Vesuvius: Stories of Men and Eruptions

Vesuvius for many Neapolitans is a looming presence even now that it has been silent for seventy-eight years. The term itself, for those who live in Campania, includes any volcano, up to indicating Etna as the Vesuvius of Sicily. After more than three hundred years of periodic eruptions, it could only be like this and the character of the Neapolitans has consequently been forged with a perception of the temporary nature of life, mixed with a subtle resignation. Goethe had grasped its meaning by describing it as the terrible opposed to the beautiful, the beautiful to the terrible: both cancel each other out, and the result is a feeling of indifference. Neapolitans would undoubtedly be different if they didn't feel forced between God and Satan.Now, motionless and calm, it looks like a mountain built specifically to enclose the panorama of the gulf and to invite tourists to take a slightly different trip. The repressed force that stirs inside is forgotten and only a few unexpected jolts recall that Leopardi rightly called that mountain Sterminator Vesevo.The periods of quiescence gave the illusion that the volcano had finished its life cycle and that one could coexist and expand at its feet without any worries. Nothing is falser than man's memory when it is referred to geological phenomena for which it represents an insignificant time compared to a history that has stages of hundreds of thousands of years.In an attempt to keep alive, the memory of a still active volcano, we will retrace its history and its intertwining with human affairs, highlighting the role it played in the development of volcanology as well as the dramas associated with its unpredictability. Read more