The Island of Vulcano - Aeolian Islands Archipelago

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Vulcano is the first island you meet coming from Milazzo, just 12 miles away. Near the port you are struck, both by the beauty of the place, and by the acrid smell of sulphur which fills the air. This phenomenon, which you soon get used to, is due to the ‘fumaroles’, the venting of steam, sulphur and carbon dioxide at a high temperature from the crater or from cracks in the ground. The fumaroles are a reminder that the volcano is still active.

The island takes its name from the considerable volcanic activity that has taken place over thousands of years. Along with Stromboli, it is the only volcano still active in the archipelago, and the youngest (90,000 years compared with the 100,000 years of Stromboli).

This island, today invaded by tourists, must have made a great impression on the Greeks and Romans who called it Terasia (Hot land), then Thermessa (Hot), and dedicated it to the God of Fire, Hephaestus for the Greeks and Vulcan for the Romans, and considered it a holy island (Hierà).
The discovery of numerous caves dug in the tuff near the flat land in the south of the island, maybe rocky tombs called Grotte dei Rossi, suggests that the holiness of the place derived from the custom of burying the dead near the god Vulcan. A privileged position for the journey into the next world. We don’t know if the forge of the Gods was here, but it is certain that from time immemorial only forced labourers and slaves lived on the island, extracting alum and sulphur. The setting must have been like one of Dante’s circles, with the venting of sulphur, which made it difficult to breathe, and periodic volcanic activity which launched incandescent rocks into the air.
Mining continued for centuries until it became a full-scale industry under the Bourbons. General Nunziante built roads, houses and factories. When the Bourbons fell, the island was bought by an Englishman, a Mr. Stevenson, who continued the work of his predecessors by enlarging the mine and also planting vines. His villa, still called the ‘Englishman’s Castle’ is on the plateau of Vulcano, near the mud baths.
In 1888 the last eruption took place, which blew out the ‘plug’ made of sedimented magmatic material that had been consolidated by a previous eruption.
The Englishman fled, terrified by the shower of blocks of fused magmatic material, ‘bread-crust bombs’, which cooled on contact with the air and cracked up.
The few inhabitants who remained, maybe Stevenson’s settlers, dedicated themselves to farming and sheep-rearing on the plateau and fishing in the hamlet of Gelso.
The rest is recent history; decades of silence on a beautiful uninhabited island, until, in 1949, the director Dieterle made a film on Vulcano with Anna Magnani, and interest in the island was reawakened. Year after year it has become an international tourist destination with the attraction of the volcano, mud baths and crystal clear water.