4.04 Della Torre 1776
Giovanni Maria Della Torre, Histoire Et Phénoménes Du Vésuve, Paris 1776
Be 4015-3550/b raro III
This is a French reprint of the Storia e fenomeni del Vesuvio by the Somasque Father Giovanni Maria Della Torre (Naples, 1755), published together with the Divisamento critico sulle correnti opinioni intorno a fenomeni del Vesuvio e degli altri volcani by the Jesuit Gaetano D’Amato (Naples, 1756). Della Torre’s treatise had already been translated into French in 1760, and before the edition shown here, it had been reprinted in 1768. Further translations (into German and French) circulated in Zurich (1771), Naples (1771) and Altenburg (1783).
As part of the tradition of historical treatises on the activity of Vesuvius, the author intended to offer his personal view of the seismic and eruptive phenomena that had occurred since 1751, one that was strongly influenced by the Newtonian model of interpretation. While the editio princeps was dedicated to the King of Naples, this one is intended for the Marquis of Becdelièvre, a great supporter of the new empirical approaches applied to the study of the natural world. As indicated in the prologue, the work should be read in continuity with Francesco Serao’s treatise, which was also distributed in French circles in translated editions. The work includes a Carte Géographique of the Gulf of Naples and five plates depicting the Vesuvian area and the erupting volcano. [MV]
