Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies

"William Hamilton arrived in Naples in November 1764 as Britain’s envoy to the Spanish Court at Naples, and soon became besotted with Vesuvius. He climbed it regularly, often escorting visitors, and kept notes of the changes he observed. After a dramatic eruption in late 1765, Hamilton wrote the first of several letters to the Royal Society documenting ‘the many extraordinary appearances’ he had witnessed. Vesuvius continued to wax and wane, and Hamilton engaged a painter, Pietro Fabris, to accompany him and sketch the volcano and its activity. In 1776, Hamilton published ‘Campi Phlegraei’, named after the nearby volcanic field. This sumptuous book includes Hamilton’s letters on Vesuvius, and more than fifty vibrantly hand painted illustrations, derived from Pietro Fabris’s sketches. After another dramatic eruption in August 1779, Hamilton commissioned more pictures, which he published as a supplement. This monumental work was one of the first devoted to the detailed study of a volcano and its ongoing activity, and for this reason Hamilton is regarded as the first volcanologist of the modern era (Pliny, to whom he liked to compare himself, being the very first!). Thanks to Hamilton’s writings, we have a very detailed picture of the behaviour of Vesuvius from the mid-eighteenth Century, and of some significant eruptions whose deposits have now largely been buried or lost."