The master and his pupil on the route of the volcanoes in Southern Italy

On-site evolution of the geological line proper to the Collège de France

Abstract

Charles Sainte-Claire Deville (the master) and Ferdinand André Fouqué (the pupil) wrote fascinating reports of their scientific journeys in the lands of Italian volcanoes. In the wake of the policy of strong exploratory activism of the Collège de France in the mid-nineteenth century European science enjoys a special status and expresses a greater increase in the internationalism of scientists and intellectuals, not only to advance their area of research, but also to validate an ideological choice of a "benign" model of world order. The French master and the pupil can be included in this historical framework. The eruptions of Etna and Vesuvius are for them theaters of exploration, research and systematization of the geological phenomena visible on the earth's crust.