ON THE ORIGIN OF MONTE NUOVO. 21 



the great gulf with such a force, noise and shining light, that I, who 

 was standing in my garden, was seized with great terror. Forty mi- 

 nutes afterwards, although unwell, I got upon a neighbouring height 

 from which I saw all that took place. And, by my troth, it was a 

 splendid fire, that threw up for a long time much earth and many 

 stones. They fell back again all round the gulf, so that towards the 

 sea they formed a heap in the form of a cross-bow, the bow being a 

 mile and a half, the arrow two-thirds of a mile in dimension. To- 

 wards Pozzolo, it has formed a hill nearly of the height of Monte 

 Morello, and for a distance of seventy miles round, the earth and the 

 trees are covered with ashes. On my own estate I have neither a 

 leaf on the trees nor a blade of grass ; in the neighbourhood of Poz- 

 zolo, to a distance of six miles, there is not a tree standing which has 

 not had its branches broken, and frequently it is not possible to say 

 that there has been a tree on the spot. The ashes that fell here were 

 also soft, sulphurous and heavy. They not only threw down the 

 trees, but an immense number of birds, hares and smaller animals 

 were killed. I was yesterday obliged to return by sea to Pozzolo ; 

 my companion being Messer Cacco de Loffredo, the agent of Messer 

 Pavolo Antonio. 



Many men were looking on, and with amazement. Nothing was 

 to be seen there but the hill itself; when I say nothing, I mean in 

 comparison with what took place the preceding night, when the earth 

 swelled up, that is, at the time 1 came to the place. And as there 

 was no one from Naples, and few capable of describing it who saw 

 the fire on that night, there is no one but myself who can make a 

 report upon it*. Since the night when the troops left the place, 

 nothing remarkable has occurred, or that can in the least be com- 

 pared with that which happened before ; I will make the event clear 

 to you by an example. 



Imagine the fiery gulf to be the Castle of St. Angelo, filled with 

 lighted rockets. There can be no doubt that these rockets, although 

 they would shoot right up into the air, would, in coming down, 

 change their direction, and in place of falling back into the castle 

 from which they were sent up, would fall into the Tiber and on the 

 neighbouring meadows. Imagine further, that the cases of the 

 rockets fell in such numbers into the Tiber as to fill up its channel, 

 that they lay 27^ feet thick, and that they fell in such quantities in 

 the meadows as to form a hill, extending from Messer Bindo's vine- 

 yard as far as Monte Mari, and with a height little less than that of 

 Santo Silvestro near Tusculum : towards St. Peter's we shall suppose 

 that few fell, because the wind blowing from the west carried them 

 in another direction. Just so was it with the fiery gulf, from which 

 there was shot up into the air, to a height which I estimate at a mile 

 and a half, masses of earth, and stones as large as an ox. They fell 

 down near the gulf in a semicircle of from one to three bow-shots in 

 diameter, and in this way they filled up this part of the sea, and 

 formed the above-mentioned hill. When the earth and stones fell, 



* This sentence it is important to bear in mind, as it adds greatly to the weight 

 of the testimony. — (Francesco Palermo.) 



