Account of the 1783 earthquake in Calabria].

, Manuscript on paper, March 1783 18th-century manuscript on paper, 265x189 mm, composed by a total number of 4 leaves, of which the last blank, and written by two or three different Italian hands, in one column, variable number of lines. Partly censored with pasted paper. Unbound. A wormhole to inner blank margin. Interesting and unpublished account of the five devastating shocks and the violent tsunami that, between 5 Februar and 28 March 1783, struck Southern Calabria and the city of Messina, causing about 50,000 victims. The relation was written during the seismic sequence, and contains detailed lists of the damaged towns and villages. This small manuscript is of upmost importance from an historical point of view, being partly censored. On the third leaf, dated 17 March 1783, is entered a note referring to the fact that the parish priests of Naples diocese were forbidden to speak in public about the earthquake. A. Placanica, Il filosofo e la catastrofe. Un terremoto del Settecento, Torino 1985; M.R. Pellizzari, Enlightenment Intellectuals and Popular Mentality after the 1783 Calabrian Earthquake, “Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century”, 303, 1991, pp. 523-527; M. Pinault-Sørensen, Images du désastre de Messine, 1783 in A. M. Mercier Faivre-C. Thomas (eds.), L’invention de la catastrophe au xviiie siècle. Du chatîment divin au désastre natural, Genève 2008, p. 360-366.