“Auletta”
Date
1857
Creator
Alphonse Bernoud (1820 - 1889, French) , Photographer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 72mm
width (print): 139mm
height (mount): 85mm
width (mount): 172mm
width (print): 139mm
height (mount): 85mm
width (mount): 172mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Stereoscopic view of earthquake damage at Auletta, Italy. Landscape study showing overthrown houses along a road with the surrounding hills in the distance. The end wall of a building in the foreground is badly fractured and the corner destroyed. Three figures appear around the opening of the missing wall, and more figures can be seen further down the street.
Numbered ‘49’ in pencil and inscribed verso ‘Page 78, p.1 a transcript. Auletta.’ Along with a typed label which reads ‘Auletta. Auletta, a town of 3,560 inhabitants, beautifully surrounded by hills. Auletta, Pertosa, Atena and Polla, suffered most; the violence of the earthquake seemed to have been concentrated in this neighbourhood. One hundred and eighty-six houses were entirely demolished, and three hundred and ten are reduced to the condition of those shown in present view. The victims are estimated at three hundred.’
This illustration was reproduced as a lithograph, and in a simplified form, 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), pp.72-73. Numbered "Photog. No. 49".
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.
Numbered ‘49’ in pencil and inscribed verso ‘Page 78, p.1 a transcript. Auletta.’ Along with a typed label which reads ‘Auletta. Auletta, a town of 3,560 inhabitants, beautifully surrounded by hills. Auletta, Pertosa, Atena and Polla, suffered most; the violence of the earthquake seemed to have been concentrated in this neighbourhood. One hundred and eighty-six houses were entirely demolished, and three hundred and ten are reduced to the condition of those shown in present view. The victims are estimated at three hundred.’
This illustration was reproduced as a lithograph, and in a simplified form, 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), pp.72-73. Numbered "Photog. No. 49".
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