Fusakichi Omori and Italy: Excerpts from the Visits of a Japanese Seismologist in the Belpaese

Abstract

Fusakichi Omori (1868‒1923) was not only an eminent scientist, but also a distinguished connoisseur of Italian earthquakes, of Italian science of his times, and of Italian culture in general, to the point that he spoke and wrote fluently in Italian. The first part of this note aims at framing the main steps of this unusual Japanese-Italian liaison into Omori’s rapid career, research interests and early accomplishments. Omori was especially fond of travelling, to the point of becoming a sort of ambassador of Japanese science abroad. His views and theories were highly respected in Europe and in the United States, more than in his own country. He was especially respected in Italy, which he visited in several occasions: he lived in Rome, stayed in Florence to work with his colleagues of the Osservatorio Ximeniano, and spent several weeks in the areas struck by the catastrophic 28 December 1908, Messina Straits earthquake, where he had been dispatched by the Emperor of Japan. For all of these reasons he gained much respect among Italian seismologists, some of whom became his close friends. In the second part of this note I describe Omori’s observations on the 1908 earthquake, summarized in a celebrated albeit preliminary report; an essay that is as short as it is dense of significant and exceptionally modern ideas and findings. Omori argued that the high vulnerability of Italian buildings was the main reason for the extraordinary level of the damage caused by the 1908 earthquake. Then he gathered highly diverse observations that allowed him to constrain the earthquake source with an unprecedented level of detail for the time, including the location of the source of the tsunami that followed the strong ground shaking. Finally, he looked at the distribution of large earthquakes in peninsular Italy and proposed that̶similarly to other seismogenic areas worldwide̶they follow a relatively regular pattern. Hence, he suggested that at least the location of future large events may be anticipated with confidence in areas where there exists a long written history, such as China, Italy and Japan. Some of his “predictions” on Italy eventually came true, proving the effectiveness of his reasoning. This note is a tribute to one of the most brilliant seismologists of all times, who also cared for Italy and anticipated aspects of Italian seismicity that would have taken decades to be fully appreciated by later seismologists.