The
1966 Flood of the Arno River in
Florence killed many people and damaged or destroyed millions of masterpieces of art and rare books. It is considered the worst
flood in the city's history since 1557. With the combined effort of Italian citizens and foreign donors and committees, or
angeli del fango ("Mud Angels"), many of these fine works have been restored. New methods in
conservation were devised and
restoration laboratories established. However, even decades later, much work remains to be done.
Located in the
Tuscany region of
Central Italy, the
Arno river is approximately 240 kilometres (150 mi) long. It flows from the Mount Falterona hills of the
Apennine Mountains to the
Ligurian Sea, just 11 kilometres (7 mi) west of
Pisa. Lush vineyards and olive groves line the river's scenic course to the west, out to sea. Principally utilized for
irrigation purposes, only 32 kilometres (20 mi) of the river is used for navigation.
[1][2]
The highest flows of the river generally occur in spring and autumn
of every year, when rainfall in the Apennines is at its greatest. The
intensity of the 1966 flood was further intensified by both the
orography
of the Apennines, which contributed to the high run-off rates and river
discharges, and urban development.
Roads, such as the Via de
Calzaiuoli, served as narrow channels for floodwaters, allowing for
their greater speed and destruction within the city; bridges, on the
other hand, hindered river flow where it was needed, allowing water to
pour over the
floodplain with great force.
[3]
Timeline of events
3 November 1966
- After a long period of steady rain, the Levane and La Penna dams in
Valdarno began to emit more than 2,000 cubic metres (71,000 cu ft) of
water per second toward Florence.
- At 2:30 pm, the Civil Engineering Department reported "'an exceptional quantity of water.'"
- Cellars in the Santa Croce and San Frediano areas began to flood.
- Police received calls for assistance from villagers up the Arno Valley.
- The flood's first victim, a 52 year old worker died at the Anconella water treatment plant.[4]
4 November 1966
- At 4:00 am, engineers, fearing that the Valdarno dam would burst,
discharged a mass of water that eventually reached the outskirts of
Florence at a rate of 60 kilometres per hour (37 mph).
- At 7:26 am, the Lungarno delle Grazie cut off gas, electricity and water supplies to affected areas.
- By 8:00 am, army barracks were flooded.
- By 9:00 am, hospital emergency generators (the only source of electrical power remaining) failed.
- Landslides obstructed roads leading to Florence, while narrow
streets within city limits funneled floodwaters, increasing their height
and velocity.
- By 9:45 am, the Piazza del Duomo was flooded.
- The powerful waters ruptured central heating oil tanks, and the oil mixed with the water and mud, causing greater damage.
- Florence was divided in two, and officials were unable to immediately reach citizens of the city past the Piazza Michelangelo.
- At its highest, the water reached over 6.7 metres (22 ft) in the Santa Croce area.
- By 8:00 pm, the water began to lower.[5]
Impact
The flood has had a lasting impact on Florence, economically and
culturally. City officials and citizens were extremely unprepared for
the storm and the widespread devastation that it caused. There were
virtually no emergency measures in place, at least partially because
Florence is located in an area where the frequency of flooding is
relatively low. In fact, approximately 90% of the city's population were
completely unaware of the imminent disaster that would befall them as
they were sleeping during the early hours of 4 November 1966.
Residents were set to celebrate their country's World War I victory over the
Austrians on 4 November,
Armed Forces Day.
In commemoration, businesses were closed and many of their employees
were out of town for the public holiday. While many lives were likely
spared as a result, the locked buildings greatly inhibited the salvaging
of valuable materials from numerous institutions and shops, with the
exception of a number of jewellery stores whose owners were warned by
their nightwatchmen.
5,000 families were left homeless by the storm, and 6,000 stores were
forced out of business. Approximately 600,000 tons of mud, rubble and
sewage severely damaged or destroyed numerous collections of the written
work and fine art for which Florence is famous. In fact, it is
estimated that between 3 and 4 million books/manuscripts were damaged,
as well as 14,000 movable works of art.
