Eruption of Vesuvius from Mundus Subterraneus. On a visit to southern Italy in 1638, Kircher had himself lowered into the crater of Vesuvius, then on the brink of eruption, in order to examine its interior. Mount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples, Italy, best known for its eruption in 79 AD that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Since then Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times. The last major eruption was in March 1944. Athanasius Kircher (May 2, 1601 or 1602 -November 27 or 28, 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar celebrated for the versatility of his knowledge and particularly distinguished for his knowledge of the natural sciences. His geological and geographical investigations culminated in his Mundus Subterraneus of 1664, in which he suggested that the tides were caused by water moving to and from a subterranean ocean.