AFTER LISBON. THE 1783 SEISMIC DISASTER IN CALABRIA (SOUTH ITALY): BUILDING REGULATIONS AND NEW TOWNS, AN UNFINISHED PROJECT

VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL

EM PORTUGUÊS

A PRESENTATION IN THIS SPECIAL SESSION BY EMANUELA GUIDOBONI (A MEMBER OF THE PANEL: THE ROLE OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING IN THE EARTHQUAKE-RESILIENCE OF CITIES)

Less than thirty years after the Lisbon catastrophe, the centre and south of Calabria was struck by five devastating earthquakes between 2 February and 30 March 1783, reducing the area, in the description of contemporaries, to “a heap of rubble”. The destruction extended to Messina (Sicily), at the time an important trading centre. Historical research in archives has brought to light the seismic areas activated and the whole scenario of effects in urban centres and villages, and in natural environment (landslides, fissures, liquefaction phenomena, the creation of new lakes and complete re-routing of rivers). This highly complex seismic sequence also caused tsunami in the Straits of Messina.

VUE DE L'OPTIQUE COMPOSITION (HAND COLORED COPPER ENGRAVING USED IN THE LATERNA MAGICA TECHNIQUE) SHOWING SEA SHIPS AND BOATS ENDANGERED IN THE ROUGH WATERS OF THE MESSINA STRAIT DISTURBED BY THE 1783 EARTHQUAKE. FROM HISTORY OF GEOLOGY

Aftershocks in their hundreds went on for some four years. Such a sequence nowadays would be devastating in its impact, given the demographic density and the poor quality building of modern Calabria. The entire area thus stands at high seismic risk. Portugal’s 1755 experience was partly drawn on when it came to designing new housing in 1784 (from the gaibola to the casa baraccata). New Calabrian townships were designed to a regular grid plan with broad streets and low-rise buildings to increase seismic resistance.

New building regulations were issued by the Bourbon government, but then not enforced. A decade later in 1799, the anti-Bourbon uprising overthrew the government: amid institutional weakness and political/social strife, the anti-seismic project fell into abeyance. A kind of amnesia descended on the earthquake issue, for which later generations would pay dearly when quakes struck the region once more. Historical analysis of this crucial seismic sequence embraces scientific, town-planning and cultural aspects of this disaster.


MORE ABOUT EMANUELA GUIDOBONI

Emanuela Guidoboni, completed a Laurea in History, specialising in the Mediaeval, at the University of Bologna, taken to a Master’s in Archiving and Paleography. Since 1982 she has carried out research on historical earthquakes, defining specialised historical analyses for further scientific use of the data for seismology and geophysics. From 1983 to 2007, she was the President of and scientific head for the research society SGA (Storia Geofisica Ambiente srl), one of the most important producers of data on historical seismicity in Europe.

For the INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e di Vulcanologia) she planned and directed historical research on Italian earthquakes, which was then collected together in the Catalogue of Strong Earthquakes in Italy from the Ancient World to the 20th Century (and studies and databanks that have made thousands of new data available on the Italian seismicity (first release in 1995, last of 2007: Guidoboni et al., Catalogue of Strong Earthquakes in Italy from 461 BC. to 2000 and in the Mediterranean Area, from 760 BC to 1500, An Advanced Laboratory of Historical Seismology, http://storing.ingv.it/cfti4med. Emanuela Guidoboni published the Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area with G.Traina and A. Comastri (1994) and the Catalogue of Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Area - 11th to 15th Century with A. Comastri (2005).

EMANUELA GUIDOBONI

These catalogues have made available the original sources and the evaluations of the effects of hundreds of earthquakes. Consultant for the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) for the north African countries and for the sub-Caucasian area, Emanuela revised the historical earthquake catalogues for the seismic hazard in Tunisia, Morocco and Armenia.

For the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage, for the Seismic Risk Maps for the Monuments of Sicily and Calabria, she is responsible for seismic anamnesis of the monuments.

For the Department of Civil Protection (Italy) Emanuela Guidoboni is also involved in studies for volcanic eruptions (Vesuvius, Etna and Campi Flegrei) in the ancient and medieval periods up to the end of the 17th century, through analysing original historical sources and ancient treatises.




Moreover, she has analysed Italian and Mediterranean tsunamis, from ancient and medieval periods, on which Emanuela Guidoboni has published numerous scientific articles. She has also carried out activities as a visiting professor in various Italian universities (Venice, Florence, Bologna, Reggio Calabria), and in schools of specialisation in archaeology and restoration (Florence and Naples).

The success of the method adopted delineated a new scientific discipline of Historical Seismology, on which she published the first handbook with J. Ebel: Earthquakes and Tsunamis of the Past. A Guide to the Problems and Methods of Historical Seismology (2009, Cambridge University Press). In 2007-2011 she is Senior Researcher at the INGV, and is responsible for the Units of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Climate: History and Archaeology.

On February 2011 Emanuela Guidoboni founded the Euro-Mediterranean Documentation Centre on Extreme Events and Disasters (Centro Euro-Mediterraneo di Documentazione EVENTI ESTREMI E DISASTRI), based in Spoleto (Italy), for the scientific, historical and cultural divulgation on great and medium destructive impacts of disasters end their humane and natural causes (www.centroeedis.it).

MESSINA 1908 (PICTURE COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA)