When Geology Encounters a Real Catastrophe
39
A Classical Topos of the Scientific Imagination: The Destruction of a
City
What was it then that really grabbed the scientific imagination?
Chronologically, the destruction of Lisbon came first and acted as the
trigger for what followed. By 1755 the Portuguese capital had been in
decline for some time and no longer occupied an important place on
the European stage. It nonetheless retained a certain prestige, since
gold and riches from the Americas still fired the contemporary imagination. Stories of the earthquake all pick up on this image:
Lisbonne étoit l’une des plus grandes villes de l’Europe, bâti sur un terrain fort
élevé & montagneux, formant un Amphithéâtre qui procuroit en perspective un
très beau coup d’œil. L’on y remarquoit de très beaux édifices, parmi lesquels le
Palais du Roi étoit véritablement digne par sa magnificence de loger un
souverain […] On y voyoit de très beaux couvents, grands & spacieux, peuplés
d’une multitude de religieux & religieuses, & en si grand nombre que l’on en
pouvoit compter près de deux cens dans une seule Communauté. Les ornements
des Autels étoient la plupart enrichis d’or, d’argent, de pierres précieuses, de
perles fines, & de brillants en quantité.
4
More generally, however, the razing of the city to the ground was a
commonplace of the scientific imagination of the time. In classical
culture, it was conceived of as a complete reversal of fortunes, epitomized by the disaster in Asia which completely obliterated twelve cities in a single night at the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. This incident
is reported by Tacitus, Seneca, Strabo, and is later reprised by Coeffeteau in his Histoire romaine, by Diderot and d’Alembert in the Encyclopédie, and by a host of other eighteenth-century writings on
earthquakes.
5 The discoveries of Herculanum (1719) and Pompeii
(1748) only reinforced this image.
6 In fact, it becomes the prevailing
___________________________
4 G. Rapin, Le Tableau des calamités, ou description exacte et fidèle de l’extinction de
Lisbonne: ([n. p.], 1756), pp. 3-4.
5 Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, Book VI, 1; Tacitus, Annales, Book II, 47; Strabo,
Géographie, Book XII, 8, 16-18; Nicolas Coeffeteau, Histoire romaine (Paris: 1646),
p. 275; Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers,
ed. Denis Diderot et Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, 35 vols (Paris; Neuchâtel: 17511780), XVI, pp. 580-83.
6 Antoine-Léonard Thomas, Mémoire sur la cause des tremblemens de terre (Paris:
1758), p. 84.
39
A Classical Topos of the Scientific Imagination: The Destruction of a
City
What was it then that really grabbed the scientific imagination?
Chronologically, the destruction of Lisbon came first and acted as the
trigger for what followed. By 1755 the Portuguese capital had been in
decline for some time and no longer occupied an important place on
the European stage. It nonetheless retained a certain prestige, since
gold and riches from the Americas still fired the contemporary imagination. Stories of the earthquake all pick up on this image:
Lisbonne étoit l’une des plus grandes villes de l’Europe, bâti sur un terrain fort
élevé & montagneux, formant un Amphithéâtre qui procuroit en perspective un
très beau coup d’œil. L’on y remarquoit de très beaux édifices, parmi lesquels le
Palais du Roi étoit véritablement digne par sa magnificence de loger un
souverain […] On y voyoit de très beaux couvents, grands & spacieux, peuplés
d’une multitude de religieux & religieuses, & en si grand nombre que l’on en
pouvoit compter près de deux cens dans une seule Communauté. Les ornements
des Autels étoient la plupart enrichis d’or, d’argent, de pierres précieuses, de
perles fines, & de brillants en quantité.
4
More generally, however, the razing of the city to the ground was a
commonplace of the scientific imagination of the time. In classical
culture, it was conceived of as a complete reversal of fortunes, epitomized by the disaster in Asia which completely obliterated twelve cities in a single night at the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. This incident
is reported by Tacitus, Seneca, Strabo, and is later reprised by Coeffeteau in his Histoire romaine, by Diderot and d’Alembert in the Encyclopédie, and by a host of other eighteenth-century writings on
earthquakes.
5 The discoveries of Herculanum (1719) and Pompeii
(1748) only reinforced this image.
6 In fact, it becomes the prevailing
___________________________
4 G. Rapin, Le Tableau des calamités, ou description exacte et fidèle de l’extinction de
Lisbonne: ([n. p.], 1756), pp. 3-4.
5 Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, Book VI, 1; Tacitus, Annales, Book II, 47; Strabo,
Géographie, Book XII, 8, 16-18; Nicolas Coeffeteau, Histoire romaine (Paris: 1646),
p. 275; Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers,
ed. Denis Diderot et Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, 35 vols (Paris; Neuchâtel: 17511780), XVI, pp. 580-83.
6 Antoine-Léonard Thomas, Mémoire sur la cause des tremblemens de terre (Paris:
1758), p. 84.