"Polla"
Date
1857
Creator
Alphonse Bernoud (1820 - 1889, French) , Photographer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 69mm
width (print): 133mm
height (mount): 81mm
width (mount): 174mm
width (print): 133mm
height (mount): 81mm
width (mount): 174mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Stereoscopic view of earthquake damage to Polla, Italy. The study shows destroyed buildings within the town and the surrounding hills in the distance. The view is framed by fractured archway.
Titled “Polla” in ink, left-hand margin, front mount and numbered “90” in pencil. Inscribed verso “Page 119, P.1, another sketch, a little [?] starting in foreground & distance in faint outline
Unpublished but referenced in Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to the Royal Society..., by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. 90 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) vol. 1, page 118 in relation to fractures in arches of considerable curvature.
Robert Mallet (1810–1881), an Irish civil engineer and geologist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854.
Titled “Polla” in ink, left-hand margin, front mount and numbered “90” in pencil. Inscribed verso “Page 119, P.1, another sketch, a little [?] starting in foreground & distance in faint outline
Unpublished but referenced in Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to the Royal Society..., by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. 90 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) vol. 1, page 118 in relation to fractures in arches of considerable curvature.
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