In corso (1)
PRIN PNRR 2022
SOUTH RISK: from data collection to monitoring interventions and risk prevention. A southern history.
Codice del progetto: P2022TA5M8
CUP: H53D23010290001
Durata: novembre 2023-novembre 2025
Bandi di selezione:
A. Bando assegno di ricerca A.R. prog. n. 11.100
B. Bando assegno di ricerca A.R. prog. n. 11.99
Abstract:
The relationship between man and the environment, between citizens and the institutions responsible of controlling and supporting their productive, ecological, and political interaction with the territory is a topical issue. This project elicits reflections on the sustainability of the actions affecting one’s environment, and on the risks resulting from accidental changes in natural conditions or from careless treatment of the ecological balance. This project aims at rethinking mankind’s relationship with the environment by reconstructing the history of the research and of the institutes created in southern Italy from the 18th to the 20th century. Such technical-scientific efforts had indeed the purpose of investigating and interpreting the natural phenomena that impact human activities and health (meteorological changes, earthquakes, eruptions). The project is consistent with recent national and international research, which deals with Environmental History and in particular with the impact that natural disasters have long had on human activities and communities (e.g., the research conducted at the Cambridge Disaster Research Network, CDRN, at The Environmental Humanities at UCLA, or at the Center for Culture, History, and Environment of the University of Wisconsin. It is also worth mentioning the work of the Italian Society of Environmental History).
This project is intended to highlight scientific research aimed at understanding environmental phenomena and providing cognitive tools to prevent or reduce the risks of disastrous events. It will be focusing on a specific case study, that is, the scientific production of researchers and institutes in southern Italy which were concerned with assessing meteorological, seismic, and volcanic phenomena in the 18th-20th centuries. Italian southern regions were administered by a single central power at least until the Unification of Italy, which allows to consider them as a unitary object of study, albeit with different developments on specific issues. Consequently, it is possible to analyse facts and situations that are not localized but extra-regional. Firstly, this analysis will examine the procedures and instruments for collecting data and surveying the territory’s characteristics.
Then, attention will be paid to the development of interpretative tools aimed at drawing up general assessments (statistics and censuses), and to the creation of institutes designed to foster “knowledge” of the environment. The research group consists of experts in the history of science and institutions belonging to scientific and humanistic research fields, which ensures an interdisciplinary approach. This constitutes an added value, as it allows for a thorough understanding of both general motivations and technical aspects. Research networks from different scientific fields will contribute to a productive interchange of respective study methodologies.
General Objective
This project aims to examine the rich research tradition — based on both data collection activities and the definition of instrumental procedures — on the study of natural phenomena (meteorological, seismic, volcanic) that affected the area of Southern Italy, including Sicily, between the 18th and 20th centuries. The research will also consider how interpretative tools were developed to make general assessments (statistics and censuses) in order to understand the data collected, with attention to the institutes set up specifically for the purpose of fostering “knowledge” of the territory. The project team will carry out an accurate survey of the instrumentation and historical series of data collected at some of the oldest institutes, such as the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory of Naples and the Seismological Observatory of Messina. All the research findings will be made accessible through a website, with the tentative name of “Science between Sky and Earth”. The project includes the organization of a public exhibition route and other public involvement activities.
Expected results
Historical data collected over time in southern Italy will be made available to researchers. The southern regions of Italy constitute a unique case in Europe, for adverse phenomena and their territorial impact and effects on the environment have often been associated with social and economic upheavals. Therefore, a considerable improvement is expected in the understanding of: 1) the history of scientific observations and theories on catastrophic events, including their effects on the man-made and natural environment; and 2) the history of the social and institutional response to such phenomena. This project will allow the researchers and the citizens to highlight the natural effects of climatic and environmental variations concerning the anthropogenic factor that is unnaturally accelerating these changes, pushing them to a no-return point. It will also provide citizens with additional tools to raise their awareness of the transformations taking place, to encourage better behaviour to safeguard the future of the new generations, and to help institutions to adopt the most appropriate decisions. The project also provides a solid tool to enhance the Neapolitan tradition in the study of meteorology. Furthermore, the project will show the fundamental contribution offered by Neapolitan scientists to the development of climatology in Italy. This scientific tradition has been and still is characterized by a surprising continuity, and spans from the study of the climate in the Mediterranean to the new frontiers of space weather.
- By historians:
This project provides solid tools to enhance the Neapolitan tradition in the study of meteorology, volcanology and geology. It does so by recovering original data, historical studies and tools, and by highlighting the modern scientific approach adopted to study those phenomena in the past. This result will encourage further research into other areas of Neapolitan science, which have not yet been investigated with such broad diachronic and synchronic perspectives. It will stimulate research and active participation in the enhancement of Italy’s cultural heritage.
