Museo dell'Osservatorio Vesuviano
In bygone ages, the task of protecting the local inhabitants from Vesuvius fell to the patron saint of Naples, San Gennaro, whose statue was often paraded through city streets to placate the volcano's wrath, but since the mid-19th century the Osservatorio Vesuviano has attentively monitored seismic activity. The original 1841 observatory, conspicuous with its Pompeian-red facade, has survived unscathed on the volcano's upper slopes and now serves as a conference center and small museum whose exhibits include a mineralogical display, landscape gouaches, and early seismographs. Informational panels describe the contributions of the observatory's directors and other staff to the development of volcano-monitoring instrumentation.
