August 31, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



285 



ances, however, are reported during the in- 

 terval of repose, one in 1306, the other about 

 1500, but the authorities for both are usually 

 discredited. 



The reason for regarding the alleged four- 

 teenth-century eruption as apocryphal is that 

 the sole author reporting it, F. Leandro Al- 

 berti,^ after mentioning the date adds that it 

 happened ' when Benedict IX. was pope, and 

 Conrad II. emperor.' As this parenthetical 

 remark fixes the period between 1033 and 1039, 

 critics are no doubt right in assuming that 

 the passage applies to the eruption of 1037. 

 Besides, supposing the event actually to have 

 occurred in 1306, it would be strange if 

 Petrarch and Boccaccio failed to allude to it 

 in their geographical works of the same cen- 

 tury, when speaking of Somma and Vesuvius. 

 References to these authors will be found in 

 Enrico Cocchia's interesting essay on the an- 

 cient form of Vesuvius, reprinted in volume 

 III. of his 'Saggi Filologiei' (Naples, 1902). 



Our only authority for an early sixteenth- 

 century eruption is Ambrogio di Leone, a 

 learned physician, professor of medicine at the 

 University of Naples, afterwards a resident of 

 Venice, close friend of Erasmus, and highly 

 esteemed scholar and author. Of him says 

 one of his biographers : " Visse sempre onorato 

 dagli eruditi e da' Signori, e singolarmente 

 da Leone X." No reason has been assigned 

 for doubting his statement that ashes were 

 ejected for a period of three days, covering 

 the country about Nola, except that contem- 

 porary Neapolitan writers make no mention of 

 the occurrence. Their silence is the less sur- 

 prising, however, considering the relative un- 

 importance of the event, and the fact that the 

 fall of ashes was in the opposite direction 

 from Naples. It is possible, also, that the 

 discharge took place from the northern side 

 of the mountain, away from the city and in- 

 visible from it, instead of from within the 

 crater itself, which was observed in the follow- 

 ing century to be heavily wooded. 



Leone, in his ' History of Nola ' (Venice, 

 1514), was not only the first author to discuss 

 the etymology of the name Vesuvius, giving 



^ ' Deser. Ital.,' Venice, 1561, 2(1 ed., 1577. 



abundant classic references, but also the first 

 to portray the mountain since Pompeian times. 

 The view given is far from crude, being from 

 the hand of the famous engraver Girolamo 

 Mocetto, and it is noteworthy that the two 

 summits are shown of about equal height. 

 Later in the century we find two authors, 

 Agricola and Francis Scot, reporting that the 

 Somma cone overtopped Vesuvius, but their 

 statements are at variance with the known 

 condition of the summits prior to the great 

 eruption of 1631. Probably the best estimate 

 of their respective altitudes before and after 

 this event is that given by Schmidt, in his 

 ' Studien iiber Vulkane und Erdbeben,' pp. 

 215-218 (Leipzig, 1881). 



Accepting Leone's testimony as trustworthy, 

 though lacking in details, there are one or two 

 circumstances connected with the eruption 

 which deserve mention. In the first place, it 

 is interesting to learn from contemporary 

 documents which have been published for the 

 first time within recent years that the disturb- 

 ance was preceded by a severe earthquake, in 

 which two hundred and sixty inhabitants of 

 Nola lost their lives and much property was 

 destroyed. Following is an account of the 

 disaster, taken from the late Bartolommeo 

 Capasso's publication of the original:^ 



A li 6 di xbre 1499 se sentio no forte terremoto 

 a le 6 here de la notte, dove cadero multe case 

 at ce morse assai gente, cio& circa 24 jentil' 

 uomini, et 236 populani; dove clie fo veramento 

 gran pieti lo vedere tante povere persune cossi 

 crudelemente ammazzate et sepelite sotto le 

 fabriche, huomini, femine et certe figliole, che 

 stavano appise a lo pietto de le meschine matri, 

 che fo no pianto uneversale ad mirare quelle 

 miserabile spettacolo. * * * 



■ Furthermore, we learn from various inde- 

 pendent sources that Vesuvius was not wholly 

 inactive during the greater part of the six- 

 teenth century. Gonsalo Fernandez de Oviedo 

 y Valdes, who ascended the mountain in 1501, 



' Archiv. Storico Prov. Napoletane, Ann. VII. 

 (1884), p. 107. Also in his ' Fonti della Storia 

 delle Provincie Napolitane,' p. 239 (Naples, 1902). 

 This earthquake is unrecorded in scientific litera- 

 ture, not even in Earatta's exhaustive catalogiie, 

 'I Terremoti d'ltalia ' (Turin, 1901). 



