Neapolitan artists used to provide pictorial souvenirs for the eighteenth-century grand tourists who trekked up Mount Vesuvius to peer into its smouldering crater. They depicted its eruptions, usually against a night sky to heighten the dramatic effects of glowing, molten lava and trajectories of fiery sparks.

Henry Johnston-Lavis (1856–1914), while working as a doctor in Italy, collected such paintings and prints of historic eruptions and earthquakes, as well as rare books, including William Hamilton's Campi Phlegraei (1776–79), an account of his observations on the 'fields of fire' near Naples. Johnston-Lavis also collected albumen prints of photographs, and geological specimens.

After studying both medicine and geology at University College London (UCL), Johnston-Lavis became an authority on the volcanoes of southern Italy. He published the first geological map of Mount Vesuvius in 1891 and was appointed professor of volcanology at the Royal University of Naples in 1893. His observations have aided the reconstruction of past eruptions, and his knowledge of how their nature evolved over time has contributed to the modern study of geological hazards.

An exhibition, Violent Earth, drawn from Johnston-Lavis' collection of volcanological material, which he bequeathed to UCL, can be seen at UCL's Strang Print Room on weekday afternoons until 28 April.

Credit: UCL ART COLLECTIONS

C.M.