Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero's island

Abstract

The Tempest, the last work entirely attributed to William Shakespeare, has been subject to many studies and interpretations, ranging from adventure and Shakespeare's biography to colonialism and the cultural revolution, and is studied in this paper in the context of naturally occurring hazards. The play tells the story of a magician, Prospero, and his daughter who are shipwrecked on an unknown island where they encounter strange creatures and beings. But is it a fantastic island or was the author inspired by real places? Literary scholars proposed several hypotheses through the years, based on historical sources. Here, we analyse the play in the light of geosciences and mythology supporting the hypothesis that the playwright was inspired by the Mediterranean. Our goal is not to identify the island but rather to examine the various geographical and philosophical–political factors that may have influenced Shakespeare's literary creation. Nevertheless, some verses in the play suggest volcanism, placing the island in the Sicilian sea. This underlines once again how deep the playwright's knowledge of Italy was. It also suggests that this part of the Mediterranean was known, at the time of Shakespeare, as the theatre of phenomena originated in the volcanism of the area. One implication is that he could have used historical sources, still unknown and precious, to reconstruct geological events that occurred off the Sicilian coast.

Full text

Geosci. Commun., 4, 111–127, 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-4-111-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
Tiziana Lanza
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome, Italy
Correspondence: Tiziana Lanza (tiziana.lanza@ingv.it)
Received: 28 February 2020 – Discussion started: 30 April 2020
Revised: 7 January 2021 – Accepted: 19 January 2021 – Published: 17 March 2021
Abstract. The Tempest, the last work entirely attributed to
William Shakespeare, has been subject to many studies and
interpretations, ranging from adventure and Shakespeare’s
biography to colonialism and the cultural revolution, and is
studied in this paper in the context of naturally occurring haz-
ards. The play tells the story of a magician, Prospero, and his
daughter who are shipwrecked on an unknown island where
they encounter strange creatures and beings. But is it a fan-
tastic island or was the author inspired by real places? Liter-
ary scholars proposed several hypotheses through the years,
based on historical sources. Here, we analyse the play in the
light of geosciences and mythology supporting the hypoth-
esis that the playwright was inspired by the Mediterranean.
Our goal is not to identify the island but rather to examine the
various geographical and philosophical–political factors that
may have influenced Shakespeare’s literary creation. Never-
theless, some verses in the play suggest volcanism, placing
the island in the Sicilian sea. This underlines once again how
deep the playwright’s knowledge of Italy was. It also sug-
gests that this part of the Mediterranean was known, at the
time of Shakespeare, as the theatre of phenomena originated
in the volcanism of the area. One implication is that he could
have used historical sources, still unknown and precious, to
reconstruct geological events that occurred off the Sicilian
coast.
1 Introduction
A new trend towards the reunification of the two main
streams of culture, the humanistic and the scientific, is be-
coming more evident year by year. Scientists and artists co-
create projects to address issues of societal importance in a
holistic way and to improve science communication. Earth
scientists, in particular, are familiar with studying historical
records and literary accounts, mythology and story telling
in addition to geo-archaeological evidences to reconstruct a
timeline of historic catastrophic events such as earthquakes,
volcano outbreaks, floods, storms, etc. Even with the evolu-
tion of technology that has brought geoscientists new, sophis-
ticated methods of investigation, modern seismology cannot
do without a deep immersion into historical and literary ac-
counts for calculating, for instance, the return period of an
earthquake. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanolo-
gia (INGV) in Italy contributed significantly to this by col-
lecting, in an original volume, the ancient earthquakes in
the Mediterranean area up to the 10th century (Guidoboni
et al., 1994). Another important contribution is the catalogue
of strong Italian earthquakes (Boschi et al., 1995). The cat-
alogue is kept up to date and has recently been extended to
the large earthquakes (6.0–6.9 magnitude) of the Mediter-
ranean area (Guidoboni et al., 2019). Collecting literary ac-
counts, ranging from historical sources until the most recent
chronicles, also allows us to document minor, little details
that might help us to better understand an earthquake of the
past in terms of magnitude, intensity and social impact.
Combining historical, literary, geo-mythological and ar-
chaeological accounts play a fundamental role in reconstruct-
ing past volcanic events and their impacts on society and en-
vironment. In the renown case of the 79 AD Vesuvius erup-
tion that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, the accounts
of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and a poet, who
witnessed and documented the catastrophic event in a letter
to Tacitus (Jones, 2001), helped geoscientists to reconstruct
several earthquakes that preceded the event. The effects are
still visible in several buildings in Pompeii and Villa Regina.
Observing the event from Miseno at a distance of 21 km,
Pliny described the eruptive cloud as a “Mediterranean pine”.
During the morning of the second day, he observed the de-
velopment of pyroclastic flows descending down the flanks
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

112 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
Figure 1. The Ferdinandea island (Graham Island) in a painting by
Camillo de Vito in 1831. Source: Wikipedia.
of Vesuvius and flowing on the sea. The description fits well
with the geologic record of the eruption (Giacomelli et al.,
2003).
Some events remain difficult to reconstruct because of a
lack of observers. Mercalli (1883) asserts that there are only
few records about volcanic eruptions at sea, since the phe-
nomena at the time could be witnessed predominantly by
sailors. Mercalli (1883) reports some episodes that happened
in the Sicilian Channel, including the most popular Ferdinan-
dea island (Graham Island) emerging from the sea in 1831
(see Figs. 1 and 5.). As we will show later, we are stunned
by the way Shakespeare describes a natural phenomenon so
similar to the ones described by Mercalli in his book which
was published 2 centuries later.
2 Methodology
In this paper, we will do the opposite of what was previously
described. We will use geosciences and geo-mythology to
better understand a work of art renown worldwide as a mas-
terpiece of William Shakespeare (hereafter WS) – The Tem-
pest (Shakespeare, 1986).
Although we consider the WS authorship question an im-
portant aspect to address for a better understanding of his
works, we will not discuss it here but we refer the reader to
a recent publication that considers it from a scientific per-
spective (Leigh et al., 2019). We are also aware that consid-
ering the play in the light of the early modern knowledge and
the way it circulates is important, although do not guaran-
tee a more precise interpretation of the verses. We cannot be
sure of which texts WS used to build his own knowledge. At
the same time, it is debated whether WS knew classic lan-
guages sufficiently well to read the original sources since he
was deeply schooled in the classics (Werth, 2002; Stritmatter,
2017).
Then, since there are many interpretation of The Tempest
and, at the same time, the biography of WS is also subject to
much controversy, we take the approach that the text can be
accepted as reliable source. The interpretation of the verses,
although difficult, can enlighten us with respect to the possi-
bility that WS was truly inspired by real places and by nat-
ural phenomena. Here, we propose that WS took inspiration
mainly from literature that directly originates from natural
phenomena. In this way, the discipline of geo-mythology is
based on the idea that myths and legends have their origin
in the natural world and can be seen as a source of natural
knowledge based on the observation of physical evidence.
Early human civilizations used myths to organize and convey
information to transmit the wisdom necessary to live in har-
mony with and survive in nature (Lanza and Negrete, 2007).
The term was originally conceived as the geological appli-
cation of the term “Euhemerism”, from the Sicilian philoso-
pher, Euhemerus (300 BC), who held the belief that the gods
of mythology were simply deified mortals. Then, this new
discipline is based on the idea that some myths and legends
can be explained in terms of actual geological events wit-
nessed by various groups of people (Vitaliano, 1973).
