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Cento anni da un disastro sismico di immani dimensioni, paragonato dai contemporanei a una guerra perduta. Trentaquattro esperti, ricercatori e studiosi di varie discipline delineano quella catastrofe con gli attuali strumenti della ricerca storica e scientifica più avanzata. Un libro per ricordare, ma soprattutto per capire e fare conoscere le cause naturali e umane di quel disastro, che segnò per l’Italia l’inizio della sismologia quantitativa e l’avvio di una moderna normativa antisismica.

Venezia

A key element for assessing seismic hazard and risk is the availability of a comprehensive dataset on past earthquakes. Here we present the rationale, structure and contents of CFTI5Med (10.6092/ingv.it-cfti5), the 2018 version of the Catalogue of Strong Earthquakes in Italy: a large multidisciplinary effort including historians, seismologists and geologists. It was conceived in 1989, following the inception of GIS technology, and first published in 1995 to offer a full account of Italy’s strongest earthquakes, of their territorial impact and associated social and economic upheaval. Subsequent versions (1997, 2000, 2007) entailed a fine tuning of research methodologies, included additional research on Italian earthquakes, and were extended to large earthquakes of the Mediterranean area. CFTI5Med comprised an opportunity to streamline the structure of the Catalogue database and propose a renovated user interface. The new front-end (1) grants an easier, intuitive access to the data, including earthquake effects on the environment, and (2) allows all data to be displayed jointly with relevant topographic, geological and seismological overlays published as web services., Design Type(s)data integration objective • source-based data analysis objectiveMeasurement Type(s)earthquakeTechnology Type(s)digital curationFactor Type(s)geographic location • temporal_intervalSample Characteristic(s)Mediterranean Region Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)

Reliable forecasting of the next eruption at Vesuvius is the main scientific factor in defining effective strategies to reduce volcanic risk in one of the most dangerous volcanic areas of the world. In this paper, we apply a recently developed probabilistic code for eruption forecasting to new and independent historical data related to the pre-eruptive phase of the 1631 eruption. The results obtained point out three main issues: (1) the importance of "cold" historical data (according to Guidoboni 2008) related to pre-eruptive phases for evaluating forecasting tools and possibly refining them; (2) the BET_EF code implemented for Vesuvius would have forecasted the 1631 eruption satisfactorily, marking different stages of the pre-eruptive phase; (3) the code shows that pre-eruptive signals that significantly increase the probability of eruption were likely detected more than 2 months before the event. © Springer-Verlag 2009.

In the seismological literature the 3 January 1117 earthquake represents an interesting case study, both for the sheer size of the area in which that event is recorded by the monastic sources of the 12th century, and for the amount of damage mentioned. The 1117 event has been added to the earthquake catalogues of up to five European countries (Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Iberian peninsula), and it is the largest historical earthquake for northern Italy. We have analyzed the monastic time system in the 12th century and, by means of a comparative analysis of the sources, have correlated the two shocks mentioned (in the night and in the afternoon of 3 January) to territorial effects, seeking to make the overall picture reported for Europe more consistent. The connection between the linguistic indications and the localization of the effects has allowed us to shed light, with a reasonable degree of approximation, upon two previously little known earthquakes, probably generated by a sequence of events. A first earthquake in lower Germany (I0 (epicentral intensity) VII–VIII MCS (Mercalli, Cancani, Sieberg), M 6.4) preceded the far more violent one in northern Italy (Verona area) by about 12–13 hours. The second event is the one reported in the literature. We have put forward new parameters for this Veronese earthquake (I0 IX MCS, M 7.0). A third earthquake is independently recorded in the northwestern area of Tuscany (Imax VII-VIII MCS), but for the latter event the epicenter and magnitude cannot be evaluated.

The need to understand the activity of the main seismogenetic structures, to calculate the recurrence periods of major earthquakes and to identify their main epicentral areas, requires wide-ranging research in the field of historical seismology. The present research was conducted in the framework of the projects of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica (1991-1995). The presence of different populations and ruling élites, and hence of languages and cultures, has in many cases confused the historical context of the medieval Sicilian sources. However, by going beyond the local sources, and analysing the events in a wider European and Mediterranean context, taking due account of the Byzantine, Latin and Arab sources, it has been possible to identify five seismic events that do not exist in the Italian catalogues or whose dates are very difficult to establish. Six spurious events have been deleted thanks to the revision (659, 785, 796, 963, 1069, 1259); the date of an event has been corrected (1140 into 1125) and five unknown events have been discovered: 853, 1172, 1203-1204, 1255-1256 and 1295-1296. The data on which these findings are based are in many cases dispersed and unused within the many specialised sectors of historical research; in some cases they are unknown even to historians. An example of textual analysis of the sources is also presented to show by what a roundabout route the chronological parameter for the 1125 earthquake was reached. The new events confirm the high seismicity of the eastern area of Sicily; nevertheless, the newly identified series does not seem to show any seismic event comparable to the one that struck the Messina Strait, in 1908 (I0 = XI MCS, M = 7.2): this historical element can provide information regarding the return times of such great event; a hypothesis is formulated by the authors: it will have to be carefully examinated by archaeology research. The criteria used in this research are explained, as well as the problems tackled in accordance with the method for the revision of the historical earthquakes adopted by ING-SGA.