On April 15, at the Royal Vesuvius Observatory in Ercolano, a day dedicated to activities for the mitigation of seismic and volcanic risk and to the museum proposals of the historic avant-garde center for the study and monitoring of Campania volcanoes. On this occasion, the book “An architect at the service of science. Gaetano Fazzini and the construction of the real Vesuvius Meteorological Observatory”, edited by Luigi Raia.
Saturday 15th April, 10am to 30pm, at Royal Vesuvius Observatory of Herculaneum (NA), historic headquarters of the Vesuvius Observatory of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), will be held the study day "The Vesuvius Observatory and the Vesuvius National Park Authority: a synergy for the protection of the territory and the mitigation of natural risks".
For the occasion, INGV scientists, members of the Department of Civil Protection of the Campania Region and Director of the Vesuvius National Park Authority they will discuss activities for the mitigation of seismic and volcanic risk and will show the public the activities museums of the historic avant-garde center for the study and monitoring of Campania volcanoes. The historic site preserves a very important exhibition which contains numerous scientific instruments, photos, films, documents, where it is possible, through multimedia installations, to realize the role played by INGV in monitoring the active volcanoes of our country.
With the occasion, it will be presented the book “An architect at the service of science. Gaetano Fazzini and the construction of the real Vesuvius Meteorological Observatory”, edited by Luigi Raia. The book punctually highlights all the construction techniques used, absolutely innovative for the period.
The author traces the events involving the Vesuvian Observatory, the first volcanological observatory in the world and witness to the violent eruptions of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries.
The building was founded in 1841 by order of Ferdinand II of Bourbon and the architects of this important work were the scientist Macedonio Melloni and the architect Gaetano Fazzini, at the time working in Naples as a teacher, columnist and correspondent for the scientific journals of the era.
The Vesuvius Observatory has contributed, since the mid-nineteenth century, to the growth of study and research activities in various fields of geophysics and volcanology and of those who have worked there: scholars, researchers, artists, scientists.
In the book, the story of the characters is intertwined with that of the places and with that of a constantly changing landscape, shaped by the forces of the most famous volcano in the world.
Luigi Raia examines not only the cultural, political and social context of the time, when the initiatives of the Royal Academy of Sciences gave way to the construction of a modern observatory, but also analyzes the relationship between science and architecture, as well as the multifaceted production of Gaetano Fazzini «a young man as valiant in the study of nature as in the art of building».
