Sir William Hamilton was the British ambassador to the Court of Naples and Sicily from 1765 to 1800, as well as a passionate volcanologist. During his time in Italy he has to see a mountain Vesuvius sometimes – certainly enough to leave an ongoing impression.
So much so that in 1775 he projected a rotary device, which with mechanical movement and light could bring the fiery magma to life presented in the watercolor of Pietro Fabris’ 1771, “a night sight of a washing flow.” While experts are not sure if Hamilton had ever preceded the multimedia device beyond the project phase, the maintenance of its detailed draft at the Bordeaux City Library allowed engineering students in Australia to rebuild it 250 years later.
Based on University of Melbourne VideoThe reconstruction consists of a drilled tube rotating around a source of light, casting moving splots of glow on the back of the watercolor painting. The light shines through the canvas, so that people in relation to the art of the front see the light flowing along the painted lava, as if it were really moving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6VMPA4YV_8
“It’s a wonderful piece of scientific communication. People around the world have always been fascinated by the huge power of volcanoes,” Richard Gillespie, a senior trustee in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne, said at university Statement.
The entertainment is now the central part of the Grand Tour, an exhibition at the Baillieu Library of the University of Melbourne, which explored the educational and tourist trip to Italy, which many young British upper classes undertook in the 18th century.
“I always wanted to recreate the device, and suddenly the occasion of the exhibition on the Grand Tour at the Baillieu Library gave me the opportunity, commission a team,” Gillespie explained in the video. “They are trying to really use 21-century mechanics and techniques and electronics to recreate in the same spirit of Hamilton’s originally clock-mounted and candle-lit device.”
Graduate students Xinyu (Jasmine) Xu and Yuji (Andy) Zeng built the device more than three months, incorporating laser-cut timber and acrylic, electronic control systems and programmable LED lighting.
“It was a great way to build my practical problems to solve problems,” Zeng said. “We still faced some of the challenges Hamilton faced. The light had to be drawn and balanced so that the mechanisms were hidden from sight.”
For those of you in Australia, The Great Tour An exhibition is scheduled to operate until June 28, 2026, also showing objects related to Hamilton’s time in Naples.
