Mount Vesuvius has become part of the history of Volcanology thanks to the eruption of 79AD. According to Pliny the Younger that could observe the whole eruptive scene from Miseno (20 km away from the volcano) “a cloud … in the shape of a pine tree … shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a shape of branches.”
Entire cities, among which Pompeii and Herculaneum, were destroyed. The products erupted by Vesuvius covered the fields, filled the roads, the houses and the temples of the cities. After the 79 AD eruption nothing was written about Vesuvius until 172 when Galeno, a Greek doctor, described the properties of the dry air caused by underground fires. Dione Cassio refered about a violent eruption of 203, the rumbles of which were heard in Capua, 40 km away from Vesuvius. Other two significant eruptions took place in 472 and 512.
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