In popular opinion, Sardinia is the only nonseismic region of Italy. Most researchers are likely to agree, up to a point. Geology-wise, the Sardinia–Corsica block is among the stablest areas of the Mediterranean. History-wise, up to 2011, only one Mw 5.1 event located offshore Sardinia was listed by Italian seismic catalogs (13 November 1948). Seismic networks record only a few, low energy (Mw < 5) events, mostly located offshore and with little or no effects on land. Seismic hazard in Sardinia is very low. “Low,” yes, but not “totally lacking.” We present the results of a recent reappraisal of Sardinian seismicity. We gathered information on three major earthquakes (1616, 1771, and the 1948–1949 sequence). Another sequence (January–March 1901) was re-evaluated, identifying its previously unknown main event. It was confirmed that some earthquakes (1870, 1906, 1922, and 1924) had low magnitudes and scarce to nil macroseismic effects, whereas some other turned out either very doubtful or wholly fictitious (1835, 1838, 1855, and 1898). The seismic hazard of Sardinia can now be reassessed on a sounder basis than before. We hope that our work will help the people of Sardinia to improve their awareness of living in a seismic land, if with a low level of seismicity.

In this article, as is its author's working practice, "historical eorthquakes" are those that can be solely or mainly studied through historical (i.e., descriptive, as opposite to instrumen• tal) records and "historical seismology'' is the discipline that studies such earthquakes-for seismological purposes-using all the methods commonly used in historical research to interpret sources of information.

The discovery of an earthquake previously unknown to, or undervalued by, the current catalogs is always a valuable improvement of the extant knowledge of the seismicity of a given area. In the present case, the improvement is particularly dramatic because the reappraisal of knowledge made possible by the analysis of a newly discovered earthquake record (Earthquake memorandum, 12th century) allows one to turn the faint trace left in the historical and seismological tradition by an obscure lesser seismic event into unquestionable evidence of a damaging earthquake. According to reliable contemporary evidence, the Uzège 22 March 1186 earthquake turns out to have been the strongest locally originated earthquake known to date to have occurred in the Gard department during the last millennium. Even if its magnitude cannot have been very large (more than 5 but less than 5.5 seems an educated guess), which prevents us from attempting to associate it to any known structure, the now-available evidence cannot fail to have some impact on the assessment of regional seismic hazard. On a more general level, the case history presented in this paper shows that there is still much margin for improving and detailing our general knowledge of the seismicity of the past. In recent decades, the centuries-old European seismological tradition has been revived, refined, and brought up to date thanks to the groundbreaking work of pioneers such as the late Jean Vogt, N. N. Ambraseys, and the efforts of many of their followers. Most of the work done until now, however, has been devoted to improving such knowledge as has been amassed in previous centuries by the great compilers of earthquake lists such as Mario Baratta for Italy or Alexis Perrey for France, Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries. However, as some recent studies show (Camassi and Castelli 2004; 2005; Castelli and Camassi 2005; Castelli et al. 2006), there is still ample room for improvement, particularly in those directions that our predecessors could not follow or did not think of following. Now it is time to leave the paths trodden by them and to strike out toward still-uncharted fields of historical earthquake investigation.

In Italy, historical research on earthquakes has a long and glorious tradition, which in recent decades has gone through very different phases. In the first half of the 1980s and up to the mid-90s, two very demanding research ventures were developed: the research program financed by ENEL for the qualification of sites susceptible to nuclear plants in three areas of the country (Piedmont, Lombardy, Puglia), later merged into the “Catalog of Strong Italian Earthquakes” (CFTI) of the ING/INGV, and the “Hazard project” of the GNDT/CNR, aimed at preparing all the basic data necessary for a model of hazard updated. As part of these two ventures, for about a decade over a hundred researchers, mostly “professional” historians, have worked to update their knowledge of Italian historical earthquakes. Researches developed by the “Hazard Project” - complementary to those of the CFTI - aimed only at rapidly re-evaluating the knowledge on about 600 intermediate energy earthquakes. Some of these studies, after a couple of decades, are now largely obsolete. For this reason, a work plan was launched aimed at deepening the knowledge on several dozens of these studies, marked in the current Parametric Catalog of Italian Earthquakes (CPTI15) by the initials AMGNDT95, providing them with an updated and, hopefully, better database. This work presents the results of research carried out on 6 earthquakes included in the 1949–1971 time span. Such researches have allowed a significant improvement of the epicentral parameters of these earthquakes and, at the same time, an enhancement of seismic histories of numerous localities.