In the present study, it is fundamental that the route traced
in The Tempest by the court party is similar to that traced
by Aeneas in the Aeneid. This cannot be relegated to the
background, as many have done by embracing the trend of
interpretations based on the Bermuda hypothesis. In fact, the
journey that the characters make, from a geophysical and nat-
uralistic point of view, is a journey into the land of volcanoes.
To sum up, it is our intention to analyse, in the play, all
that is connected to a real location in terms of an environ-
mental and geophysical asset, using sources from geoscience
studies, history and others. We are encouraged in this by the
rich naturalistic vocabulary present in the play, with terms
identifying specific flora and fauna and even geological and
geophysical features (see Table 1).
After introducing the play and also referring to the period
of the English Renaissance, we will address one of the un-
solved questions among literary scholars which concerns the
location of Prospero’s island, first, taking into consideration
the Bermuda hypothesis and, second, the possibility of plac-
ing the island into a Mediterranean contest.
Finally, taking into account both the geology off the Sicil-
ian coast and the mythology of the Mediterranean area, we
propose an interpretation of the verses in a new and, so far,
never before considered perspective.
2.1 Shakespeare and volcanoes
Despite the numerous publications, books and academic arti-
cles on Shakespeare and science (Clark, 2005; Mazzio, 2009;
Spiller, 2009; Falk, 2014), and apart from the books on the
way WS deals with storms and weather (Jones, 2016; Chiari,
2019), only a few studies address WS’s possible interest in
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T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 113
Table 1. The terms related to the flora and fauna, geology and the troposphere as collected by the author from the play. In the last column
are some geophysical phenomena, as suggested from the verses analysed in the paper.
Flora Fauna Geology Troposphere Other geophysical
phenomena
Pine
Oak
Berries
Wither’d roots
Acorn
Bush
Shrub
Crabs
Pignuts
Filberts (hazel-
nuts)
Wheat
Rye
Barley
Vetches
Oats
Pease
Broom groves
Vineyards
Flowers
Tooth’d briers
Sharp furzes
Pricking goss
Thorns
Lime
Lime grove
Cedar
Wolves
Bears
Urchins
Toads
Beetles
Bats
Chanticleer (rooster)
Fresh brook mussels
Apes
Hedgehogs
Adders
Jay
Marmoset
Scamels
Sheep
Peacocks
Blind mole
Barnacles
Bear
Owls
Deep nook
Ooze of the salt deep
Unwholesome fen
Fresh springs
Brine pits
Hard rock
Cell
Yellow sands
Bogs
Fens
Flats
Rock
Turfy mountains
Banks
Bosky acres
Unshrubb’d down
Winding brooks
Crisp channels
Green lands
Filthy mantled pool
Foul lake
Pool
Lime
Storm
Dew from the still-vex’d Bermoothes
(Bermuda)
Wind of the north
Southwest (wind)
Black cloud
Thunder
St Elmo’s fire (?)
Sea eruption (?)
Earthquakes (?)
Ignis fatuus (fool-
ish fire)
other geophysical phenomena, such as volcanic activity, and
how this can be inferred directly from his verses.
If earthquakes in WS’s plays are treated in a short para-
graph by Clark (2005), we cannot ignore the proximity of
Great Britain to another land of volcanoes – Iceland, a na-
tion with 31 active and extinct volcanoes. As we read in
Poole (2011), in the early modern time, an integral part of
the debates, discussions and general curiosity about purga-
tory was its actual location. In analysing the possible im-
plications thereof, Poole argues that an important Icelandic
volcano, Mount Hecla, was a prominent site in early modern
cartographic representation and was also an important loca-
tion of the popular geography of the imagination. She also
argues that Mount Hecla shimmers through Hamlet as the
geographical locus of purgatory – the prison of Hamlet’s fa-
ther’s ghost. After all, Hamlet’s line “my imaginations are
as foul/As Vulcan’s stithy” (III.ii.79–80)1is the first exam-
ple that the Oxford English Dictionary, 3 (OED) cites for
1Please note that the references to The Tempest and, as in this
case, to other Shakespearean plays are cited in the structure of act,
scene and line(s). This is a standard citation method used when
quoting from Shakespeare’s plays.
the word “stithy” (a forge, smithy). In the verse, the god
is in fact associated with his underground workplace. She
continues that the invocation of Vulcan in the line might
be specific to Mount Etna, but it could also be tied more
generally to the neologism “volcano”, a word that the OED
cites as having first been used in English in the writing of
Samuel Purchas (“A Vulcano or flaming hill, the fire whereof
maybe seene... about 100 miles”; Purchas His Pilgrimage,
1613, VIII.xiv.686). The word also appears in John Florio’s
Italian–English dictionary of 1598 (“a hill that continually
burneth and casteth out flame and smoke”; Florio, 1598).
Poole (2011) concludes that a volcano very much in evidence
in Shakespeare’s part of the world in the late 1590s was not
so much Mount Etna as it was Mount Hecla, which erupted
continuously for 6 months in 1597. Anyway, contemporaries
repeatedly equate Mount Etna to Mount Hecla, as it can be
inferred from a song composed in 1600 by Thomas Weelkes,
one of England’s most famed composers of madrigals.
Other interesting hints come from another author as we
will see later (Roe, 2011). All this relates to sub-aerial
volcanoes. But, considering underwater volcanism is more
complicated as we have already remarked, quoting Mer-
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114 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
calli (1883). In the following, he emphasized the importance
of conducting such studies on the submarine eruptions occur-
ring in the Mediterranean Sea:
Yet, for geology, the study of underwater volca-
noes could almost be said to be more important
than that of sub-aerials, since, as it is known, the
large pile of layers accessible to the geologists’ in-
vestigation, and which also constitute the soil of
our peninsula, is almost entirely of submarine ori-
gin. (Mercalli, 1883; translated from Italian by the
author)
At the same time, Mercalli supposed that accounts of erup-
tions occurring in the immense solitude of the seas must
be sporadic. The 1846 eruption (to which we refer later in
this paper) perhaps would have remained unknown if a cap-
tain of a merchant vessel had not accidentally been a spec-
tator. In the Sicilian Channel and all around the coast of
southern Italy, volcanic phenomena are also frequent today.
Just to mention the most recent example, in November 2002
there was an important degassing event at sea off the coast
of Panarea island (Capaccioni et al., 2005). WS may also
have used sources of volcanic phenomena occurring at sea.
He probably learnt about it from the captains and the sailors
he came into contact with, or maybe he read the ship’s di-
ary of the English vessels, which is not an absurd idea if we
consider that, in the Elizabethan Age, Great Britain had re-
sumed its commercial expansion in the Mediterranean (De
Vitiis, 1986). But here we can only speculate, since histori-
cal research on volcanic phenomena that occurred at sea in
the past have not yet been performed.
The fascination for volcanoes also comes directly from
the classics. Volcanic activity was described by Pliny the
Younger in the already mentioned letter to Tacitus. A mile-
stone source about the possible effects of volcanism is Plato’s
Timaeus and Critia. In this work, the philosopher specu-
lates about Atlantis, an island suddenly destroyed by a catas-
trophic event. For some scholars, Plato took inspiration from
the Egyptian records of the Thera (Minoan) eruption (San-
torini), while other interesting descriptions come from the
Geography of Strabo.
2.2 Tempests, storms and sea eruptions
Before going further, we will clarify the difference between
sea storms and sea eruptions. The word “tempest” is defined
in dictionaries as being a violent storm, with high winds that
can be accompanied by rain, hail or snow. It is a word with
a Latin origin, and its etymology indicates an evolution from
“period of time” to “period of weather” to “bad weather” to
“storm”. The word evolved to also include a figurative sense
of “violent commotion”. WS uses the word “tempest” with
this double meaning because the tempest is also the turmoil
of the characters in a state of temporary and disarming con-
fusion.
