Henry
Tresham (1750-1814), Messina After The Earthquake, Nave of Ruined Church, 1783.
May 11,
1786
Today we bade farewell to our valiant vetturino and rewarded him for his
conscientious services with a liberal gratuity. We parted in friendship,
after he had found us a local factotum who
was to take us at once to the best inn and show us the sights of Messina.
Our host of last night was eager
to get rid of us as quickly as possible and lent a helping hand
with the transport of our baggage to a pleasant lodging nearer the living part
of the city, that is to say, outside it. After the enormous disaster in
which twelve thousand people were killed, there were no houses
left in Messina for the remaining thirty thousand. Most of the buildings
had collapsed and the cracked walls of the rest made them unsafe. So a barrack town was
hastily created in a large meadow north of the city. To get a picture of
this, imagine yourself walking across the Römerberg in Frankfurt
or the market square in Leipzig during the Fair. All the booths and
workshops are open in the street.
Vue de l'Optique composition (Hand colored copper engraving used in the Laterna magica
technique) showing sea ships and boats endangered in the rough waters of the
Messina Strait disturbed by the 1783 earthquake.
Only a few of the larger buildings have entrances which can be
closed, and even these rarely are, because those who live in them spend most of
their time out of doors. They
have been living under these conditions for three years, and
this life in shacks, huts and tents, even, has had a definite influence on
their characters. The horror
of that tremendous event, the fear of its repetition,
drive them to take their delight in the pleasures of the moment. The
dread of a new catastrophe was revived about three weeks ago, on April
the twenty-first, when a
noticeable tremor shook the grounds. We were shown a
little church which was crowded with people at the time. A number of
them, it is said, have not yet recovered from the shock.
An early map of the
1783 Calabria volcano and earthquake-areas plotted in the mid-19th century
(from BERGHAUS 1845-1848).
A kindly consul volunteered to take care of us and acted as our
guide; and, in a
world of ruins, this was something to be grateful for.
When he heard that we wished to sail soon, he introduced us to the captain of a
French merchant vessel, who was about to sail for Naples – an opportunity which
was doubly desirable because the white
flag would be a protection against pirates.
Cy
Twombly (1928-2011) , Goethe In Italy, 1978.
Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey (1786-1788),
translated by W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, New York, Pantheon Press, 1962.
