Actress Emma Fielding reads Gillian Darley's 'Vesuvius, The Most Famous Volcano in the World'. Dormant since 1944, but still a potential threat to the thousands who live at its foot, Vesuvius has produced its own literature, imagery and scientific insights.

It has also attracted visitors from all over the world. Many of them have flocked to see the perfect casts of a group of fleeing Romans, captured in their final moments as the deadly volcanic ash incarcerated them in Pompeii. Thomas Cook, the 'Napoleon of Excursions' led his initial tour to the volcano in 1864 and from then on the crowds kept coming, lured by the gruesome prospect of seeing these contorted bodies, the possibility of another major eruption and the many other tourist attractions on offer.Transport improved, first with a funicular for the arduous ascent to the top of the volcanic cone, and then an electrified railway took visitors to its foot. Freud, along with the Surrealists, was deeply curious about Vesuvius, but tourism and artistic interest came to an end with the start of the Second World War.

A young officer, Norman Lewis, serving in Naples, witnessed the terrible eruption of 1944 at first-hand. The Allied forces at first thought the noise had come from the detonation of a huge bomb. He recorded the way the villagers from the badly-affected San Sebastiano reverted to the superstitions of mediaeval times by praying to their own Saints to save them from the terrifying lava flow. Astonishingly, their prayers were answered. Since 1944 a huge amount of building has taken place on the dormant slopes of the volcano. How can Italy really be prepared for the moment when Vesuvius comes to life again, as it surely must?

Additional Readings by Simon Tcherniak. Abridged by Olivia Seligman.

Producer: Olivia Seligman
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4. Show less