“Fissure nella terra sulla strada di Polla”
Date
1857
Creator
Alphonse Bernoud (1820 - 1889, French) , Photographer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 74mm
width (print): 142mm
height (mount): 82mm
width (mount): 172mm
width (print): 142mm
height (mount): 82mm
width (mount): 172mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Stereoscopic view of earthquake damage to Polla, Italy. Landscape study showing fissures in the earth along a hillside road. A horse-drawn carriage travels uphill along the road, away from the viewer.
Titled “Fissure nella terra sulla strada di Polla” and numbered “158” right-hand margin, front mount. Inscribed verso “Polla Fissura” in pencil and crossed out and replaced in ink with “no/ fissures on the road near Polla” and “page 263, p.II.” below in pencil.
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.288-289. Numbered ‘Photo pl.158’. Described in the text on page 288, “Here the fissures… are clearly produced by the slippage off to the westward, of an enormous breadth of the clay land, reposing upon the surface of limestone…”
Titled “Fissure nella terra sulla strada di Polla” and numbered “158” right-hand margin, front mount. Inscribed verso “Polla Fissura” in pencil and crossed out and replaced in ink with “no/ fissures on the road near Polla” and “page 263, p.II.” below in pencil.
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.288-289. Numbered ‘Photo pl.158’. Described in the text on page 288, “Here the fissures… are clearly produced by the slippage off to the westward, of an enormous breadth of the clay land, reposing upon the surface of limestone…”
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