Investigation of pre-1700 Earthquakes Between the Adda and the Middle Adige River Basins (Southern Alps) - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 91

2.2 The Main Phases of Investigation

As for most of the Italian territory, in the late 1970s the image of the seismicity of
this area derived essentially from the parametric earthquake catalogues by Giorgetti
and Iaccarino (1971), Carrozzo et al. (1973) and ENEL (1978). All of them mostly
relied on the information gathered by Baratta (1901). Main sources for Baratta
(1901), time-window 1000-1700, were the work of the historians like Corio (1503)
for the whole Lombardy, Calvi (1676) for Bergamo, Dalla Corte (1592-1594) for
Verona. Unfortunately, these authors are not completely reliable, as sometimes they
distort the information, making the effects larger than they actually were. In 1985 the
“Catalogue of the Italian earthquakes from 1000 to 1980” by Postpischl (1985a) was
published. Postpischl led a working group which merged together the most recent
national and regional parametric earthquake catalogues and the results of the first,
modern historical earthquake investigation, published as the “Atlas of isoseismal
maps of Italian earthquakes” (Postpischl, 1985b).
Figure 3 presents the seismicity of the investigated area as proposed by Postpischl
(1985a). It shows 25 heavy damaging events (Io ≥ 8 MCS, roughly corresponding

to Mw 2), most of which are located near the main cities of Milano,

Bergamo, Brescia and Verona. They include:

≥ 5 . 6 , Mm ≥ 5 .

a) an event (1513, Io 9) located in Switzerland exactly on the Insubrian Line;
b) some events located around Pavia and Milano;
c) a cluster of events located around Bergamo;

Fig. 3 Seismicity from Postpischl (1985a) in the time-window 1000-1700