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It burst out beyond what it had ever done in the memory
of history; throwing out huge stones and fiery pumices in
such quantity as not only environed the whole mountain,
but totally buried and overwhelmed divers towns and their
inhabitants, scattering the ashes more than a hundred miles,
and utterly devastating all those vineyards where formerly
grew the most incomparable Greco; when, bursting through
the bowels of the earth, it absorbed the very sea, and, with
its whirling waters, drew in divers galleys and other vessels
to their destruction, as is faithfully recorded.ยน8
But now all was quiet, and Evelyn enjoyed the view:
We at the last gained the summit of an excessive altitude.
Turning our faces towards Naples, it presents one of the
goodliest prospects in the world; all the Baiae, Cuma,
Elysian Fields, Capri, Ischia, Prochita, Misenus, Puteoli,
that goodly city, with a great portion of the Tyrrhenian Sea,
offering themselves to your view at once, and at so agreeable
a distance, as nothing can be more delightful.
John Evelyn,
Naples,
from Mount Vesuvius
,
1645, pencil and chalk.
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