In the first scene of the play, we witness the setting of a
storm, or at least that is what it seems. Immediately after,
already in the second scene of the play, we learn that the
storm is the product of Prospero’s potent art, and we receive
a description of it through the words of Ariel when he re-
ports how he caused the calamity following Prospero’s direc-
tions. Another description appears on this occasion with Mi-
randa witnessing the shipwrecking from the shore (descrip-
tions analysed in Sect. 5.2). The initial fatality is reiterated in
the words of some characters during the play.
What happens to the sea during a storm? Its surface is
strongly affected by the wind force; in this case, waves are
created by the friction between the wind and surface wa-
ters and are called wind-driven waves or surface waves. In
other words, surface waves are the product of the interaction
between the sea and the atmosphere of our planet. The first
scene of the play describes the storm with the words typical
of a storm, namely thunder and lightning. The boatswain also
uses words typical of a windstorm such as “blow”, “wind”
and “storm”. The word “fire”, in this description, does not
appear once (I.i.).
Other hazardous waves can be the result of underwater dis-
turbances that displace large amounts of water quickly, such
as earthquakes, landslides or volcanic eruptions. These types
of waves can also cause tsunamis. The main difference, com-
pared to the previous type of waves, is that in this case a great
amount of energy released from within the Earth travels up to
the surface, displacing water and raising it above the normal
sea level.
In particular, during a submarine eruption we observe, as
for sub-aerial volcanoes, the rising of super-heated molten
rock (magma) along with ash and gas. What happens on
the surface of the sea depends on how the water and the
magma interact in relation to the depth of the volcano seabed
(Németh and Kòsic, 2020). In shallow waters, where water
depths are less than 100 m, hydro-volcanic explosions can
be violent, but increasing the water depth significantly de-
creases the explosive energy of the eruptions as the expansion
of steam becomes limited (Zimanowski et al., 2003; Clague
et al., 2000).
A volcanic eruption produces earthquakes, since the
magma exerts pressure until it cracks the rock. As we will see
later (Sect. 5.2), in The Tempest the descriptions of the initial
fatality in the following verses of the play is fairly different
from the initial scene and correspond better to a sea eruption.
The reasons why the initial scene of the tempest is different
from the description given by Ariel (I.ii.193–206) and in that
given by Miranda observing the event from the shore (I.ii.3–
4; see Sect. 5.2) could be only speculated. Maybe putting a
sea eruption into scene would have been difficult, or maybe
WS wanted to emphasize that the initial catastrophic event
was the product of Prospero’s magic art, and in doing so, he
took inspiration from another natural event that is certainly
more impressive, even if simply described by words.
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T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 115
3 Shakespeare’s locations
In Fig. 2, the map shows the locations of the Shakespearean
works. It is immediately evident that most of the plays are
located in the UK and in Italy. Specifically, one-third of the
plays is located in Italy. There is a lot of literature about the
interest that WS had in the country. He knew so much about it
– even in detail – that some recent studies speculated that the
works of WS can be studied only in light of his relationship
with John Florio (Gerevini, 2008). Two plays are located in
Sicily, namely Much Ado about Nothing (Messina) and The
Winter’s Tale (Sicily).
We believe that The Tempest is also located in Italy, some-
where in the Sicilian sea, even if the official location of the
play is simply “an uninhabited island”. Almost all of the
characters are Italian, and a precise route is indicated in the
southern part of Italy (see Fig. 4).
4 Introducing The Tempest
The Tempest is the last play credited entirely to WS. It was
probably written between 1610 and 1611 and performed for
the first time on 1 November 1611 at court. It was published
later in the First Folio of 1623, from an edited transcript by
Ralph Crane, the scrivener of the King’s Men, the theatrical
company to which WS belonged for most of his career (for a
synopsis, see Fig. 3).
It is a work that is strongly affected by the period in which
it was written. In the Elizabethan Age, the emerging scientific
disciplines like astronomy, chemistry and physics coexisted
with the fashion for occultism, magic, cabalism, astrology
and alchemy, which are the two main currents of thought
that Bloch defines as “cold” and “hot” (Bloch, 1972). The
protagonist is the new Renaissance magus, astrologer and al-
chemist, the owner of a deep knowledge, who is able to dis-
cover the secret processes of nature with the intent to control
it. During the reign of James I, when The Tempest was per-
formed for the first time, the interest in occultism had not yet
faded away. Nevertheless, we observe a slow decline of the
Renaissance magus. John Dee (1527–1608), a mathemati-
cian, astronomer, astrologer and occult philosopher, and an
advisor of Queen Elizabeth I, was accused of sorcery several
times. He died in poverty under the reign of James I. What
happened in Dee’s lifetime with regards to his “Renaissance
Neoplatonism” was – writes Yates (1975) – happening all
over Europe, as the Renaissance turned into the darkness of
the witch-hunts. However, the occult disciplines contributed
to the development of thoughts that reached their climax in
the intellectual revolution initiated by Francis Bacon. This
English philosopher contributed to the spreading of the sci-
entific method based on experiments and mathematics elab-
orated by Galileo Galilei, the father of modern science.
The main character of The Tempest, Prospero, as John Dee,
is a magician. However, the way Prospero speaks and be-
haves seems to recall the new empirical method developed to
observe nature. He may have been inspired by the astronomer
Tycho Brahe and his island/observatory of Uraniborg. WS
lived during a remarkably eventful period in terms of celes-
tial drama. There were passages of comets, solar eclipses
and, moreover, the appearance of a bright new star in the
constellation of Cassiopeia in November 1572. It was so
bright that, for several months, it even outshone Venus. It was
observed by Digges in England and monitored even more
closely in Denmark by astronomer Tycho Brahe. Today the
star is named “Tycho’s star” (Falk, 2014).
Marnieri (2013) maintains that Prospero is conscious of
the new rational science which is becoming the dominat-
ing culture of the age. Not only Prospero uses the adjective
“rough” when referring to his magic. In addition, commen-
tators remark on the halo of ambiguity that concerns Pros-
pero’s books. We learn from his own words that he is a
sort of researcher rapt in secret studies (I.ii.72–77). He also
mentions Gonzalo’s good hearth with respect to his beloved
books (I.ii.164–168). But, remarks Marnieri (2013), when he
solemnly pronounces his renunciation of magic, he speaks
about one “book” he will “drown” (V.i.50–57).
Of no less importance is another role of Prospero. Besides
being a father, a duke, a scientist, a magician and a colonizer,
Prospero is mainly a director. From this perspective, the is-
land is a stage, and the play becomes also a way to medi-
tate on theatre as a form of art (metatheatre; Knight, 1932;
Frye, 1986; Lombardo, 1986). This raises questions of fun-
damental importance for the text and its performance, since
the theatrical representation that the public attends contains
and often overlaps the other representation, which is the one
staged by Prospero (Lombardo, 2002). From this perspec-
tive, we can suppose that it must have been a challenge for
WS to convince the audience that the storm was an illusion,
especially after the first scene in which the mariners were
supposed to enter the scene in wet clothes.
