THE COASTS OF SICILY. 99 



which from time to time have shaken the whole 

 island of Sicily, and whose effects have been felt 

 even at Malta and in Calabria. We will endeavour 

 to give some idea of these terrible devastations, by 

 relating the history of the eruption of 1669 as it has 

 been described by Recupero.* Independently of 

 the interest which attaches itself to this disastrous 

 event, we are led to give this narrative with a 

 view of drawing attention to certain facts that have 

 been attested by a great number of eye witnesses, 

 and which have not perhaps been sufficiently re- 

 garded. In perusing these simple narratives which 

 have been so naively written by ignorant monks or 

 village curates, and which have been collected by 

 Recupero, one is surprised to find that they afford a 

 refutation, quite involuntarily indeed, of many errors 

 which have found credence amongst some of our 



* Storia naturale e generale delV Etna, del Canonico Giuseppe 

 jRecupero, arrischita di noltissime interressanti annotazioni dal suo 

 nepote, tesoriere Agatino Recupero. Catane, 1815. This work, which 

 is too little known out of Italy, contains a large number of original 

 documents, which have been principally extracted from the archives 

 of several towns and convents. The information relating to the 

 eruption of 1669 has been extracted more particularly from a 

 manuscript preserved at Nicolosi, which was written by a certain 

 Don Vincenzo Macri, Chaplain to the Church of Nicolosi. The 

 author reports at great length, and with an irresistible air of truth- 

 fulness, the events which he saw, and to which he nearly fell a 

 victim. Recupero consulted amongst others, the writings of eleven 

 learned Sicilians, a narrative left by the Earl of Winchelsea, English 

 ambassador at Constantinople, and another memoir by the cele- 

 brated Borelli. He has joined his own observation to the testimony 

 of these writers, all of whom were eye witnesses of the events that 

 they record. The facts stated in his work appear to us, therefore, to 

 present every possible guarantee for their accuracy. 

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