The Great Sicily Earthquake of 1693

[Music] vincentius bonairotis a sicilian noble wrote in the philosophical transactions of the royal society in 1694 that the great secrets of nature are so inscrutable that we find them far out of reach whenever we go to form a true and nice judgment of them he was talking about the awesome power of nature in a first-hand account of the 1693 great sicily earthquake which occurred on january 11th 327 years ago today it was the most powerful earthquake in recorded italian history it was so devastating that it literally transformed the entire nature of human settlement in sicily it is history that deserves to be remembered with an area of nearly ten thousand square miles sicily is the largest island in the mediterranean lying south of the italian peninsula and the central mediterranean archaeological evidence of human habitation on the island goes back at least to 12000 bc its location in the central mediterranean made sicily a battleground between empires since they played a central role in wars between the greeks in the peloponnesian war between the greeks and carthage and the sicilian wars between rome and carthage in the punic wars between the ostrogoths and the eastern roman empire in the gothic war in a protracted muslim conquest followed by a conquest by norman descendants of vikings sicily became a kingdom under roger ii of sicily on christmas day 11 30. the kingdom would endure for nearly 700 years although the crown would be connected through personal unions also called composite monarchy with other kingdoms from the 15th to the 17th centuries the crown of sicily was a personal union with the kings of spain and sicily was ruled by a viceroy who would be responsible for trying to integrate local powers with the global system and the desires of the king a complex task that was often unsuccessful historian fernando chumitaro argues that the competition among the various local political entities essentially rendered sicily ungovernable the 17th century proved to be a significant challenge for sicily it was a period of population growth and integration into world markets where sicily became a major exporter of grain and silk but it was a period of political discontent and disaster periodic droughts and exhaustion of soil due to grain monoculture led to periodic food shortages and near famine the shortages along with economic recession and taxation resulted in discontent and frequent riots and uprisings plague struck the city of palermo in 1624 killing as many as ten thousand the outbreak was supposedly stopped by the interdiction of saint rosalia whose name is still invoked in time of plague in 1669 mount aetna the most prominent landmark on the island and one of the most active volcanoes in the world erupted the lava flow destroyed entire towns then on the east coast of sicily on january 9 1693 the ground shook earthquakes are generally measured using two scales seismic magnitude scales represent the inherent force of the earthquake while seismic intensity scales measure the local intensity of shaking and its effects while the seismic energy causes the shaking how much of the energy is radiated as seismic waves differs by factors such as the location and depth of the epicenter or point where the earthquake originates intensity scales are based on local often untrained observations of the effects of an earthquake and as such can be used to help identify the location of the epicenter places with greater damage are closer to the epicenter intensity scales can also be determined from historical accounts allowing estimates of the magnitude even before the advent of instrumentation the most common intensity scale used today is the mortality modified intensity scale or mmi first formulated by volcanologist giuseppe mercalli in 1883 and revised several times since the current version of the scale has 12 categories although the 11th and 12th categories occur so infrequently that the united states geological survey only uses 10 categories incorporating categories 11 and 12 into the 10 plus category based on the reports of the january 9 1693 earthquake the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.2 on the moment magnitude scale the damage was significant reging as high as 11 on the mercalli modified intensity scale meaning that virtually all masonry structures are destroyed with intensity eight or severe damage in multiple towns and cities along the east coast of sicily in his contemporary account described the effect almost all the edifices in the country were thrown down where upon some were very high and strong built towers a great part of the city of catania with many others was demolished and a great many buildings in valdenotto syracuse were also much flattened numbers are unclear but at least hundreds died but even in an area where seismic activity is common the earthquake was significant more powerful than the earthquake that in 2011 caused significant damage in christchurch new zealand but the thing is this wasn't the real earthquake it was what seismologists call a foreshock the earthquake struck around 9 pm on january 11th lasted about four minutes according to bona utis of a type that he called a pulse or a stroke from its resemblance to the beating of an artery it was in this country impossible to keep upon our legs or in one place on the dancing earth nay those that lay along the ground were tossed from side to side as if on a rolling billow the effect was massive seriously affecting an area of more than 2200 square miles bunny eunice explained so horrid and amazing a shake was at once all over sicily of which it left if not destroyed in at least every part miserably shaken some 70 towns and cities in sicily were destroyed in the earthquake with category 8 intensity meaning severe damage along almost the entire east coast of the island and damage also in italy