We present the results of an Italian Maltese research, carried out to collect the macroseismic data needed to update the seismic catalogue of the Maltese Islands [Galea, 2007]. In this work we adopted the most uptodate criteria developed by Italian historical seismology, obtaining results that significantly improve knowledge, particularly for the 16501923 timewindow. Several previously unknown local earthquakes have been identified and evidence has been found of earthquake damage caused to the Maltese Islands both by earthquakes probably located in the Sicilian Channel (1658, 1780, 1861), and by some strong Greek earthquakes (1756, 1810, 1846). The European macroseismic scale 1998 (EMS98, Grünthal, 1998) was used to assign macroseismic intensities. Basic information on seismicinduced natural phenomena (landslides, tsunamis) was also collected, to be used as a further constraint on the location and size of associated earthquakes, or for paleoseismological studies. As an added bonus, the study collected evidence of some Sicilian earthquakes unknown to seismological literature and data useful to improve the macroseismic database of already known Sicilian and Greek earthquakes.

Gubbio (Umbria) is the chief locality in a moderately seismic area and also a landmark in Italy’s network of tourist destinations; this makes Gubbio a significant economic resource and the mitigation of seismic risk in the Gubbio area a strategic objective. To achieve this objective it is required – inter alia – to have a comprehensive and reliable picture of local historical seismicity; until now, however, no critical study of historical earthquakes of the Gubbio area had ever been made. From 2013 to early 2015 this area has been affected by constant seismic activity, with mostly low energy events interspersed with a few significant ones, though none comparable with the last major local earthquake, occurred in 1984 (Mw 5.6). As the sequence went on, a few INGV researchers teamed up with local scholars with the intent of producing a systematic, up-to-date study of Gubbio historical seismicity. The study, carried out on a voluntary basis and totally unfunded, has had excellent results: the total number of macroseismic observations available for Gubbio has risen to 159 from 56 observations that were collected in the Italian Macroseismic Database 2011 (DBMI11) [Locati et al., 2011]; evidence of damage has been collected for some earthquakes that were previously believed not to have caused any damage; finally we discovered about twenty hitherto ‘unknown’, earthquakes, some of which caused damage in Gubbio and/or the surrounding area.

No recent studies are available for a good many of the earthquakes listed in the CPTI04 catalogue [CPTI Working Group, 2004]. We focused on a group of 851 earthquakes occurred within the 1198 AD-1980 AD time- window (but mainly in the 1900’s), whose epicentral intensity ranges from V-VI up to VII MCS and whose epicentral parameters are derived from the PFG catalogue [Postpischl, 1985a]. We systematically studied these earthquakes adopting an expeditious and rigorous revising procedure that allowed us to provide updated and improved epicentral parameters for 741 out of 851 studied earthquakes. Of the remaining 110 earthquakes, 26 proved to be either non-existent or extremely doubtful; finally in 84 cases the collected historical evidence was not detailed enough to allow new parameters to be calculated. Epicentral intensity values dropped down in 72% of the studied cases, and they grew up in the 4.5% of cases only; as a result, about 50% of the studied earthquakes has now an epicentral intensity value lower than the threshold currently adopted by the catalogue. In a few cases noticeable variations in the epicentral location occurred as well. The results of this study are summed up in 851 “file-cards” and about 12.500 observed intensity data points, that we propose in this “Quaderno”, together with a methodological introduction.

The earthquake of July 28, 1799, whose worse effects occurred in the hinterland of the province of Macerata, is one of the main events of the Umbria-Marches region. It is located in a seismogenic zone of transition between the distensive tectonic regime of the Apennines belt and the eastward compressive regime of the Adriatic coast, which makes it a key event for the understanding of this complex area. The distribution of the effects of the 1799 earthquake was reconstructed by several consecutive studies developed by different agencies with different research plans and variable levels of analysis. A careful reading of all these studies shows that the newer ones built up their intensity maps with values partly assessed from raw historical data and partly derived from previous studies (without first checking their correctness against the original data). This choice does not only lead to non-homogeneous results but it also entails the risk of adopting any mistakes made by previous studies and possibly even to distort the image of the earthquake. We (RE)analysed the event, (RE)reading the data provided by all the historical sources identified by previous studies, and (RE)assigned all intensity values according to a standard procedure from original historical data; for each of the assigned values, the historical data used to assign it and a summary of the reasons that dictated the intensity assignment are provided. As a result, the definition of the earthquake is improved; maximum intensity values are more severe than in previous studies but better aligned with the scenarios described by the sources. The presence of two separate areas of maximum damage (already highlighted by the most recent previous study) is confirmed, and this allows to assume that the earthquake of 28 July 1799 had a complex, probably multiple, source.T

