Intorno alla Luna (Around the Moon) — 'Il Freddo dello Spazio' Chapter Illustration, Italian Edition c.1874
This engraving illustrates a scene from 'Il Freddo dello Spazio' ('The Cold of Space'), a chapter within Jules Verne's 'Intorno alla Luna' (Autour de la Lune / Around the Moon), the sequel to 'De la Terre à la Lune'. The plate depicts the novel's protagonists—likely Barbicane, Michel Ardan, or Nicholl—reacting to the extreme cold encountered during their lunar voyage, accompanied by their dog. The illustration is drawn from the Italian translation of Verne's classic, originally illustrated by Emile Bayard and Alphonse de Neuville for the French edition.
Despite its sci-fi literary context — a story literally titled 'The Cold of Space' — the illustration itself is a thoroughly terrestrial comedic scene of a man fending off a leaping dog. The cosmic ambition lives entirely in the text, not the image.
“IL FREDDO DELLO SPAZIO. 49 il presidente riflettè per alcuni momenti, e disse: « Sì, bisognerà pure fare a questo modo, ma prendendo le più minute precauzioni.”
