“Ruins inside the town of Polla”
Date
1857
Creator
Alphonse Bernoud (1820 - 1889, French) , Photographer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (mount): 85mm
width (mount): 178mm
width (mount): 178mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Stereoscopic view of earthquake damage at Polla, Italy, showing ruins within the inner town: a rubble-strewn landscape with hills in the distance.
Inscribed in Italian "Interno e rovine di Polla". Numbered "67" [struck through] and "20" added in pencil. Inscribed "Polla" in pencil verso.
Unpublished but referenced in Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to the Royal Society..., by Robert Mallet, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1862). Photog. No. 20 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) vol. 1, page 35.
From a collection of photographs taken by Alphonse Bernoud and Grellier of the Neapolitan earthquake of 1857 and collected by Robert Mallet, who donated them to the Royal Society in 1858.
Robert Mallet (1810–1881), an Irish civil engineer and geologist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854.
Inscribed in Italian "Interno e rovine di Polla". Numbered "67" [struck through] and "20" added in pencil. Inscribed "Polla" in pencil verso.
Unpublished but referenced in Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to the Royal Society..., by Robert Mallet, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1862). Photog. No. 20 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) vol. 1, page 35.
From a collection of photographs taken by Alphonse Bernoud and Grellier of the Neapolitan earthquake of 1857 and collected by Robert Mallet, who donated them to the Royal Society in 1858.
Robert Mallet (1810–1881), an Irish civil engineer and geologist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854.
Object history
With the support of the Royal Society, Mallet undertook a survey of the damage caused by the 1857 earthquake in Basilicata, in the Kingdom of Naples, to advance his theories of seismic waves. Two French photographers, Alphonse Bernoud and an unidentified man known as Grellier, were employed to photograph the affected region. For a description of Mallet's expedition and the circumstances and attributions of the photographs, see Graziano Ferrari and Anita McConnell, "Robert Mallet and the 'Great Neapolitan Earthquake' of 1857", Notes and Records of the Royal Society 59 (1) (2005), pp. 45–64.
Associated place