In December 1818, the poet Shelley, with his wife Mary and stepsister-in‑law Claire Clairmont, climbed Vesuvius. Starting from the village of Resina (modern Ercolano), they stopped off at the hermitage of San Salvador where an “old hermit” offered refreshments. In a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, Shelley described the ascent to the cone, whose “difficulty has been much exaggerated”. On the summit he surveyed with awe “the most horrible chaos that can be imagined … ghastly chasms … fountains of liquid fire”. The passionate poet confronting the essence of the sublime seems the acme of Romanticism.
John Brewer’s entertaining social history paints a rather different picture. By the early 19th century the climb to the summit was more well-organised tourist experience than daring psychic journey. True, Vesuvius drew admirers from all over Europe, and even the Americas, as a crucible for both science and art. Friendships and professional partnerships were forged in its shadow, reputations won and lost, discoveries made and debated. Less impressive than Etna, but much more accessible, it inspired paintings, poems and novels through the Romantic era and beyond. But a host of the lesser-known also trooped to the summit, scorched their shoes and drank themselves silly. It is these figures Brewer brings back to life.
His account rests on the rare survival of a visitors’ book from 1826-8. Its inscriptions, jokey, sententious or banal, betray traces of tourists’ personalities and motives in making the pilgrimage. Its 2,300 signatures represent only a partial record; women rarely signed, guides and servants never. Day-trippers included princes and aristocrats, bankers and doctors, diplomats, tradesmen and the clergy. The largest single group, Brewer discovers, was the military; Swiss mercenaries keeping the peace for the Bourbon rulers of Naples were fond of a strenuous outing.
From the start, the experience was managed by the local people; a lengthy chapter is devoted to those unsung heroes, the guides. The “hermitage” Shelley stopped off at was in reality a cafe-cum-gift shop doing a roaring trade in souvenirs, and its inhabitant more ornamental hermit than religious figure. British, French and Italians dominate the visitors’ book, and Vesuvius was a site that brought into sharp focus national antipathies in this time of political turbulence. The English in particular were disliked for their meanness and insularity, their “undisguised contempt for all other people”, as one (English) author put it. “Our hauteur is the subject of universal complaint.”
The British diplomat Sir William Hamilton, husband to Nelson’s beloved Emma, weaves in and out of the story, but Brewer’s most fascinating figure is Hamilton’s rival, the dashing French aristocrat and scientist Déodat de Dolomieu. He gave his name to the Italian Dolomites, and his amatory exploits (possibly) inspired the character of the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, written by his friend, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Dolomieu, born in 1750, had killed a man in a duel by the age of 18, and preferred racketing around Europe in pursuit of volcanoes to his day job as a Knight of Malta. His charm and good connections weren’t enough to save him from political violence; during the French Revolution, his blond hair turned entirely white, and he came to a tragic end. It’s one extraordinary story among many in the book.
Vesuvius represented a chance for onlookers to confront geological time, but change was coming to the mountain. Towards the end of the period Brewer covers, the advent of Thomas Cook, a paved road and a funicular railway spelled financial doom for the guides and their families. The political upheavals of preunification Italy alone make for a fascinating and complex story, reflected by the mountain, itself an icon of destruction and renewal. After all, from rich volcanic soil springs new growth.
• Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions by John Brewer is published by Yale (£30). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
