Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
quickly as I expected I was tempted several times to go
nearer in fact so near as I pulled out a piece of the Ashes
which heated my Face not a little. To see it move on was
like Magic, for trees, walls, houses, appeared to fall before it
as soon as it touched it in the least and one would frequently
see it stop and collect in a moment tho' the great mass was
running on burning with trees as large as those in our
church yard at Exeter floating upright enveloped by the
Flames 'till they were absolutely melted away to nothing,
such my dear Father is our Eruption, which in my opinion
is one of the greatest sights that ever can be seen.6
The volcano was not only attractive as a subject for artists;
it was also a useful step on the diplomatic round, and a source of
entertainment. Hamilton accompanied King Ferdinand iv of
Naples and his queen up Vesuvius during an eruption, and,
glowing in the heat, together they watched a current of lava flow
down a 15-metre (50-foot) cascade, and along a hollowed-out
channel.7 The French painter Joseph Franque (1774-1833) rec-
orded another visit to the smoky summit by King Ferdinand,
his son Prince Francis and the Duke of Calabria. Seated is Arch-
duchess Maria Clementina of Austria, wife of Prince Francis.
The party of nine are fragile and vulnerable in their military
finery, with medals, ribbons and feathery hats, all so touchingly
inappropriate in the bleak Goyaesque landscape.
Naples attracted foreign artists in the mid- and late eighteenth
century, such as the Frenchman Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729-
1799), Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) and the Austrian
Michael Wutky (1739-1822). Naples was the capital of an inde-
pendent nation, and a rich and prosperous trading port that kept
its political distance from the Pope in Rome while balancing its
economic and political relations with Britain, France and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Enterprising machinations that such
positioning demanded contributed to the growth of an economy
in which an art market was an essential component, so it was not
only Vesuvius that was the attraction, but the entire bubbling
stewpot of supply and demand in full swing. Along with Volaire,
