Building arch, Polla
Date
1857-1858
Creator
Alphonse Bernoud (1820 - 1889, French) , Photographer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 70mm
width (print): 133mm
height (mount): 82mm
width (mount): 175mm
width (print): 133mm
height (mount): 82mm
width (mount): 175mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Stereoscopic view of earthquake damage to Polla, Italy. Architectural study showing an archway in Polla with the town and surrounding hills visible through the opening. Marked with ink lines “c c” which trace the fissures in the wall, and which indicate the extremes of minimum and maximum angles of emergence of the shockwave, from a northward direction.
Titled ‘Polla” in ink and numbered “171” in pencil, left-hand margin, front mount. Two ink lines marked “c c” across the surface of the left-hand print. Inscribed verso “Polla. page 272, p.II”.
Unpublished but referenced in Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to the Royal Society..., by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. 171 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) vol. 1, page 298, as example of a frequent way in which arches are affected, indicating steep emergence.
Robert Mallet (1810–1881), an Irish civil engineer and geologist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854.
Titled ‘Polla” in ink and numbered “171” in pencil, left-hand margin, front mount. Two ink lines marked “c c” across the surface of the left-hand print. Inscribed verso “Polla. page 272, p.II”.
Unpublished but referenced in Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The first principles of observational seismology as developed in the report to the Royal Society..., by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. 171 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) vol. 1, page 298, as example of a frequent way in which arches are affected, indicating steep emergence.
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