4.1 The island of The Tempest – the Bermuda
hypothesis
Even if there are geographical indications of how both Pros-
pero and Miranda and then King Alonso of Naples and his
crew reached it, the island is a multifaceted place, both in
the philosophical–political and geographical–environmental
sense. It is the place where the great Renaissance themes are
revived, such as the philosophical utopia, the boundaries of
human knowledge and the dominion of nature. We recognize
the world of the great journeys and of the newly discovered
lands. In the relationship between Prospero and Caliban, the
savage and deformed slave, we recognize the relationship be-
tween England and America, the invaders and the indigenous
people (Knight, 1984). It is generally agreed that WS read
the essay of Montaigne, titled Of Cannibals, thanks to the
translation of John Florio, in which Montaigne compares the
“cannibalism” of some indigenous population in Brazil to the
“barbarianism” of 16th century Europe (Florio, 1892).
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116 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
Figure 2. Shakespeare’s locations. A map generated with © Google Maps by the author. The icons in green and red indicate the plays located
in Italy, with those in red referring to the ones based in Sicily. © 2020 Google.
Figure 3. Dramatis personae from Shakespeare (1986). Syn-
opsis source: https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/ (last access:
3 March 2021). In the background, Ariel, drawn by the author, can
be seen.
If we think of the philosophical and political aspects,
as described above, we can certainly agree that WS used
sources to become more acquainted with the New World. It
is widely accepted that he used the Bermuda pamphlets, a
series of narratives about a wreck that occurred during an
expedition to colonize Virginia, as a source for the play. In
particular, he used A true repertory of the wreck and Redemp-
tion of Sir Thomas Gates Knight, which is a letter Strachey
(1625) wrote to an unidentified woman in the English Court.
In the letter, Strachey (1625) reports on the 1609 shipwreck
on the uninhabited island of Bermuda with the colonial ship
Sea Venture, which was caught in a hurricane while sailing
to Virginia. Despite the fact that the ship was run aground
off the coast of the island, the crew were stranded on it for
almost a year before completing the voyage to Virginia.
Some commentators find it difficult to accept that WS
could have had access to confidential material reporting on a
wreck near Virginia, especially when the English Court was
so intent on organizing expeditions to colonize new lands.
The letter was, in fact, published many years later in 1625.
Nevertheless, the letter circulated in an informal way, and a
copy was found in 1616, the year he died, among the belong-
ings of Hakluyt, a leading adventurer and a member of the
Virginia Company’s counsel (Gerevini, 2008).
4.2 Echoes of the Bermuda hypothesis in The Tempest
After reading the Strachey’s (1625) letter, we can easily find
echoes of the faraway, transoceanic lands inhabited by spir-
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T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 117
its and devils in the play. The Tempest eventually used the
atmosphere created by the collective imagery concerning
these lands that were considered, wrongly according to Stra-
chey (1625), uninhabitable, according to the following:
And hereby, also, I hope to deliver the world from a
foul and general error, it being counted of most that
they can be no habitation for men, but rather given
over to devils and wicked spirits; whereas indeed
we find them now by experience to be as habitable
and commodious as most countries of the same cli-
mate and situation, insomuch as if the entrance into
them were as easy as the place itself is contenting,
it had long ere this been inhabited as well as other
islands”. (Strachey, 1625)
Strachey (1625) then describes the nature of the soil,
which is one and the same. “The mold dark, red, sandy, dry
and uncapable, I believe, of our commodities or fruits” (Stra-
chey, 1625). He also writes “there is not through the whole
islands either champaign grounds, valleys or fresh rivers”
(Strachey, 1625). Then, he describes the flora as mainly be-
ing palm trees, cedar and prickly pear and also emphasizes
that there were neither rivers nor springs of fresh water. The
only water to be found in the ground is that which comes
from the rain, as he explains in the following:
When we came first we digged and found certain
gushings and soft bubblings, which being either in
bottoms or on the side of hanging ground, were
only fed with rain water, which nevertheless soon
sinketh into the earth and vanisheth away, or emp-
tieth itself out of sight into the sea, without any
channel above or upon the superficies of the earth”.
(Strachey 1625)
He finally describes a very rich fauna, especially concern-
ing fish.
Despite the atmosphere previously described, none of the
ecological traits described in Strachey’s letter can be found
on Prospero’s island, where there is no indication of trop-
ical vegetation. Instead, trees typical of temperate climates
are described, such as oak, pine, wild apple trees, kernels, as
well as bushes that produce berries (Brazzelli, 2009). Caliban
refers to the fertile areas of the island. Speaking to Stefano
and Trinculo, he says “I’ll show thee every fertile inch o’ th’
island” (II.ii.148), and he also mentions the springs of fresh
water, saying “I’ll show thee the best springs” (II.ii.169).
From his early interaction with Prospero, we learn that the
island has different type of waters, namely “fresh spring” and
“brine-pits”. The multiple references to rivers and ponds, in-
cluding a “foul lake” (IV.i.183) and brambles (“briars”) and
other thorny bushes, allow us to identify a real ecology of
the island. The tree in which Ariel has been imprisoned for
12 years before being released from Prospero, is a pine. “Line
trees” (V.i.10), which are not tropical trees, protect the en-
trance of the cave, the home of Prospero, from the weather.
We are also able to identify the geology of the island (Fitz,
1975). We know that the coast is cut by coves or nooks, since
Ariel feels obliged to explain to Prospero in just which nook
he chose to hide the ship (I.ii.226–29). We know that there
are banks, since Ferdinand sits on one to weep (I.ii.389–90).
We know from Ariel that the sands are yellow (I.ii.376). We
know that there are large rocks with caves in them, for Cal-
iban lives in one of them (I.ii.389–90), and Stefano hides his
stolen liquor in another (II.ii.137–38). There are streams and
ponds; some fresh (I.ii.339, II.ii.164 and II.ii.75) and some
polluted (IV.i.182).
From what we have described until now, we can for sure
assert that the island of The Tempest it is not a tropical island.
There are not even any palm trees, which, Fitz (1975) em-
phasizes, are the prime requirements for a modern tropical
island, although Shakespeare speaks of palm trees in other
plays.
4.3 Placing the island in a Mediterranean context
If Ariel (I.ii.229) is said to bring his master the “dew / From
the still-vexed Bermudas”, then the “south-west wind” that
Caliban invokes against Prospero and Miranda (I.ii.320–325)
is the “libeccio”, which is a typical Mediterranean wind.
There are also several occasions on which we can liter-
ally “smell” the island in the play, with typical smells of
volcanoes being described as in the following conversation
(II.i.45–7):
Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly
Seb. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones
Ant. Or as “twere perfum’d by a fen”
An important source of The Tempest is Virgil’s Aeneid.
The Court Party follows a route very similar to that of Ae-
neas, who travelled from Tunis (Old Carthage) in North
Africa to Naples, near Cumae, where Aeneas meets the Sibyl
(see Fig. 4 for Aeneas’ route). In an apparently aimless con-
versation among Gonzalo, Alonzo and Sebastian, Gonzalo
insists on identifying Carthage with Tunis, and the other two
insist on repeating the name of Aeneas and Dido (II.i.71–87).
Adr. Tunis was never grac’d before with such a
Paragon to their Queen
Gon. Not since widow Dido’s time
Ant. Widow! A pox o’ that! How came that
Widow in? Widow Dido!
Seb. What if he had said “widower Aeneas” too?
Good Lord, how you take it?
Adr. “Widow Dido” said you? You make me
Study of that: she was of Carthage, not of Tunis
Gon. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.
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118 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
Figure 4. Map of Aeneas’s journey. Source: https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Aeneid.htm (last access: 3 March 2021).
Figure 5. Location of the Ferdinandea island. The island is just 8 m below sea level and about 50 km from the shore. The map was generated
by the author using Google maps. Figure 1 is shown in the inset. © 2020 Google Maps.
