Engineers bring a 250-year-old mechanical painting of Mount Vesuvius to firey life
A team of engineers from the University of Melbourne in Australia gave life to a single art work representing a cataclysmic eruption of the Mount Vesuve d’Italie. The 250 -year work merges art with engineering to simulate a volcanic eruption on the famous mountain in the 18th century. The same volcano destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii in southern Italy and killed around 2,000 people in 79 EC.
The original concept was designed in 1775 by Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton was the British ambassador of Naples and Sicily from 1765 to 1800 and also a vulcanologist. Hamilton observed the eruptions of the Mount Vesuve in 1767, 1779 and 1794, carefully noting the changes in the crater by 4,000 feet. Hamilton would have climbed to Vesuvius more than 65 times, even after a friend was seriously burned by the volcanic rock. He also sponsored the documentation of the daily activity of the Vesuve from 1779 to 1794.
The merger of Hamilton art and watchmaking is based on an watercolor painting of 1771 by the British-Italian artist Pietro Fabris called “Night View of A Current of Lava”. Hamilton’s point of view on painting called for light and movement to animate the lava flows and lava explosions in Vesuvius. While scientists and historians do not know if the mechanism to animate painting was built at the time of Hamilton, a detailed sketch housed in the municipal library of Bordeaux in France provided engineers a plan.
“After 250 years, our students have given life to this sleeping project,” said Richard Gillespie, principal curator of the Faculty of Engineering and Collections of Information Technology at the University of Melbourne, in a press release. âIt is a wonderful scientific communication. People around the world have always been fascinated by the immense power of volcanoes. â
The play itself was brought for life by the students of MaĂźtre Xinyu Xu and Yuji Zeng. The pair spent three months to build the aircraft in a student workshop called The Creator Space. Using certain modern materials and techniques, including the laser cutting wood, programming LED lighting and electronic control systems – to reinvent the design focused on Hamilton watchwork.
[ Related: Mount Vesuvius eruption turned a victimâs brain into glass. ]
âThe project offered a multitude of learning possibilities. I have extended many skills, including programming, welding and physics applications, âsaid XU, a mecatronic student.
Zeng, a mechanical engineering student, added that this project had provided him with a new perspective on how to apply his studies.
“It was a fantastic way to develop my practical problem solving skills,” said Zeng. âWe still faced some of the challenges that Hamilton faced. Light had to be designed and balanced so that the mechanisms are hidden. â
The apparatus is the centerpiece of “The Grand Tour”, an exhibition that opened its doors on Monday at the Baillieu Library of the University. According to the university, “[it] Explore the cultural priority of the passage undertaken in the Italian peninsula by, mainly, the young British men of the class higher in the 18th century. »»
“The Grand Tour” takes place until June 28, 2026.
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