In the last three decades, the historical earthquake investigation became an outstand- ing source of information in seismology. The rigorous interpretation of known or newly discovered historical documents from public and private archives, including military and religious documents, press reports, correspondences, publications, etc., brings new light on the effect of past earthquakes and contributes to the assessment of their characteristics. Historical documents are nowadays examined in the frame of modern methodologies and new approaches applied in the study of individual earthquakes. Jean Vogt was a precursor in this work, and devoted his life to the retrieval and critical evaluation of such documents and to the constant reappraisal of historical.