Still (1921) states that WS accentuated the importance
of this reference to Dido with the ignorance of the dispute,
while the question of Antonio, “How come that widow in?”,
draws the attention to the parallel between the experience of
the Court Party and that of Aeneas in Book IV of the Aeneid
(Kott and Miedzyrzecka, 1977).
As in the first scene of the play, a storm surprises the Court
Party while they are navigating the journey from Tunis to
Naples. As we can see in the map (Fig. 4), the first tract
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T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 119
of the sea is the Sicilian Channel. The hazard of the Sicil-
ian sea has been known since ancient times. In his journey
to Italy, Aeneas was advised by Eleno of Burtroto to avoid
Scylla and Charybdis. He did so, and after having been near
Etna, Aeneas reached Eryx (Erice, in the province of Tra-
pani), where his father Anchises died. He, then, decided to
go back to Carthage. During the trip, Juno, who hated the
Trojans, provoked a tempest against the fleet (Aeneid I; 81–
222; Kline, 2002).
In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul of Tarsus, persecuted by
the Jews and imprisoned, asked, as a Roman citizen, to be
tried in Rome. Under the governor Porcius Festus, he was
sent in Rome by sea. His boat shipwrecked and the crew
reached Malta (Acts of the Apostles; 27, 1–36; Gabb, 2018).
Echoes of this shipwreck can be found in Prospero’s account
on the tempest to Miranda when he says, “No, not so much
perdition as a hair” (I.ii.30), and this was repeated then by
Ariel, who reported to Prospero that “Not a hair perish’d”
(I.ii.219).
Following Aeneas’ route, some commentators identify the
islands of The Tempest with Pantelleria. Others search for the
island along the North African coast, associating it with the
islands of Lampedusa or Malta, crossing the itinerary of the
Court Party with the events of Sycorax, who arrived on the
island from Algiers (Kott, 1974). More recently, Roe (2011)
advanced the hypothesis that the island is in the Tyrrhenian
Sea in the Aeolian archipelago. Roe (2011) even identified
the island of Vulcano as being the possible location of the
play. He maintains that Vulcano, as Stromboli, possesses an
active volcano (Roe, 2011). It is the Gran Cratere, or La
Fossa di Vulcano, and is especially noxious and deadly. That
is why no one felt confident enough to live permanently on
the island until fairly recently. With respect to The Tempest,
Roe (2011) writes in particular about the “hot mud pools”
to be found in Porto Levante in Vulcanello, a peninsula of
Vulcano. The largest of the pools is impressive, with carbon
dioxide and sulfur dioxide effervescing through the muddy
mixture of mineral sludge. The brownish goo bubbles and
steams and stinks mightily. The allusion to this hot mud pool
is in The Tempest (IV.i.181–184), when Ariel explains to
Prospero how he settled the three men, Caliban, Stephano
and Trinculo, to thwart a conspiracy against him.
Ari. . . . At last I left them
I’th filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to their chins, that the foul lake
O’erstunk their feet.
These verses are emphasized later by the entry of the three
men into the scene, soaking wet with the waters of “the filthy-
mantled pool... the foul lake” and stinking to high heaven
(IV.i.199–200).
Trin. I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is
in great indignation.
The setting, portrayed through the words of Trinculo,
Stephano and Ariel, “foul lake”, “horse piss”, “filthy pool”,
concludes Roe (2011), describes exactly the stinking, bub-
bling, hot mud pool of Vulcano. Roe (2011) also explains
that Ariel defines the mud pool with the words “filthy man-
tled”, and at the time of WS, Vulcano’s hot mud would have
been “mantled”, that is, covered by a floating crust of dry
sulfur, and it would have been covered throughout the entire
year. This curious natural phenomenon occurs when a bright
yellow particulate of sulfur, drifting down from the crater
above, collects on the mud pool’s surface. We can imagine
that the yellow dust remained untouched on much of the rim
and slopes of the Gran Cratere, as it did on the hot mud pool
in the playwright’s day. It can, therefore, be concluded that
the “yellow sands” that the airy spirit sings about in the play
(“come into these yellow sands”; I.ii.378–381), refer to the
colour of the sulfur.
Roe (2011) identifies further evidence in the flora and in
the fauna, also giving an explanation for the word “scamels”,
which has always remained mysterious for commentators
(II.ii.184–185).
Cal. . . . sometimes I’ll get the
young scamels from the rocks.
“Scamels are migratory marsh and shore birds, sometimes
found along the Tyrrhenian seas of Italy and occasionally on
beaches in England, or other northern climes” (Roe, 2011).
Caliban also mentions the volcano’s berries (I.ii.333–334).
Cal. Thou strokedest me, and madest much of me;
Wouldst give me
Water with berries in it.
To Roe (2011), these are clearly the mulberries, which are
berries that proliferated in the wild of Vulcano when the play-
wright visited the island. Even today, an area on Vulcano is
referred to locally as “la Contrada del Gelso” (the Mulberry
district).
5 Natural hazards in The Tempest – a fire-based play
Despite the title, The Tempest is a fire-based play, not only
because of the mythological aspect in which all that is sug-
gested by nature becomes a place of expiation, as in Dante’s
hell and in the mythological literature of the past, but also
from a geo-environmental point of view. Counting words,
the words “water” and “sea” are repeated 50 times in the text,
compared to the 34 occurrences of air and the 15 occurrences
of “Earth”. The word “fire” does not have the same frequency
of use (11 times), but it is present in the denotations and con-
notations of its essence (Marnieri, 2013).
While water is deprived of its intrinsic power to wet, wrin-
kle clothes and drown people, the fire becomes so powerful
and frightening that it infects the light of reason. Ariel, in the
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120 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
form of fire, becomes faster than “Jove’s lightnings”. The fire
is evoked very often in the form of combustion phenomena.
To the question of why Prospero is so obsessed with wood,
since he always asks Caliban and then Ferdinand to continu-
ally carry logs, one may answer “firewood”, and this is sug-
gested by Miranda when she comforts the log-bearing prince
Ferdinand with the following personification (III.1.19–20;
Jensen, 2016):
Mir. When this burns
Twill weep for having wearied you
This idea is also supported by Egan (2006), who argues
that Prospero’s main activity, since his arrival on the island,
has been its deforestation.
Other important geophysical phenomena connected with
combustion are St Elmo’s fire and ignis fatuus (literally,
“foolish fire”). Scholars generally agree that verses (I.ii.96–
101) in The Tempest evoke St Elmo’s fire. This phenomenon
is a type of luminous plasma discharge from a pointed object
in fields that carry a high voltage. This is often associated
with areas of thunderstorms or volcanic ash activity and is
completely harmless. A description of it appears also in the
Strachey (1625) letter:
Only upon the Thursday night, Sir George Somers,
being upon the watch, had an apparition of a little
round light, like a faint star, trembling and stream-
ing along with a sparkling blaze, half the height
upon the main mast and shooting sometimes from
shroud to shroud, ’tempting to settle, as it were,
upon any of the four shrouds. And for three or four
hours together, or rather more, half the night it kept
with us, running sometimes along the main yard to
very end and then returning... But upon a sudden,
toward the morning watch they lost the sight of it
and knew not what way it made.
