have really existed. The evidence for existence is scanty. As with the magnificent Ridhwan clock, the only documentation is a couple of crude sketches and a clear description.
This 1890 fan clock nicely demonstrates how an Equation Clock worked. Equation Clocks served to bridge the gap or Equation between Sidereal and Local or Personal Time.
The fan blades represent Sun Time, narrowing down in winter and widening out in summer. The hands rotate at constant speed like any clock, and you can read the Sidereal or standard time by the notches on the outer case. When the hands pass over the Sun Time blades, you can see the time referenced to the span of sunrise to sunset.
Here’s a fast animation through the seasons, showing the fan contracting from summer through equinox to winter.
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Polistra's Mill 