- By scientists working in the project’s fields of interest:
The project will provide climatologists with an important body of historical data that can help to study and understand local climate changes and seismic and volcanic processes. Today’s development of monitoring methods and of risk prevention from recent data collection is certainly advisable, and it shows a high degree of accuracy from the measurements taken. Nonetheless, the thorough understanding of any natural and potentially adverse phenomena requires knowledge of their history, in order to allow the appointed institutions to take the most appropriate decisions. In this sense, the focus on Southern Italy is particularly important not only because these phenomena have been traditionally tracked since antiquity, but also because natural disasters in this area have left a strong and lasting mark on the man-made environment, on heritage and traditions. For example, some Italian scholars (mainly from the Kingdom of Naples) soon learned that earthquake risk mitigation requires an understanding of where and why earthquakes occur. In fact, catastrophic events in southern Italy attracted the interest of contemporary scholars from other European countries during the 18th and 19th century.
Unità:
Bari: Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia (Professore ordinario), Pierroberto Scaramella (Professore ordinario), Stefano Daniele (Assegnista di ricerca), Andrea Maraschi (Assegnista di ricerca);
Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli, Federico II
Salvatore Esposito (Professore associato), Ofelia Pisanti (Professoressa associata), Adele Naddeo (Assegnista di ricerca);
Napoli: INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte
Mauro Gargano (Tecnologo e responsabile del Museo degli Strumenti Astronomici), Emilia Olostro Cirella (Tecnologa) e Clementina Sasso (Ricercatrice);
Messina: Università degli Studi di Messina
Salvatore Magazù (Professore ordinario), Federica Migliardo (Professoressa ordinaria)
Attività di diffusione dei risultati svolte:
16 dicembre 2024 – Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti, Messina
Giornata di Studi delle unità Prin 2022 Pnrr: “SOUTH RISK: From data collection to monitoring interventions and risk prevention. A southern history”
10 dicembre 2024 – Liceo G. Tarantino di Gravina di Puglia (BA)
Progetto: “Dalle ombre alla luce. Lo sguardo che anima, cura e genera”
Intervento: Stefano Daniele (UniBa), “Lampade eterne. Scienza e miracolo della Luce”.
26 novembre 2024 – Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
Workshop: “Terre ferite e cieli di sangue. Scienza e percezione dei disastri ambientali dal medioevo all’età contemporanea” – organizzato dall’unità UniBa del progetto Prin Pnrr 2022, South Risk. From data collection to monitoring interventions and risk prevention. A southern history (COD. progetto: P2022TA5M8 – CUP: H53D23010290001)
Interventi: Stefano Daniele (UniBa), “Piogge di sangue, piogge di ferro. Meteorologia e meraviglia nella Puglia del Settecento”; Andrea Maraschi (UniBa), “Cieli rosso fuoco. Aurora boreale e carestia nell’Alto Medioevo”.
25 ottobre 2024 – Festival “Eco Culture. Culture per la transizione ecologica”, Fiera dell’agricoltura (6a ed.) – Area mercatala “P. Munno”, Sammichele di Bari (BA)
Intervento: Francesco Paolo de Ceglia (UniBa)
9-13 settembre 2024 – 110° Congresso Nazionale della Società Italiana di Fisica, Bologna
Intervento: Salvatore Esposito (UniNa), “Il caso storico del “terremoto elettrico”: fondamentali contributi italiani”
Programma Bologna, 9-13 Settembre 2024
4-7 settembre 2024 – 11th Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS). Science, Technology, Humanity, and the Earth, Barcellona
Intervento: Salvatore Esposito (UniNa), “Thunderstorms underground: the interesting case of the ʽelectric earthquake’ in the 18th and 19th centuries”
Programma Barcellona, 4-7 Settembre 2024
Prof. Salvatore Esposito (University of Naples “Federico II”) joined the Eleventh Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS), which took place in Barcelona (Spain), from 4 to 7 September 2024.
The central theme was Science, Technology, Humanity, and the Earth, that is, the numerous ways in which mankind can use science to understand, represent and intervene in the world. Papers aimed at analysing how epidemics, wars and climate change are connected, and how humanity can face challenges that can threaten its future and the future of the planet where it lives.
Salvatore Esposito presented a paper by the title “Thunderstorms underground: the interesting case of the ‘electric earthquake’ in the 18th and 19th centuries”, where he examined “electric hypothesis” of the causes of earthquakes, which emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century as part of the first studies of seismology. He discussed the development and the later evolution (up to the beginning of the nineteenth century) of the “electric earthquake” paradigm, and showed how electrical science shaped earthquake science to a considerable degree.
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