Abstract
The first Czech reporter on Vesuvius and its environs, who knew these locations from an autopsy was the National Revival poet, writer and aide-de-camp to Baron Koller, Milota Zdirad Polák in Dobroslav between 1820 and 1822. From the 1860s, reports on the Neapolitan landscape, dominated by Vesuvius and often admired following an exhausting ascent to the summit, became widespread.
On these occasions mention was usually made of the destruction of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae in ancient times. In addition to descriptions of trips up the active volcano some authors also dealt with the aftermath of that cataclysmic explosion, informing Czech readers of the newly discovered sites once buried under Vesuvius.
Vesuvius, which was generally well-known in this country, could even become a symbol, and some writers used it to express various feelings, ideas and attitudes towards politics at that time, both in serious and unserious ways.