Athanasius Kircher was a Jesuit priest and scholar, sometimes called the last Renaissance man, important for his prodigious activity in disseminating knowledge. To illustrate his belief in the magnetic relationship between the sun and the vegetable kingdom, Kircher designed this heliotropic sunflower clock by attaching a sunflower to a cork and floating it in a reservoir of water. As the blossom rotated to face the sun, a pointer through its center indicated the time on the inner side of a suspended ring.
Athanasius Kircher
