“Troppo vicini”. Letture della catastrofe prossima nel pensiero meridionale alla fine del XVIII secolo

“Too close”. Reading nearby catastrophes in Southern Italian thought at the end of the XVIIIth century. This paper analyses the intersections between the ideas of catastrophe and revolution in Southern Italian writers at the end of the XVIIIth century, focusing on those who operated in the proximity of a natural or political upheaval. The way in which this proximity modifies the value of the concept of catastrophe is well shown by the writings of the “observers” of the 1783 earthquake in Calabria and Messina and by their effort to offer a testimony and narrate the catastrophe at present tense.