18 THE ART NEWSPAPER SECTION 2 Number 284, November 2016
F
ifty years ago, on 4 November 1966,
Italy was hit by floods, devastating
two of its most historic cities: Florence
and Venice. This represented the
greatest loss of art and architecture
from a natural disaster in 20th-century
Europe. The international community quickly
mobilised assistance, dispatching angeli del
fango (mud angels): volunteers who helped in
the emergency rescue of works of art. “Everyone
wanted to go and scrape mud of a Cimabue,”
recalls Jonathan Keates, now chairman of Venice
in Peril. Although most of the work on the ground
was done by Italian conservators and volunteers,
international eforts were important in providing
funds and supplementary personnel.
Christopher Pirie-Gordon, the British consul
in Florence, vividly described the flooding in a
declassified dispatch at the National Archives.
After exceptionally heavy and prolonged rain, the
River Arno broke its banks, rising more than 10m
above its normal level. Water quickly engulfed the
Ponte Vecchio and swept through jewellers’ shops
on the 14th-century bridge. Flooding extended
throughout the city’s historic centre, reaching
the cathedral and “doing incalculable damage to
the Ghiberti doors of the baptistery”. The consul
reported that cars were hurled into heaps, some
“locked together upright on their back wheels as
though engaged in a waltz”. This was the worst
flood in Florence since 1557.In his dispatch, Pirie-Gordon castigated
the Italian authorities for not giving suicient
warning. He suggested that an alarm should have
been sounded “in the historic form of tolling the
great bell in the Palazzo Vecchio”. Emergency
rescue work in the following days proves “lamen-
table”, and bureaucracy “clogs” the relief eforts.
Venice, 200km to the north, also sufered ter-
ribly, facing the worst flood in its history. Water
levels rose on its canals, inundating the lower
floors of buildings throughout the city. Sea water
poured into the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace),
the city’s greatest palace. Although the immediate
damage in Florence was greater than in Venice, it
was the latter that ended up attracting long-term
international support for restoration.
Around 100 people were drowned in northern
Italy, a mercifully modest number considering the
huge area inundated. In financial terms, the initial
cost of the disaster was estimated at between
£500m and £1bn (around £9bn to £18bn in today’sFeatures
Italy’s loods
VENICE AND PANEL: AP PHOTOSTUKER · ALTER AARGAUERSTALDEN 30 · CH-3006 BERNE
Phone: +41 (0)31 350 80 00 · Fax: +41 (0)31 350 80 08
[email protected] · http://www.galeriestuker.chIMPORTANT AUCTIONS IN BERNE
PAINTINGS WORKS OF ART JEWELERY
Auctions in Berne: December 1st until December 6th
Exhibition: November 20th until November 27th
-VYHSSPUX\PYPLZWSLHZLJVU[HJ[V\YVMÄJLPU)LYUL
View online catalogue at: http://www.galeriestuker.chA fine and large Louis XV parquetry commode from the collection of Mona Countess von Bismarck
Mathieu Criaerd, Paris, circa 1745-1749, the gilt-bronze mounts struck with the crowned C markmoney), according to the British chargé in Rome,
Peter Scott. But for the art world, the tragedy was
the extensive damage to two of the greatest cities
of the Renaissance.
Since the floods came with little warning,
there was little time to move works of art to safety.
Thousands of paintings on panel and canvas were
soaked by water, which was mixed with oil, sewage
and dirt. Sculptures and frescoes were engulfed in
the filthy water. Rare books and archives became
waterlogged. The structures of historic buildings
were threatened by the raging torrents. MuseumFLOOD VICTIMS IN FLORENCE
REMEMBERING THE
‘MUD
ANGELS’
The Italian floods of 1966
prompted a strong—and
lasting—international
response. By Martin Bailey
buildings were badly damaged and in some cases
took decades to reopen.
It is diicult to give meaningful statistics on
the damage to works of art, since they obviously
sufered to varying degrees and were of varying
importance. Two months after the flood, 200 badly
damaged panel paintings from various Florentine
collections were being dried out in the Limonaia
greenhouse in the Boboli Gardens. A further 300
canvases were being treated in the Palazzo Pitti.
Figures compiled by Unesco a few weeks later
suggested that 885 masterpieces and around 10,000other works were damaged. At Florence’s Biblio-
teca Nazionale, 1.3 million books were damaged, a
third of the collection. Precious archival documents
were waterlogged. The art world was horrified.
The international efort to assist Florence was
led by Ashley Clarke, a retired British ambas-
sador in Rome. A month after the flood he set
up the London-based Italian Art and Archives
Rescue Fund, which was given oice space at
the National Gallery. (Its distinguished trustees
included Anthony Blunt, Kenneth Clark, Philip
Hendy, Henry Moore and John Pope-Hennessy.) By
mid-1967 it had sent £100,000 to Italy, a substantial
sum at the time. Virtually all this went to Flor-
ence, with only just over £1,000 specifically ear-
marked for Venice. A fundraising organsation was
also set up in the US, as the Committee to Rescue
Italian Art, with Jacqueline Kennedy as its honor-
ary president. Similar groups were established in
France, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.
Two years after the floods, once the emer-
gency work was complete, international attention
switched from Florence to Venice. Frances Clarke,
who with her husband Ashley was deeply involved,
still vividly recalls what happened: “The Floren-
tines said thank you, we can now cope; but the
soprintendente from Venice pleaded: ‘You must
come here.’” This led to the creation in 1971-72 of
two fundraising bodies: Venice in Peril in the UK
and Save Venice Inc in the US. Nearly 50 years on,
they are still active, both in assisting in the preser-
vation of art and architecture and in campaigning
to help preserve the city’s delicate ecology.- For more on the floods, see main paper, pp38-39
- Cimabue’s Cruciix (1280s) in Florence’s Museo
dell’Opera at the Basilica of Santa Croce came to
symbolise the destruction. Half its paint was lost,
particularly on Christ’s head and chest. When this
majestic picture was restored in the ten years
after the lood, very extensive repainting of the
lost areas was the only way for the work to regain
its visual integrity. - Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise gilded-bronze doors
(1426-52), on the exterior of Florence cathedral’s
baptistery, were very badly damaged. Restoration
of the north door was only completed in 2016. The
originals are now on display in the new Museo del
Duomo, with replicas installed in the baptistery. - Giorgio Vasari’s Last Supper (1546) was in the
Museo dell’Opera di Santa Croce when the lood
waters rose. The 7m-wide picture, which had
been immersed for 12 hours, separated into ive
panels. Conservation work, funded by the Getty
Foundation, has recently been carried out by the
Opiicio delle Pietre Dure restoration laboratory
in Florence. The completed restoration will be
unveiled at Santa Croce on 4 November.
- Cimabue’s Cruciix (1280s) in Florence’s Museo
A panel from Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise doors
to the baptistery of Florence’s cathedralPaintings were soaked
by water mixed with oil,
sewage and dirt
Floodwater engulfs the Doge’s Palace in Venice during the 1966 lood, the worst in the city’s history