Sean Cocco, associate professor of history Watching Vesuvius: A History of Science and Culture in Early Modern Italy
University of Chicago Press; to be released in 2012 "The book tells the story of Mt. Vesuvius, located near the city of Naples in Italy, through the eyes of its human observers in the first period of its modern scientific discovery. Remembered by Renaissance humanists as the destroyer of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Vesuvius erupted powerfully in 1631. The eruption became one of the first natural events in the modern era that received thorough scientific documentation in historical records and new media such as pamphlets and engravmgs.
"Watching Vesuvius gives a historical character sketch of the mountain, and it also shows the rich understanding that I 7th-century people had of natural occurrences. These people had a sophisticated idea oflandscapes, nature, and the ways that human beings related to their environment. They also had a very historical understanding of nature and used this knowledge of the past to understand modern events. In many ways, the observations that these people made are just as thorough as scientists today." "We are always scrutinizing the past, trying to find common threads that are fundamentally human. We are also watching, intensely observant of the present; and then we prognosticate, talk about what will happen in the future. "
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