ABSTRACT:
The work accounts for 113 thunderstorms, thunderstrikes, and St. Nicholas’ fire outbursts captured over the Adriatic Sea and along the coast, from 1395 to 1794. The phenomena were captured by ship passengers, chronicler and rarely by official person. As thunder has widely been regarded as force majeure, the coastal folk in Croatia has also attributed its appearance to Christian figures (from The Bible) or evil creatures, such as demons and witches. Initially, the scientists used to explain the phenomena by referring to Aristotle, while subsequent writings were mainly based on empirical findings (A. Dudić), so there are accounts of areas with a larger number of thunderstrikes. In the second part of the 18th century, erudites such as I. Lovrić and J. Bajamonti were already acquainted with research findings of B. Franklin, G. Beccaria and G. Toaldo. It was Bajamonti who first suggested installing the lightning conductor. At the same time, authors have also included thunder in their literary works, while the folk contributed by naming the peaks and areas where the strikes occurred. The accounts differ in quality and descriptions, as well as in consistency, yet there is an invidious number of them, with which we can fully reconstruct the weather situation. The same thing applies to thunderstrike victims’ state and accounts, which in several cases enable us to identify certain characteristic injuries. The material damages resulting from atmospheric discharge are divided into direct and indirect (explosion and fire).
