Particular attention is given to Vesuvius, documented through classical sources, travel accounts, and valuable depictions of historical eruptions from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. These images not only capture the spectacular force of the volcano, but also serve as important scientific records, revealing changes in its morphology and the variety of eruptive styles.

What also clearly emerges is the stark contrast between the drama experienced by local populations – forced to endure the destruction caused by lava, ash, and pyroclasts – and the fascination of scientists and artists, who often awaited eruptions with anticipation, eager to observe, study, and immortalize the events in collective memory.

The journey is structured around five key stages: Phlegraean Fields, Vesuvius, Toward Sicily, Sicily, and Mon Petit Retour. This final section represents the artist’s personal and contemporary revisitation of the landscapes once crossed by historic travellers. Her gouaches, stripped of modern elements, recover the original spirit of those places – fertile and familiar – traversing symbolic sites of Magna Graecia, from Naples to the Aeolian Islands.

Alongside works on paper, some pieces are painted on reclaimed wood from decommissioned fishing boats and take the form of contemporary ex-votos – visual narratives that, with gentle irony, recount personal close calls and moments of salvation, in continuity with Mediterranean devotional traditions.

The entire project unfolds within the shared cultural roots of Europe, exploring, through the theme of volcanoes, the long transition from myth to science – from the wrath of the gods to geodynamics – while poetically reflecting on humankind’s place within nature and on knowledge as a unifying force among peoples.