European Earthquakes in the 18th Century through Contemporary Pictorial Documentation

Written and printed historical records and reports have always been the main sources of macroseismic information for seismologists re-evaluating the earthquakes of the past, and hence for the authors of regional historical earthquake catalogues. The most recent attempts to re-assess the seismicity of European regions have also looked for new, not previously utilised, complementary macroseismic data, with a view to allowing new and improved assessments to be made of historical earthquake intensities. In the present paper an attempt is made to test the utility of historical pictorial material from this point of view.