| Abstract: | The art lover and collector Sir William Hamilton became one of the keenest and most knowledgeable observers of volcanic activity in 18th-century Italy. Hamilton's enthusiasms are reflected in the illustrations of the Campi Phlegraei, produced under his direction. While some of Pietro Fabris's gouache paintings project the volcano as an unfathomable and sublime force, others depict it as an accessible and almost measurable phenomenon. The artwork in Campi Phlegraei marks the moment in the development of a visual style for geology, when the painterly has not yet disappeared, but has started to give way to the new ‘geognostic’ mode. |
