Actually, the title Campi Phlegraei is not only Latin (campus, ‘the field’), but also Greek (phlégein, ‘to burn’). It contains two layers of European as well as local cultural history, since southern Italy had been colonized by the Greeks. Thus it hints at Hamilton’s enthusiasm for antiquity, evidenced by his large collections of Greek and Etruscan vases and other archaeological objects.
Vesuvius, whose eruption destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, is one of those “volcanos” that, according to the title page (see Fig. 1), form the subject of the work. After long periods of rest, it became active again in the second half of the 18th century. During this phase of reawakened, intense activity, hardly a year passed without a new eruption, which could have had disastrous consequences for the surrounding areas and their inhabitants. In addition to Vesuvius, Hamilton’s Campi also deals with Etna and Stromboli, two other fire mountains of the then Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In Naples, at the court of King Ferdinand IV, Hamilton served as a diplomat, namely as “Envoy Extraordinary, and Plenipotentiary” of the English king. This prestigious and influential position between two highnesses, “His Britannic Majesty” and “The Court of Naples,” is mentioned by Hamilton with as much selfconfidence as his noble title “Sir” – clear indications of his elevated social position and his privileges as a wealthy member of an aristocratic upper class. When his book was published, the absolutist social order in Europe had not yet been shaken by the French Revolution. But the revolution already seemed to announce itself metaphorically in the eruptions of the volcanoes that Hamilton depicted.
Social rank, however, was not the only authority with which Hamilton introduced himself to his readers. In fact, he proudly pointed out that he had already sent a number of nature reports about the Campi Phlegraei to the Royal Society, the most important scientific association of the time in Britain (“As They have been communicated to the Royal Society of London”). Over the years, they had been published in the Philosophical Transactions, one of the world’s leading scientific journals (Hamilton 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771a, 1771b, 1773, 1778a, 1778b, 1780, 1783, 1786, 1795). Hamilton was not only an aristocrat, but also a scholar.
This double authorization as a nobleman and as a researcher is subtly expressed in the enigmatic row of letters in the middle of the title page, below the author’s name: the combined abbreviation “K. B. F. R. S.” stands for two different affiliations: “Knight of the Order of the Bath” (K. B.) and “Fellow of the Royal Society” (F. R. S.). Hamilton unites two social orders that seem incompatible to us today: pre-Enlightenment feudalism and modern academic knowledge. His whole personality is based on this paradox.