Questo lavoro illustra la ricerca svolta su tre eventi sismici di energia moderata accaduti tra il XVII e il XIX secolo. Il primo di essi ha avuto gli effetti più rilevanti ai piedi dei Colli Euganei. Il secondo fu percepito in un’ampia area, dal Veneto alle Marche, e provocò almeno leggeri danni in alcuni paesi della pianura romagnola. Il terzo terremoto, anch’esso avvertito in una zona assai estesa, colpì particolarmente la zona collinare imolese e faentina. Il primo terremoto era del tutto sconosciuto, mentre del secondo esisteva qualche traccia del suo risentimento fuori dall’area epicentrale. Il terzo è incluso nel Catalogo Parametrico dei Terremoti Italiani (CPTI15), tuttavia la nuova documentazione individuata da questo studio permette di arricchire notevolmente il suo quadro macrosismico.

Most of the scientific literature on the Eastern Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ) mentions a very large earthquake occurring in 1513 or 1514, presumably in the Pazarcik segment. This earthquake could play an important role in the assessment of the EAFZ seismogenic potential, provided its parameters were reliable. However, these parameters have a flimsy historical basis: just a few words of a letter sent from Damascus to Venice in March 1514, reporting severe damage in three towns in south-eastern Anatolia, one of which is hundreds kilometres away from the other two. Despite extensive research into contemporary and later historical sources and the history of monumental buildings of the three towns, we have found no evidence of damage/restoration to monuments predating 1513/1514 in the affected sites. Nor are there mentions of earthquake effects elsewhere in Anatolia and surrounding countries. Contemporary reports—mostly concerned with the 1514/1517 wars between the Ottoman, Safavid and Mamluk empires—make no mention of this earthquake or of any hindrances which its aftermath might have caused to troops marching through the allegedly devastated region (e.g. with regard to procuring supplies and shelter, or to travel difficulties due to damage to road infrastructures, landslides and the like). At the current state of knowledge, we suggest that the only available earthquake description may be either unwittingly overestimated, or possibly a conflation of two smaller earthquakes, with different epicentral locations.

In the frame of a comprehensive investigation of historical earthquakes of Anatolia, we propose a re-appraisal of five major earthquakes/sequences occurred after 1000 AD (1003, 1114/1115, 1269, 1513/1514 and 1544), which are being considered as predecessors of the earthquakes of February 6, 2023. The main scope of the paper is to provide reliable parameter values for the investigated earthquakes, after critically reconsidering the records from the primary historical sources. Actually, most investigators rely on the conclusions of previous authors who have summarised – sometimes hastily - such records; this could be misleading. Our investigation consisted of: a) weeding out some fictitious event; b) retrieving and analysing the main primary historical sources of the five investigated earthquakes; c) identifying the localities mentioned by these sources and assessing macroseismic intensity from the available information; d) determining earthquake parameters (epicentral location, moment magnitude and – where possible – the source azimuth) with a repeatable, transparent method, the so-called “Boxer” method, after properly calibrating the relevant coefficient by considering recent earthquakes of the Anatolian region. In conclusion, we compare the findings of paleoseismological investigation with our results and we discuss how they contribute to understanding the rupture history of the East Anatolian Fault.

ASMI, the Italian Archive of Historical Earthquake Data (https://doi.org/10.13127/asmi, Rovida et al., 2017), is a data collection distributed online that currently provides seismological data on more than 6600 earthquakes that have occurred in the Italian peninsula and surrounding areas from 461 BCE to the present, based on more than 460 seismological data sources. ASMI is the Italian node of AHEAD, the European Archive of Historical Earthquake Data, which is, in turn, the European node providing data on historical earthquakes to EPOS ERIC, the European Plate Observing System, a European Research Infrastructure Consortium. ASMI distributes earthquake parameters, sets of macroseismic intensity data, and other details about earthquake effects, along with the bibliographical reference of the data source and, if possible, the data source itself. ASMI’s web portal allows users to query the data by earthquake or by data source and to download the earthquake parameters and macroseismic intensities and represent them on interactive maps and tables. ASMI is updated regularly with new data on past and recent earthquakes. ASMI is the basic source of data for the Italian Macroseismic Database (DBMI) and the Italian Parametric Earthquake Catalogue (CPTI). This article describes the archive content and structure, its main features and functionalities, and its potential seismological research applications.