Strachey (1625) himself remarks that this phenomenon is
frequent in the Mediterranean Sea. St Elmo’s fire takes its
name from St Elmo (St Erasmus, a martyred bishop of Italy,
who died in 304 CE). He was adopted by the sailors of the
Mediterranean as their patron saint. The phenomenon was fa-
miliar to the ancient Greeks, and Pliny the Elder mentions it
in his Natural History. When it appeared as a single flame,
it was the Helen of Troy flame and an omen of ill luck. As a
doubled flame, it was called Castor and Pollux, the guardian
of sailors among the classical gods and, therefore, a good
sign. Another description of St Elmo’s fire appears in Hak-
luyt’s Divers Voyages. It runs as follows:
I do remember that in great and boisterous storme
of this foul weather, in the night, there came upon
the toppe of our maine yarde and maine maste, a
certain little light, much like unto the light of a lit-
tle candle, which the Spaniards called the Cuerpo-
Santo, and said it was St Elmo, whom they take to
be the aduocate of sailers. . . .This light continued
aboord our ship abouth three hours, flying from
maste to maste, and from top to top; and some-
times it would be in two or three places at once.
(Hakluyt, quoted by Clark, 2005)
The other interesting phenomenon is the ignis fatuus (in
the popular culture it is known as the jack-o’-lantern or will-
o’-the wisp), which is “a phosphorescent light seen in the air
over marshy places, supposed to be caused by the evolution
and spontaneous combustion of some highly inflammable
gas” (Fun and Wagall’s New Standard Dictionary; cited in
Clark, 2005). Stephano mentions it when talking about Ariel
to Caliban, saying the following:
Steph. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a
harmless fairy, has done little better that play the
Jack with us. . . (IV.i.197–198)
Clark affirms that WS, perhaps, believed that the ignis
fatuus and St Elmo’s fire were the same thing or had a simi-
lar cause, since he makes Ariel impersonate both phenomena.
To us, WS was adding wonder to wonder by exploiting the
powerful imagery instilled by the use of fire.
5.1 A tempest or a sea eruption?
Until now, we have collected evidence that The Tempest was
inspired by the Mediterranean Sea. But when does the tem-
pest take place in the play? We are able to learn the time
in which the tempest takes place because, after having re-
ported on the tempest performed, Prospero asks Ariel about
the time.
Pros. Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform’d: but there is more work. What
is the
time o’th’ day?
Ari. Past the mid season.
Pros. At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and
now
Must by us both be spent most preciously.
(I.ii.238–241)
Thus, the tempest occurs during the day and not at night.
But, as we read in the previous quotes about St Elmo’s fire,
the phenomenon is visible at night. So, what was WS really
describing with Ariel’s words?
Ari. I boarded the Kings’ ship; now in the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement; sometime I’d divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly
Then meet and join. (I.ii.196–201)
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T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 121
It seems that St Elmo’s fire is described only by the move-
ments of Ariel performing the tempest and nothing else. In
reading the verses, we do not have the impression of Ariel
performing “certain little light, much like unto the light of a
little candle” (Hakluyt in Clarke, 2005) or of “a little round
light, like a faint star, trembling and streaming along with a
sparkling blaze” (Strachey, 1625). On the contrary, the im-
agery evoked in the verses is powerful and not as evanescent
as a St Elmo’s fire. In fact, this phenomenon provoked won-
der in sailors but not in the sense that they could be injured
by it.
Those scholars who do not agree with the Strachey (1625)
letter as being a source of the play have suggested other
early modern texts as possible sources. Rea (1919) was
the first one to propose one of the Colloquia of Desiderius
Erasmus, namely Naufragium, which was translated in 1606
by William Burton. More recently, Stritmatter and Kosit-
sky (2009) summed up all the critical issues regarding the
New World interpretation of the play. In the final tables
(see Appendix A in Stritmatter and Kositsky, 2009), there
is a comparison among three possible sources for the storm
(i.e. Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso in the translation of Barbara
Reynolds, Erasmus’s Naufragium in the 1606 translation and
Strachey’s True Reportory). In the last table (Stritmatter and
Kositsky, 2009), where the present verses are considered, we
can note that the other texts clearly quote the St Elmo’s fire
(Ariosto) or mythological figures directly connected to them,
i.e. Castor and Pollux (Erasmus and Strachey). Instead, in
The Tempest, there is not a clear allusion to the phenomenon,
nor does WS use a word that lets us imagine that, at a cer-
tain point, the fire vanishes. Even if the description of it as
being a “ball of fire” in Erasmus can recall Ariel’s descrip-
tion, there remains the ambiguity already remarked upon by
Rea (1919), i.e. St Elmo’s fire appears, in spite of the fact that
is early afternoon. Rea (1919) argues that this discrepancy is
to be found in Erasmus’s narrative, and WS, in following it,
does not notice that he has put it at the wrong time of day.
Another neglected aspect concerns the verses (I.ii.201–
206) that put the whole description into another geo-
mythological context, since the deities recalled here are not
Castor and Pollux but Jove and Neptune. In reading the
whole of Ariel’s description, we even doubt that WS was de-
scribing a tempest.
Pros. Hast Thou, spirit,
Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ari. To every article. I boarded the King’s ship;
now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam’d amazement: sometime I’d divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and boresprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove’s lightning, the precur-
sors
O’th’ dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not: the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most-mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake. (I.ii.193–206)
In particular, Neptune (the Greek Poseidon) is described as
being intent on shaking his dreaded trident. In Ariel’s words,
there is a war between the sky and the sea, where the sea is
described as the “most-mighty Neptune”. Neptune was also
the god of earthquakes. And he was so powerful as to frighten
even Hades, the lord of the dead, as we read in book XX of
Homer’s Iliad (Homer, 2020).
The sire of gods and men thundered from heaven
above, while from beneath Poseidon shook the
vast earth, and bade the high hills tremble. The
spurs and crests of many-fountained Ida quaked,
as also the city of the Trojans and the ships of the
Achaeans. Hades, king of the realms below, was
struck with fear; he sprang panic-stricken from his
throne and cried aloud in terror lest Poseidon, lord
of the earthquake, should crack the ground over his
head, and lay bare his moldy mansions to the sight
of mortals and immortals. (XX.54–57)
The importance of this deity in the play is underlined by
another circumstance. Caliban is very often described during
the play as being half-man and half-fish.
Trin. . . . What
have we here? A man or a fish? dead or
Alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very
Ancient and fish-like smell . . . (II.ii.25–28)
And later again, in the following:
Trin. Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half
a fish
And half a monster? (III.ii.31–33)
There is another Greek god of the sea, Triton, who is
the son of Neptune. Triton is represented as a merman with
the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a
fish. He was also depicted as having a conch shell which he
would blow like a trumpet. Ovid (Metamorphoses, 1.332–
335; Melville and Kenney, 1986) describes him as follows:
Triton, sea-hued, his shoulders barnacled
With sea-shell, bade him blow his echoing conch
To bid the rivers, waves and flood retire.
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122 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
This is not the first time that WS uses storms in his plays.
As Clark (2005) remarks, thunder, lightning, darkness and
gales are there because they harmonize with the terror, de-
spair, horror and wickedness inherent in his grim plots and
are intended to intensify the dramatic and tragic atmosphere.
Often, these are “shipwrecking storms” and losses at sea as in
The Tempest,Pericles,Othello and The Winter’s Tale (Clark,
2005).
How does WS deal with storms and shipwrecking in the
other plays? Do we find in the other descriptions words such
as “fire” or adjectives like “sulphurous” or terms connected
to earthquakes? We find words as “fire” and “sulphurous” as-
sociated with the sky and with storms in Julius Caesar (“But
never till to-night, never till now / Did I go through a tem-
pest dropping fire”; I.iii.9–10) and King Lear (“. . . you sul-
phurous and thought-executing fire”; III.2.4). And looking
at the plays where the storm is associated with shipwreck-
ing, such as Pericles, we find again the use of the adjec-
tive “sulphurous” in association with a storm (“Thy nim-
ble sulphurous flashes”; III.i.6), and we find, as in The Tem-
pest, storms being associated with earthquakes (“Our lodg-
ing, standing bleak upon the sea / Shook as the earth did
quake”; III.ii.14–15).