and the island of malta fissures opened to the ground from the width of a hand to what bonaires described as great gulfs he wrote in the city of noto in a street a half a mile long built of stone which if present is settled into the ground and quite hanging on one side like a wall that inclined and another street before it is an opening big enough to swallow a man and a horse the earthquake created landslides where great rocks were loosened and thrown down from the mountains everywhere and in the county of certino inhabited by about five thousand persons a great number perished in the houses which were beaten down by them in their way as they rolled down from the hills in some places wells dried up in other places they overflowed or smelled of sulfur in one valley the landslides created a dam that then created a lake that was described as being three miles around and of considerable depth the magnitude was estimated to be 7.4 63 times as powerful as the january 9th foreshock and more than four times more powerful than the earthquake that devastated haiti in 2010 it was the most powerful earthquake in recorded italian history the death toll was horrific the viceroy the duke of ucheta estimated that about sixty thousand people died under the ruins of the earthquake that represented about half of the population of southeast sicily immediately following the earthquake the sea was seen retreating across some 140 miles of the coast the harbor in the city of augusta went dry it was a precursor to a tsunami with waves as high as 30 feet some traveling nearly a mile inland a contemporary newspaper said that in the city of augusta the tsunami killed many of those people especially women and children who alerted by the big foreshock of two days before were camping near the pier bona youtus estimated that of a population of 18914 in catania approximately eighteen thousand or ninety-five percent died in the earthquake and tsunami although other sources say the death toll there was around twelve thousand at least half of the population of ragusa was killed and approximately quarter of the population in the cities of syracuse augusta and noto the damage continued viceroy ucheta reported 25 aftershocks continuing to july of 1694. some were described as being as severe as the original quake and in the aftermath as is common with such disasters disease spread due to the lack of shelter food and clean water money utes listed illnesses ranging from foolishness and madness to malignant mortal and dangerous ones in great number with delirium lethargies where there has been any infection caused by the natural malignity of the air infant mortality has followed the smallpox has made great destruction amongst children and in short there has been no state nor condition which has not had its share and so universal a calamity but the earthquake also transformed the island and beyond one of the most extraordinary impacts of the earthquake was in the rebuilding in homogenous late baroque style the reconstruction was unique for several reasons many cities had to be completely rebuilt some at new locations the ruins of old noto some four miles where the city was rebuilt can still be seen others on new town plans others on existing town plans this allowed a flexibility of construction and plan not commonly available in the rest of europe where few new cities were being built nobility and power was uniquely concentrated in sicily and became even more concentrated through inheritance as so many had died the viceroy appointed a skilled administrator the duke of kamastra who quickly granted the city's hit a four-year tax suspension to rebuild and decreed that the building would be around piazzas and wider streets rather than narrow medieval streets the plan was not just for aesthetics it was also reduced the damage in future earthquakes the reconstruction included talented architects such as vincenzo sinatra the unique highly ornamented style that came to be called sicilian baroque was described in one architectural magazine the buildings conceived in the wake of this disaster expressed a light-hearted freedom of decoration whose incongruous deity was intended perhaps to assuage the horror the style continued to develop into the late 18th century was so influential that it transformed our architecture in cities in sicily and malta that had been unaffected by the earthquake the style which so defines sicily and malta today was a direct result of the devastation of the earthquake there's still disagreement over the location of the epicenter whether it was on the coast or offshore and the location has still not been positively identified there's some evidence that the 1669 eruption of mount aetna might have caused a stress transfer that helped to trigger the 1693 earthquake some sources claimed that aetna was erupting during the earthquake but actually most agree that it was dormant after its 1669 eruption while there's a loft that is not known about the 1693 sicily earthquake there's a surprising amount we do know a 2009 article in the journal transactions of the built environment notes that the sicilian earthquake of 1693 is the first catastrophic seismic event in the world that can be studied and analyzed in depth for the amount of contemporary evidence and the quality and complexity of the reactions triggered in many areas the devastation of the earthquake transformed the island of sicily which thrived in the 18th century compared to the disasters of the 17th century it's evidence that natural disasters destroy more than buildings they transform cultures i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 71,639

Rating: 4.9839206 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, sicily, earthquakes, italy, earthquake, 1693, natural disaster

Id: cGGaqBMl60I

Length: 11min 49sec (709 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 11 2021