The print fixes Vesuvius as both a topographic presence and a portent, suspended between landscape and threat.Created only a few decades after the devastating eruption of 16 December 1631, the image conveys the tension between beauty and danger that has long characterized Naples’ relationship with its volcano. According to tradition, that eruption, the first after nearly three centuries of inactivity: subsided only after the statue of Saint Januarius was carried before the crater, a ritual gesture marking the beginning of the modern history of volcanic risk. At the heart of the scientific South, the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte also became a place of volcanological investigation. Among its protagonists were Leopoldo del Re, who conducted magnetic observations during the eruption of Etna in 1842 in collaboration with geologist Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen and Danish astronomer Christian Peters; and Ernesto Capocci, who devoted part of his work to the study of Vesuvius, proposing innovative methods to probe its internal structure and less conspicuous behaviors. In his essays Investigazioni delle interne masse vulcaniche dai loro effetti sulla gravità and Relazione del fenomeno delle corone di fumo e di cenere presentato dal Vesuvio nella eruzione del dicembre del 1846 e nei mesi seguenti, Capocci recounts: “We placed ourselves in our Royal Observatory to observe the phases of the eruption with telescopes steadily directed at the mouth of the small active cone”. He suggested detecting underground magmatic masses through variations in the gravitational field, and documenting even “silent” eruptions, without tremors or noise, recognizable only by sudden emissions of gas and dust. The episode of 29 October 1855, which he recorded, is emblematic: a cloud rose from the crater without any seismic signal, revealing a complex and little-known internal dynamic. Complementing and preceding these investigations, Teodoro Monticelli’s Storia de’ fenomeni del Vesuvio avvenuti negli anni 1821, 1822 e parte del 1823 offers a systematic narrative of eruptions, enriched by direct observations and physico-chemical experiments. Monticelli, naturalist and volcanologist, was among the first to combine phenomenological description with experimental method, helping to establish a Neapolitan tradition in the study of volcanic risk. Another astronomer, Remigio Del Grosso, celebrated the power and mystery of the “fiery mountain” in a poem that fused scientific sensibility with lyrical imagination. In dialogue with these studies, a selection of views of Vesuvius produced between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reflects the variety of perspectives on the volcano: from the spectacular plates of William Hamilton’s Supplement to the Campi Phlegraei (1779), painted “by the marvelous brush of Pietro Fabris,” which combine scientific observation with visual theatricality, to Filippo Morghen’s engraving from the Naples pier, where Vesuvius dominates the urban landscape. Alongside these, a satirical print from Viaggio di Monsieur La Blague mocks the imagery of the Grand Tour, while the view of the 1794 eruption, painted by Pasquale Degola and engraved by Vincenzo Aloja, comes from Ascanio Filomarino’s Gabinetto Vesuviano del Duca della Torre (1796), documenting the event with precision. The scenes generally depict a serene atmosphere, with figures animated by amused curiosity, quasi-scientific interest, or at times complete indifference to the natural phenomenon unfolding. If Mortier fixed its uneasy distance, Hamilton illustrated its visual power, and Capocci revealed its invisible and silent dimension. Together, images, studies, and verses compose a layered narrative of Vesuvius, between observation, memory, and scientific culture, within the fragile and profound landscape of the South.

___Mauro Gargano