Nevertheless, in The Tempest the following question
arises: how is Neptune evoked here? Is he the god of the
sea or as the Earth shaker? And should the word “cracks”
remind us of the descriptions reported about Mount Hecla
in Shakespearean times? Poole (2011) reports that, in Pur-
chas, we read about an eruption of Mount Hecla in which
“after the Earthquake followed a horrible cracke, that if all
warlike Ordnace had beene discharged, it had beene nothing
to this terrour” (p. 648). The double nature of Neptune was
very well known in ancient mythology. Neptune, before be-
ing the god of the sea, was conceived with an equine form,
so he was a deity originally linked to the Earth. To maintain
this double nature, he was also named the “ ” in
Greek mythology, which literally means the Earth shaker.
Do these verses also evoke earthquakes? When, in the final
part of the play, Prospero resumes all the prodigies accom-
plished thanks to his potent art, not only does he say that he
has triggered a war between heaven and Earth, as follows:
Pros. .. . And ’twixt the green sea and the azured
vault
Set roaring war. . . (V.i.43–44)
Later, he also asserts the following:
Pros. . . . The strong-based promontory
Have I made shake.. . (V.i.46–47)
In a short paragraph dedicated to earthquakes in Shake-
speare, Clark (2005) affirms that he had a limited knowl-
edge of earthquakes and felt his own limitations due to a
limited experience of them. Eventually, WS was more inter-
ested in the effects of these catastrophic upheavals rather than
embarking upon an effort to discover their obscure causes.
This is the reason why references in his plays are limited
(Clark, 2005). Nevertheless, in The Tempest, references to
earthquakes seem not to be allegorical but rather more de-
scriptive of natural phenomena.
5.2 Volcanism in the Sicilian sea and The Tempest
What does the sea of Sicily have to be envious about in com-
parison to the Bermuda triangle? Absolutely nothing. Its haz-
ards have been known since ancient times, as we have already
seen in historical accounts from the epics and The Bible, and
it is often reported in the news as it is the route used by
migrants approaching Italy from Africa. Archaeological and
more recent remains found in the deep sea testify to a difficult
navigation in dangerous water that is still evident in modern
times. This is probably due to the complex geodynamics of
Italy and the sea surrounding the peninsula, which resulted
from the evolution of the borders between the African and
Euro-Asiatic plates. Only recently has the sea floor of the Si-
cilian sea in the proximity of the Sicilian Channel been the
subject of in-depth studies which reveal the complexity of the
area (Corti et al., 2006; Falautano et al., 2010; Cavallaro and
Coltelli, 2019). Tectonic extension led to an intra-plate rift
system characterized by three tectonic faults and a number of
underwater edifices, which is evidence of complex volcanic–
tectonic phenomena (Corti et al., 2006; Civile et al., 2015).
A list of 105 islands (including major islands, islets, rocks
and stacks) recognized by the Sicilian Islands Award (SIA;
Muscarella and Baragona, 2017) is also an indicator of the
complex geodynamics of the area.
Sea volcanism in shallow water, not so far from the south
of the Sicilian coast (at a distance of 50 km), has been well
documented on the occasion of the emergence of the Ferdi-
nandea island in 1831 (Figs. 1 and 5; see Fig. 6 for the com-
plexity of the seabed in this area). This has led to monitoring,
since 1883, by the Italian Navy Hydrographic Institute. Re-
cent hydrographic campaigns have located the most superfi-
cial point of the old volcanic building at a depth of 9 m. This
is a potential hazard for vessels (Sinapi et al., 2017). This rep-
resents the only well-documented volcanic event that has oc-
curred in the area; other volcanic activities were uncertainly
reported in the surroundings of Graham Bank during the first
Punic war (264–241 BC) (Guidoboni et al., 2002; Bottari et
al., 2009) and in 1632, 1833 and 1863 (Antonoli et al., 1994;
Falzone et al., 2009). Moreover, numerous episodes of strong
gas releases in the Graham Bank area were observed in 1816
(Mercalli, 1883), 1845, 1942 and, more recently, in 2003
(Cavallaro and Coltelli, 2019). In 2006, following the direc-
tions of Mercalli reporting on the 18 June 1845 sea eruption
episode that occurred in the proximity of the Graham Bank,
a sea expedition has revealed a huge undersea volcanic com-
plex, which is more or less the size of Mount Etna (Macaluso,
2016).
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T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 123
Figure 6. Shaded relief bathymetric map of the northern portion
of the Sicilian Channel (from the GEBCO, General Bathymetric
Chart of the Oceans, Digital Atlas). The red, brown and yellow cir-
cles indicate the location of the volcanic centres, sedimentary banks
and sedimentary banks with scattered volcanic manifestations on
top (from Cavallaro and Coltelli, 2019).
As we have already said, a thorough study of how many
volcanic episodes occurred in the past in the Sicilian sea
has never been performed. We have also reported Mercalli’s
opinion on the importance of such studies (see Sect. 2.1). It
is not out of place to speculate that volcanic eruptions at sea
in this area may also have occurred during the time of WS.
How it would have appeared to those navigating the area is
well described by the already quoted 18 June 1845 episode
in Mercalli, which we report here in full:
On 18 June 1845 at about 21:00, the English ves-
sel Victory, at 36◦4403600 lat., 13◦4403600 long., was
violently shaken, and its two masts were suddenly
overturned as under the effect of a terrible tempest,
even if in that moment the weather was calm. Sud-
denly, sulfurous exhalations spread over the air so
intense that the crew was almost unable to breathe.
The vessel was a bit injured but moved away, and
from far away, the travellers saw three huge fire-
balls coming up from the sea, and the phenomenon
was visible for 6 min. (Mercalli, 1883, translated
from Italian by the author)
In our view, this description is not so different from the
tempest described by Ariel’s words (I.ii.193–206), previ-
ously analysed, which describe a situation in which a storm
occurs, but it is not raining. “The sky, it seems, would pour
down stinking pitch,” says Miranda to Prospero after having
witnessed the tempest from the shore (I.ii.3–4; in this case,
the word “stinking” could recall to us the sulfurous exhala-
tion of the previous description). Additionally, according to
Ariel, the crew do not become wet (“On their sustaining gar-
ments not a blemish, but fresher than before”; I.ii.218–219).
The fire blazes in different places as the three huge fireballs,
as in the description reported in Mercalli.
Ari. I’d divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and boresprit, would flame distinctly,
then meet and join . . . (I.ii.198–201)
Moreover, words related to the wind, as in the first scene,
are completely missing.
