The Strasbourg Astronomical Clock: God's Timepiece

"The cathedral's south transept houses an 18-metre astronomical clock, one of the largest in the world...The clock existing today originated in 1838-1843 and was built by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué..The astronomical part is unusually accurate; it indicates leap years, equinoxes, and more astronomical data. The clock was able to determine the computus (date of Easter in the Christian calendar) at a time when computers did not yet exist. Easter had been defined at the First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 as "the Sunday that follows the fourteenth day of the moon that falls on March 21 or immediately after ...Today tourists see only the sculpted figurines of this clock, but behind this ensemble there is a mechanism that engages and that represents one of the most beautiful curiosities of the Cathedral. The animated characters launch into movement at different hours of the day. One angel sounds the bell while a second turns over an hourglass. Different characters, representing the ages of life (from a child to an old man) parade in front of Death. On the last level are the Apostles, passing in front of Christ. The clock shows much more than the official time; it also indicates solar time, the day of the week (each represented by a god of mythology), the month, the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets. All these automatons are put into operation at 12:30 PM..." [link to en.m.wikipedia.org]

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