Here are three Glass Stero slides of the Eolian (Aeolian) Islands from 1909.
They have a stamp in the middle of the gallery's name across the middle, but I will replace these images when I get them in hand.
I say Stereo slides, but they do not exactly fit that description. Though they work in stereo, they are not in the familiar format we often see as they are for a glass projector.
Can anyone tell from what angles and which islands these are. I 'm sure the bottom one is Stromboli, it is marked that way, but still not so sure, it is a little faint and the image looks a little flat topped for Stromboli...possibly Vulcano?
You must remember that this photo was taken a year or less after the great earthquake that leveled Messina and much of Reggio in Calabria. Interest in volcanism and earthquakes would have been very high at this time. Tremors were felt in the islands as well(They could hardly have escaped them.) but they had nothing compared to the shaking in the straits between Sicily and the toe of Italy.
Italy is a very volcanically active place, and the pressing of Africa against the European continent has made Italy a very mountainous and shaky place to live, with the constant danger from Vesuvius hanging over the heads of the Neapolitans and Etna smoking over Catania and other towns and cities, the ridge of earthquake prone mountains running the length of the peninsula, and the whole country being shoved into the Alps in the north.
On a clear day, it is possible to see Etna in the south from the islands, so Vulcano, Stromboli, fumaroles in Salina and other spots in the islands, keeps this in the minds of the islanders. Of course the need to dust the ash off their cars most of the year has to remind them as well!
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