Strong Earthquakes in North-Western Africa in the Second Half of the 17th Century, AD: A Critical Reappraisal of the Historical Evidence - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 161

expected that several “multiplicated” pamphlets take the misfortunes of Christian
slaves in north-Africa as their subject: e.g., there was the death of the Italian Friar
Francesco Zirano, who was actually executed in Algiers in 1603 (Devilla, 1924),
but which was then re-told a further three times, in 1639, 1718 and 1740. There was
also the killing of a Sicilian youth in Tunis that was told twice, in 1660 and 1716
(Caracciolo, 2001).
Although a favoured subject for pamphlets, earthquakes did not appear to have
been as favoured a subject for multiplication. An ongoing census of earthquake
pamphlets shows that most of them deal with events that have been amply attested
to by independent sources. The one specific mention of a fictional Italian earthquake
so far identified occurred in the title of a 17th century Italian pamphlet (Nuova e vera
relatione, 1676), where the text clearly described the phenomenon as the explosion
of a powder-magazine (Camassi and Castelli, 2005). Things can get more mixed
up, however, when far-off countries are involved and there are political and human
scores to settle, as we will now see.
4 Case Histories
4.1 The 1656 Tripoli Earthquake: A Middle East Earthquake?
Can the actual location of the 1656 Tripoli earthquake be ascertained by a perusal of
17th century journalistic sources? There are few collections of Italian gazettes that
cover the year 1656; moreover, most of these focused on the ongoing siege of Candia
and the related military operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, rather than on north
Africa. Among those sources that did report on Tripoli, there were the Genoa gazette
and the Bologna, Genoa, Venice and Malta Avvisi (ASV, 1656ab; 1657a, b). These
reported on several occurrences in Tripoli, but did not mention earthquakes either
in Tripoli or elsewhere in north Africa during 1656 and 1657. However, there is
contemporary evidence of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. An Avviso written in
Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) on April 13, 1656 (Dujcev, 1935) mentions an earthquake
felt in Constantinople “on St. Gregory's Eve”. Among the several St Gregory feast
days of the Orthodox Church calendar, January 25 and January 30 are those that fall
nearest to April 13. Then, taking into account the 10-day difference that existed be-
tween the Julian and the Gregorian calendars in the 17th century, the Ragusan Avviso
could refer to an earthquake felt in Constantinople in early February, 1656, and
about which no more is known. An almost contemporary missionary report (Besson,
1660; 1662) states that in 1657, “the earth shook four times in the space of two
months in Aleppo and similar earthquakes occurred along the whole coast of Syria”.
In short, some new evidence has been collected that appears to make it likely
that the Dresdniche Gelehrte Anzeigen (1756) mention of a 1656 earthquake in the
Tripoli in Africa was actually related to a 1656 or 1657 earthquake in the Tripoli in
the Middle East. However, this evidence is not conclusive enough to indicate that
the 1656 earthquake should be removed from the catalogues relating to north Africa.