The Radcliffe Observatory some notes

The Coade Plaques of c1794.  

Plaques of Morning, Noon and Evening, signs of the Zodiac and other ornaments (modelled by J C F Rossi RA 1762 - 1839)

Below the level of the balcony are the signs of the zodiac modelled by sculptor J C F Rossi (1762-1839).

There are only 11 - the signs for Scorpio (the scorpion) and Libra (the scales) are combined both on the Farnese Globe and on the Observatory.

 

The designs are derived from the Farnese Globe, a celestial globe (now in the Museo Nationale, Naples) which has survived from Roman times and is thought to be a Roman copy of a Greek original.

 A map of an ‘Ancient Globe of the Heavens’ taken from the Farnese Globe had been published in Spence’s Polymetis in 1747, and it was this map that Rossi used as a model for the Observatory’s zodiac signs.