Printed reports on the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631

Within the DisComPoSE line of research is Annachiara Monaco’s recently published work Forme testuali e stili narrativi delle relazioni a stampa sull’eruzione del Vesuvio del 1631 (Forms and narrative styles of the printed reports on the 1631 eruption of Vesuvius).

The researcher analyses the linguistic-formal strategies adopted to narrate the disaster in the printed reports published in the aftermath of one of the most famous and violent natural disasters of the modern age.

The historical relevance of this event is determined not only by the material consequences on the affected places, but also by the enormous political, social and cultural impact it had both inside and outside the borders of the Viceroyalty: from the days immediately following the eruption, the extent of the damage and the emotional involvement of the population stimulated the production of numerous texts in different languages, forms and in different media with the aim of reconstructing what happened and elaborating on its causes and consequences.

The reports published on the occasion of such a ruinous event stand as a privileged field of investigation to try to trace on the historical-linguistic level the relationship between communicative strategies, representational models and natural disasters in the modern age.

The book, in particular, describes the material, socio-cultural and media effects caused by the Vesuvian eruption; focuses on the connection between communicative objectives, compositional architecture and content of the selected texts; analyses the linguistic-formal choices and narrative strategies used by the chroniclers to narrate the event through the description of the natural phenomena and the reactions of the population affected; and contains an in-depth study of some significant linguistic-formal traits present in most of the texts studied.

The textual strategies and rhetorical-stylistic solutions present in the reports are of particular interest because, on the one hand, they emphasise the truthfulness of what was reported, exalting its extraordinariness and novelty; on the other hand, they provide an interpretative key to the events that occurred in line with the political-social interests of dominant institutions and power groups.

On the basis of the parameters considered by the researcher, it emerges how the Vesuvius reports aim to offer a reliable and detailed account of the calamitous event and, at the same time, to emotionally involve the reader by framing the eruption of Vesuvius in a moral and religious dimension.