A possible ancient source for The Tempest is the Geog-
raphy of Strabo, which reports on an episode from the Ae-
olian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Volcanism in this area
is very well studied, and even recently, in the proximity of
Basiluzzo, scientists have discovered what they have called
a “smoking land” (Esposito et al., 2018). In the follow-
ing, Strabo describes sea volcanism between Vulcano and
Panarea:
Again, many times flames have been observed run-
ning over the surface of the sea round about the
islands, when some passage had been opened up
from the cavities down in the depth of earth and
the fire had forced its way to the outside. Posei-
donius says that within his own recollection, one
morning at daybreak, about the time of summer
solstice, the sea between Hiera (Vulcano) and Eu-
onymus (Panarea) was seen raised to an enormous
height, and by a sustained blast remained puffed
up for a considerable time, and then subsided; and
when those who had the hardihood to sail up to
it saw dead fish driven by the current, and some
of the men were stricken ill because of the heath
and stench, they took flight; one of the boats, how-
ever, approaching more closely lost some of its
occupants and barely escaped to Lipara with the
rest, who would at times become senseless like
epileptics, and then afterwards would recur to their
proper reasoning faculties. (Strabo’s Geography;
6.2.11; Jones, 1924)
In The Tempest, the event occurring out at sea, besides
being described by Ariel to Prospero in the verses already
quoted, is also witnessed by Miranda from the shore. She
clearly says, in the following:
Mir. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking
pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th’ welking’s check,
Dashes the fire out . . . (I.ii.3–4)
The words recall Strabo’s description (“the sea between
Hiera (Vulcano) and Euonymus (Panarea) was seen raised to
https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-4-111-2021 Geosci. Commun., 4, 111–127, 2021

124 T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island
an enormous height”). In the excerpt quoted, Strabo also re-
ports on the effects of gas inhalation, which are frequently
described in local mythology. The effects of gas inhalation
are also reported in The Tempest when those characters sur-
prised by the tempest are described by Ariel (I.ii.206–210).
Pros. My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
Ari. Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play’d
Some tricks of desperation.
Did Shakespeare have access to Strabo? It is not absurd to
think that the Geography of Strabo circulated at the time of
Shakespeare. The importance of geographical studies in early
modern England is also underlined in an article (Cormack,
1998). In particular, Strabo’s portrait is shown on the title
page of a printed commonplace book.
5.3 The Tempest in the light of geo-mythology
WS’s familiarity with volcanism in the Mediterranean is also
supported by the mythology present in the play. In this sense,
we may consider WS a further witness to volcanic phenom-
ena taking place in the Mediterranean.
The already quoted gas inhalation is present in Mediter-
ranean mythology and describes the activities of the Pythia,
the priestess at Delphi in Greece. The oracle at Delphi ap-
pears in The Winter’s Tale, a play contemporary to The Tem-
pest which was written between 1609 and 1611. Geologists
and toxicologists have argued that the trance-like state of
the priestess, the oracle at Delphi, was not just fantasy (Pic-
cardi, 2000; Spiller et al., 2002). One may also think that
Sybil, in Cumae where Aeneas stopped over for prophecies
during his trip to Rome, may have prophesied under the ef-
fect of gas inhalation. The philosophers of the time (Sopho-
cles, Strabo and Virgil) report of an oracle of the dead in the
Phlegraean Fields, near Lake Avernus (around Naples, Italy),
which is a very active volcanic area with sulfur vents and
boiling springs. Sibyl, a prophetess, was considered to be the
bridge between the living and the dead. The places evoked
in The Tempest through the route of Aeneas and the Court
Party are very often associated with hell because of the vol-
canism. Lake Avernus was considered one of the passages to
hell, as was the Etna. Eventually, Sicily was considered, due
to its volcanism, to be the land of the devils, comparable to
the Bermuda islands (I.ii213–215).
Ari. . . . the King’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring, then like reeds, not hair, –
Was the first man that leap’d; cried, ‘hell is empty,
And all the devils are here’.
In Act IV, scene i, to celebrate the marriage between Fer-
dinand and Miranda, Prospero put a masque into play, where
the protagonist is Ceres (the Greek Demeter), whose daugh-
ter was raped by Pluto, the king of hell. Was this myth im-
ported by Greece or was it conceived directly in Sicily? Clas-
sical sources such as Diodorus Siculus, Cicero and Ovid
place the myth in Enna in Sicily. Near Enna there is a lake,
Pergusa, that is believed to be the place where Pluto raped
Proserpina.
Not far from Henna’s walls there is a lake, Pergus
by name, its waters deep and still; it hears the mu-
sic of the choiring swans as sweet as on Caystros’
gliding stream. Woods crown the waters, ringing
every side, their leaves like awnings barring the
sun’s beams. The boughs give cooling shade, the
watered grass is gay with spangled flowers of ev-
ery hue, and always it is spring. Here Proserpina
[Persephone] was playing in a glade and picking
flowers, pansies and lilies, with a child’s delight,
filling her basket and her lap to gather more than
the other girls, when, in a trice, Dis [Hades] saw
her, loved her, carried her away–love leapt in such
a hurry! (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5.462; Melville
and Kenney, 1986).
This myth is associated with the idea of death and rebirth,
not only in terms of the succession of the seasons but also
with the destruction provoked by volcanic eruptions and the
following florid rebirth. The most important element associ-
ated with Ceres, the goddess of fertility, was grain. Grain and
the volcanoes are the two most important elements associated
with ancient Sicily. In ancient mythology, Ceres contended
for the island with Hephaestus, the god of volcanoes. On that
occasion, the nymph Aetna (who gave the name to the most
important Sicilian volcano) was the intermediary.
Finally, Ariel, disguised as a harpy, interrupts the scene of
the banquet (III.iii). Aeneas meets harpies in the Strofades
islands in Greece. Virgil put these figures in the lobby of the
hell.
6 Conclusion
In the present paper, we collected evidence that WS took in-
spiration from the Mediterranean to portray the “unknown
island” of The Tempest. We have also suggested that some
verses of The Tempest, rather than describing a storm, de-
scribe phenomena of volcanic origin. WS could, therefore,
have been inspired by accounts and sources describing Sicily
and the Sicilian sea. Its hazards have been known since an-
cient times. The sea was renown for the “strange things” hap-
pening in it, such as balls of fire, sulfurous exhalations, dead
fish and violent storms occurring when the weather was calm.
How amazing these phenomena must have seemed to people
navigating these waters – especially in the past, when the
Geosci. Commun., 4, 111–127, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-4-111-2021

T. Lanza: Using geosciences and mythology to locate Prospero’s island 125
study of volcanoes was taking its first steps. WS, who used
natural phenomena to intensify the most dramatic moments
of his plot, knew those seas that the sailors dreaded. We do
not know if WS ever visited these places. As we have re-
viewed, he used ancient sources, such as Virgil’s Aeneid,The
Bible, and the Geography of Strabo. But he may also have
used as yet unknown sources, such as the ship’s diary of the
vessels navigating those seas. His last play seems to really be
a portrait of Sicily and the sea surrounding the island. It is
the land of volcanoes, the land of the tempests of fire and the
land of the devils!
Data availability. No data were used in this paper, but all refer-
ences (as provided in the bibliography) are freely available online
and are part of the public domain.
Competing interests. The author declares that there is no con-
flict of interest.
Special issue statement. This article is part of the special issue
“Five years of Earth sciences and art at the EGU (2015–2019)”. It
is a result of the EGU General Assembly 2019, Vienna, Austria,
7–12 April 2019.
Acknowledgements. This paper is dedicated to the memory of
Enzo Boschi, who recently passed away. He was a scientist but also
passionate about literature and the arts. Besides making an impor-
tant contribution to seismological research, he contributed signif-
icantly to the development of historical seismology in Italy. The
paper is also dedicated to the memory of Alberto Gabriele of the In-
ternational Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Italy. It was there
that I saw a picture of the Ferdinandea island for the first time that
gave me the idea for the present study. They were both fans of the
island.
I am also grateful to R. John Leigh, one anonymous referee and
the editor, Jutta Thielen-del Pozo, for the precious suggestions and
the fruitful discussion that helped to significantly improve this pa-
per.
Review statement. This paper was edited by Jutta Thielen-del
Pozo and reviewed by R. John Leigh and one anonymous referee.
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