Until about 1840 Valletta’s Grandmaster’s Palace featured in its Supreme Council Chamber a meridian line, installed under Grand Master Francisco Ximenes de Texada (modern Spanish spelling reads Jimenes de Tejada) in the late 18th century.

This was Malta’s only known meridian line, aligned to a gnomon or pinhole set in a lateral wall at a preset height. This meridian line indicated noon or midday on predetermined days.

An English governor removed this interesting feature and opted for a parquet floor for State dances and balls instead.

Thereby Malta lost its only meridian. Some of its remnants were deposited in the cellars of Valletta’s Auberge de Provence, or Museum of Archaeology.

The Sicilian and Italian version of a ‘meridiana’ is twofold. One meaning refers to a common vertical sundial, of which Malta and Sicily have many. The second refers to a horizontal meridian line set on the floor of a church, or hall.

Sicily’s most notable meridian line is in Catania, on a moderate hill above the city’s university, off a side street opposite its famous statue of the iconic Elefante. On asking for directions, one is easily directed to the top of the hill in upper Catania, and the unfinished façade of the large Benedictine church of San Nicolò L’Arena.

A Roman open-air theatre or arena graced this summit in classical times. The church’s interior is impressive. The adjoining monastery suffered various vicissitudes. In 1693 a devastating earthquake shook this area to its core, burying some 30 Benedictine monks and novices among the ruins.

Between 1839 and 1841, a German mathematician, Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, and the Dane Christian Peters were commissioned to lay a meridian line across the aisles and nave of this church. It is now Sicily’s longest meridian line, very accurate and meaningful.

Sicily features at least six other meridian lines on various sites, notably at Palermo’s cathedral or Duomo, at Acireale’s Duomo and at Messina’s cathedral, which displays a similar meridian.