J. W. Judd — On Yolcanos. 101 



a considerable extent. We may also infer from the account of Strabo 

 that Ynlcano ejected lava in his time. 



Lucilius Junior, Pliny, and Mela Pomponius, all of them writing 

 in the first century of the Christian era, speak of Vulcano as being 

 in a state of activity. 



As soon, however, as we lose the guidance of the classical authors, 

 the history of Vulcano becomes involved in the greatest obscurity. 

 The inhabitants of the Lipari Islands suffered greatly from the 

 invasions of pirates and slave-hunters, a circumstance of which the 

 name of " Monte della Guardia," applied to the highest summits in 

 almost all of the islands, furnishes a melancholy testimony. It is 

 not therefore surprising to find that the Liparotes gradually acquired 

 a ferocity of disposition, which caused their inhospitable shores to be 

 shunned by mariners during the lawless mediaeval times. So late, 

 indeed, as the last century, the evil reputation of the islanders was 

 such as to prevent travellers from venturing among them ; and it 

 was not until the Mediterranean was cleared of the Barbary pirates, 

 at the commencement of the present century, that these islands could 

 be visited with perfect safety. 



The long period of obscurity, to. which we have alluded, is only 

 broken by a brief reference of Eusebius, and another by Orosius, in 

 the fifth century ; and by the following, perhaps legendary, account : 

 In a biography of St. Willebald, who is said to have lived between 

 the years 701 and 786, there occurs the following passage : — " Prom 

 Eeggio St. Willebald sailed to see Vulcano, one of the Lipari Islands, 

 then in a state of eruption. The saint wished to obtain a view of 

 the boiling crater, called the ' infernum of Tlieo&oric? but they could 

 not climb the mountain from the depth of the ashes and scoria?. So 

 they contented themselves with a view of the flames, as they rose 

 with a roaring like thunder, and the vast column of smoke ascending 

 from the pit." 



It would seem from this passage that, if Vulcano had lost the 

 reputation of being the forge of Vulcan, its state of activity and 

 the terrors which it inspired during the Dark Ages were such as to 

 cause it to be identified with a still more dreadful place. Brydone, 

 visiting Etna in 1770, found the Sicilian peasants holding the belief 

 that its crater was the place of confinement for poor Anne Boleyn, 

 who had exercised so unfortunate an influence on the " Defender of 

 the Paith." Vulcano appears, in still earlier times, to have been 

 fixed upon as the place of torture for an Arian emperor. 



The modern history of Vulcano commences with the accounts 

 given by Pazello, who was a native of Sicily, and lived between the 

 years 1490 and 1570. He states that on the 5th of February, 1444, 

 a great eruption occurred, which shook all Sicily, and alarmed the 

 coast of Italy as far as Naples ; the sea is declared to have boiled all 

 around the island, and rocks of vast size to have been discharged 

 from the crater. A number of submarine eruptions are said to have 

 taken place all round the island, fire and smoke rising above the 

 waves ; and as the result of these the navigation around the island 

 was totally changed, rocks appearing where there was before deep 



