Vincenzo Lunardi

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Exhibition of Lunardi's balloon at the Pantheon in Oxford Street.

Vincenzo Lunardi, had come to England as Secretary to Prince Caramanico, the Neapolitan Ambassador.

There was a flying craze in France and Scotland with James Tytler, Scotland's first aeronaut and the first Briton to fly, but even so and after a year since the invention of the Balloon, the English were still skeptical, and so George Biggin and 'Vincent' Lunardi, "The Daredevil Aeronaut", together decided to demonstrate an hydrogen balloon flight in Moorfields in London on 15 September 1784. His balloon was later exhibited at the Pantheon in Oxford Street.

However, because 200 000 strong crowd (which included eminent statesmen and the Prince of Wales) had grown very impatient, the young Italian had to take-off without his friend Biggin, and with a bag that was not completely inflated, but he was accompanied by a dog, a cat and a caged pigeon. The 24 mile flight brought Lunardi fame and began the ballooning fad that inspired fashions of the day -- Lunardi skirts were decorated with balloon styles, and in Scotland, the Lunardi Bonnet was named after him (balloon-shaped and standing some 600 mm tall), and is even mentioned by Scotland's National Poet, Robert Burns (1759-96), in his poem 'To a Louse', written about a young woman called Jenny, who had a louse scampering in her Lunardi bonnet, "But Miss's fine Lunardi, fye"

In October the following year (in 1785), a large and excited crowd filled the grounds of George Heriot's School in Edinburgh to see Lunardi's first Scottish hydrogen-filled balloon take off. The 46 mile flight over the Firth of Forth ended at Coaltown of Callange in Fife. There is today a commemorative plaque at nearby Baldinnie. At the time, 'The Scots Magazine' reported:

'The beauty and grandeur of the spectacle could only be exceeded by the cool, intrepid manner in which the adventurer conducted himself; and indeed he seemed infinitely more at ease than the greater part of his spectators.'

The Glasgow Mercury newspaper ran adverts the following month announcing Lunardi's intention to 'gratify the curiosity of the public of Glasgow, by ascending in his Grand Air Balloon from a conspicuous place in the city'.

Vincenzo made five flights in Scotland in his Grand Air Balloon -- which was made of 140m² of green, pink and yellow silk, and which was exhibited, 'suspended in its floating state' in the choir of St.Mungo's cathedral in Glasgow for the admission charge of one shilling.

The weather was fine at about 14:00 on 23 November 1785 when The Daredevil Aeronaut 'ascended into the atmosphere with majestic grandeur, to the astonishment and admiration of the spectators' from St. Andrew's Square in Glasgow. The two hour flight covered 110 miles, and passed over Hamilton and Lanark before landing at the feet of 'trembling shepherds' in Hawick near the border with England.

A couple of weeks later, in early December, a local 'character' called Lothian Tam managed to get entangled in the ropes and as the balloon ascended -- again from St. Andrew's Square in Glasgow, Tam was lifted 6 metres before being cut loose and falling -- with apparently no serious injury). The weather was worse on this flight -- which had to end after just 20 minutes, with the Grand Balloon landing in Campsie Glen in Milton of Campsie -- just over 10 miles from Glasgow. His landing, on 5 December 1785, is commemorated by a small plaque in the village ^[1].

However, the next flight on 20 December 1785, was a disaster. Seventy minutes after the ascent from the grounds of Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh, Lunardi was forced down in the sea. He spent a long time in the North Sea until rescued by a passing fishing boat which docked at North Berwick. The diary of the Rev John Mill from Shetland states:

'A French man called Lunardi fled over the Firth of Forth in a Balloon, and lighted in Ceres parish, not far from Cupar, in Fife; and O! how much are the thoughtless multitude set on these and like foolish vanities to the neglect of the one thing needful. Afterwards, 'tis said, when soaring upwards in the foresaid machine, he was driven by the wind down the Firth of Forth, and tumbled down into the sea near the little Isle of May, where he had perished had not a boat been near who saved him and his machine.'

A short time later, (in 1786) Lunardi published 'An Account of five Aerial Voyages in Scotland' in a Series of Letters to his Guardian, Gherardo Campagni.

There are portraits of Lunardi in the National Gallery of Scotland (by Francesco Bartolozzi, Marino/Mariano Bovi/Bova). ^[2]