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Hamilton had previously employed Peter Fabris ( fl. 1756-
84), an English-born artist then resident in Naples, to produce
a set of gouaches, 59 of which were engraved and hand-coloured
for publication in 1776. Being very much aware of the care
required to capture the unique pictorial qualities of the Naples
landscape, Hamilton employed Fabris 'to take drawings of every
interesting spot, described in my letters, in which each stratum
is represented in its proper colours'.² As a result, the paintings
have an extraordinary fidelity to what was actually to be seen -
the shocking beauty of the violent invading red and orange pyro-
clastic flow, blanketing with demonic carelessness the lower slopes
of the mountain, and rendering its inhabitants either dead or
miserable. It was of little immediate comfort to the locals to know
that what was spewing out of Vesuvius now would make the
slopes fertile and abundant again in a generation. Other paint-
ings by Fabris show the successive crater shapes carved by the
roaring emissions, the labours of clearing the lava and, once
cooled, cut and polished, even the different colours and figures
in specimens of the volcanic rock. William Hamilton's volumes
discussed all the volcanoes in the Campi Phlegraei, 'Fields of
Fire', as the landscape west of Naples is described, as well as the
Vesuvius eruptions of 1767 and 1779, and those of Mount Etna.
The church registers of Naples Cathedral, which recorded the
Image not available - no digital rights
A page from Padre
Antonio Piaggio's
Diary of the Activities
of Vesuvius ( c. 1794).
 
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