In the frame of the PRIN 2020 NASA4SHA project, a revision of the seismic record of the Ferrara (NE Italy) area was started for the period prior to A.D. 1500. Eleven earthquakes dated from 1234 to 1495 A.D. were considered. Nine of them are listed by the latest Italian parametric catalogue, CPTI15 v. 4.0, with epicentral parameters mostly derived from decade-old reference studies. Other two earthquakes are listed only by the oldest Italian parametric catalogue and had never been studied at all. The evidence available was critically analysed and placed in its proper historical context, special care being paid to a single source that, alone, provides evidence on several earthquakes. Some earthquakes result to have been overestimated, others appear to be non-existent and should be deleted from the catalogue.

Gli studi archeosismologici sulle città storiche rivelano gli effetti dei terremoti sugli edifici e sulla società, scoprendo prove spesso perse o non registrate per scritto. Il progetto PROTECT, finanziato dal programma Horizon 2020 dell’UE, applica questi metodi al centro storico di Siena per migliorare la comprensione del rischio sismico e la tutela del patrimonio. Integrando dati umanistici e scientifici, mira a sviluppare un protocollo trasferibile ad altre città europee. Questo studio analizza il terremoto di Siena del 1467, mettendo in discus- sione le narrazioni esistenti con registri fiscali del 1468 che suggeriscono danni più estesi del previsto. Nuove prospettive emergono rivalutando eventi storici con nuove fonti. Archaeoseismological studies of historic towns reveal earth- quake impacts on buildings and society, uncovering evidence often lost or unwritten. The PROTECT project, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program, applies these methods to Siena’s historic centre to enhance seismic risk understanding and improve heritage protection. By integrating humanistic and scientific data, it aims to develop a transferable protocol for other European towns. This paper presents findings on the 1467 Siena earthquake, challenging prior narratives with tax records from 1468 that suggest more extensive damage than previously believed. New perspectives emerge by reassessing historical events with fresh evidence.

Gli studi archeosismologici sulle città storiche rivelano gli effetti dei terremoti sugli edifici e sulla società, scoprendo prove spesso perse o non registrate per scritto. Il progetto PROTECT, finanziato dal programma Horizon 2020 dell’UE, applica questi metodi al centro storico di Siena per migliorare la comprensione del rischio sismico e la tutela del patrimonio. Integrando dati umanistici e scientifici, mira a sviluppare un protocollo trasferibile ad altre città europee. Questo studio analizza il terremoto di Siena del 1467, mettendo in discussione le narrazioni esistenti con registri fiscali del 1468 che suggeriscono danni più estesi del previsto. Nuove prospettive emergono rivalutando eventi storici con nuove fonti.

The Italian Parametric Earthquake Catalogue (CPTI15 v 4.0, Catalogo Parametrico dei Terremoti Italiani) includes more than 200 earthquakes whose parameters are derived from preliminary AMGNDT95 studies, most of which are based on very few bibliographic references, or often only on a single one. The updating of AMGNDT95 studies has been underway for some years now. This paper deals with a group of MW ≥ 5 earthquakes that affected Carnia and the Friulian Prealps in the 18th century (1700, 1776, 1788, 1789, and 1794) and whose updating was funded by the Italian 2020 NASA4SHA PRIN project (Research Projects of National Interest). The AMGNDT95 studies, dealing with these earthquakes, were of better quality than average, having been based not only on an extensive analysis of pre-1900 earthquake compilations, but also on original historical research carried out in Carnia parish archives. However, the new study described in this paper has significantly increased knowledge on their effects (in terms of number of macroseismic observations available for all earthquakes, but most particularly for those of 1700 and 1776) thanks to the current availability of digital historical resources (Italian and European digital newspaper collections, regional heritage digital platforms) that were unimaginable in the 1990s.