“Marsico Nuovo”
Date
1857
Creator
Alphonse Bernoud (1820 - 1889, French) , Photographer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 69mm
width (print): 132mm
height (mount): 82mm
width (mount): 173mm
width (print): 132mm
height (mount): 82mm
width (mount): 173mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Stereoscopic view of earthquake damage at Marsico Nuovo, Italy. Landscape study showing a damaged building surrounded by scrubby trees and bushes. Beyond is a group of houses on a hilltop with a retaining wall. A man wearing a cloth cap is seated among the rubble in the foreground.
Numbered ’55’ in ink top left-hand corner, front mount and inscribed ‘Marsico Nuovo’ verso.
Unpublished but part of a collection of photograph for Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to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. 55) (Coll. Roy. Soc.).
Robert Mallet (1810–1881), an Irish civil engineer and geologist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854.
Numbered ’55’ in ink top left-hand corner, front mount and inscribed ‘Marsico Nuovo’ verso.
Unpublished but part of a collection of photograph for Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to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. 55) (Coll. Roy. Soc.).
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