Since ancient times, volcanoes have been considered symbols of the fury of the gods, gate to hell or donors of goods. They are feared and admired in equal measure. Every time a volcano erupts, old legends and theories are unearthed moving between terror and science fiction. Why this violent eruption? Why now? And why so much destruction and so many deaths? What is there, really, in the depths of the earth? Scientific books theorize what fills the spinning ball we live in: the earth's crust, tectonic plates, magma ... what if it's something else insidious and much more perverse? So far, no one has dived into the depths of the planet to attest to what's there, aside from the adventurers of Journey to the Center of the Earth, the novel by Jules Verne. Pure fiction, but terrifying. For the Greeks and Romans, volcanoes and their eruptions were associated with divine manifestations. Christianity regards them as the work of Satan or as a divine sign. The minds of men faced with a volcanic eruption are fascinated by the indisputable beauty and magic of those fires that seem to come out of hell. Without the scientific premises, what did it seem to the inhabitants of so many previous centuries? Fear, certainly amazement, add to the infinity of the inexplicable, like so many things in the universe. Legends are a type of narrative that lacks a specific author and a known original version, they are transmitted from generation to generation, especially orally, and tell of supernatural, fantastic or religious events, located in a specific place and time. of history. Story that helps make them more credible. Legends survive the passage of time by changing their content and adapting to the new generations, who modify it and adapt it to their way of life or, on the contrary, they forget it. In reality, the volcano is a very complex geological structure, generated inside the earth's crust by the ascent, following eruptive activity, of molten rock mass, the magma, formed under or inside the earth's crust. The outflow of material is called an eruption and the erupted materials are lava, ash, lapilli, gas, various waste and water vapor. The shape and height of a volcano depend on various factors including the age of the volcano, the type of eruptive activity, the type of magma emitted and the characteristics of the volcanic structure underlying the volcanic relief. On the earth's surface 91% of volcanoes are submarine (mostly located along the mid-ocean ridges), while about 1500 are those active today on the emerged lands. In this work, European volcanoes were visited to visually investigate the thread that runs between reality and legend.