[5]
Artist
Marco Sassone,
in an 1969 interview, recalled the impact of the flood on Florence's
residents: "The only thing you could do was watch and be helpless.
Nature was master...the women became crazy with fear. They began
throwing things from the windows and screaming 'who is going to save my
children?'" It was reported that 101 people lost their lives in the
flood waters.
[6]
Specific collections affected
- Archives of the Opera del Duomo (Archivio di Opera del Duomo): 6,000 volumes/documents and 55 illuminated manuscripts were damaged.
- Gabinetto Vieusseux Library
(Biblioteca del Gabinetto Vieusseux): All 250,000 volumes were damaged,
namely titles of romantic literature and Risorgimento history;
submerged in water, they became swollen and distorted. Pages, separated
from their text blocks, were found pressed upon the walls and ceiling of
the building.
- National Central Library
(Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze): Located alongside the Arno
River, the National Library was cut off from the rest of the city by the
flood. 1,300,000 items (or one-third of their holdings) were damaged,
including prints, maps, posters, newspapers and a majority of works in
the Palatine and Magliabechi collections.
- The State Archives (Archivio di Stato):
Roughly 40% of the collection was damaged, including property and
financial records; birth, marriage and death records; judicial and
administrative documents; and police records, among others.
Others:
- Academy of Agriculturists (Accademia dei Georgofili)
- Historic Institute of the Resistance (Istituto Storico della Resistenza)
- Hospital of the Innocents (Ospedale degli Innocenti)
- Institute and Museum of the History of Science (Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza)
- Uffizi Gallery
- Book shops and antique book dealers, many in possession of rare materials
- Numerous private collections
- The collections of numerous churches and cathedrals[7]
Specific works affected
Funding and assistance
Realizing the immense wealth and importance of Florentine culture in a
global context, many individuals and organizations contributed to the
conservation mission, providing both funding and manpower. Art historian
and professor Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti assembled a committee with
Mayor Piero Bargellini
as chairman to raise awareness of the needs of Florence's art and
academic institutions. Members included prominent figures from around
the world, representatives of their own respective institutions.
A number of other international committees were formed with the intention of sponsoring various institutions in Florence:
- The Franco-Italian Committee aided the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena di Pazzi in Borgo Pinti.
- The U.S. Committee to Rescue Italian Art, composed of 25 sub-committees and chaired by the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, assisted in restoring frescoes around the city.
- The Viennese armory was responsible for restoring the arms and armor of the Bargello Museum.
- A Dutch committee sponsored the Buonarroti House Museum.
- A group of Germans repaired the musical instruments of the Bardini Museum.
The work of and contributions made by these committees were supervised by a central committee in Rome.
Additional funding came from various governments,
UNESCO,
and the International Committee for the Assistance of Museums, Works of
Art, Libraries and Archives, among others. The city of
Edinburgh
(Scotland), twinned with Florence, sent practical help for the citizens
in the form of double-decker buses to temporarily replace those which
had been lost in the floods. When these eventually returned home, they
operated with the international 'GB' registration plate still affixed to
the rear; each also carried a small plaque presented by the Florentine
transport authorities indicating their gratitude for the gesture made by
the people of Edinburgh.
Charity auctions were also organised. In a show of support for the Florentine art community,
Pablo Picasso had one of his paintings,
Recumbent Woman Reading,
auctioned off on an internationally televised programme. He donated the
$105,000 it earned to restoration efforts in Italy. Similarly,
Pietro Annigoni and
Luciano Guarnieri donated the money they earned from selling 575 colour
lithographs (depicting the events surrounding the flood and its aftermath), produced from 13 of their drawings.
Florentine native
Franco Zeffirelli produced the short documentary
Florence: Days of Destruction
to raise awareness of the flood. Released a month after the disaster,
it reputedly raised more than $20 million for reconstruction efforts.
[9] The film was narrated in English and Italian by actor
Richard Burton.
[10]
While many institutions from around the world financially compensated
employees who travelled to Italy and aided in the restoration of
Florence, many others volunteered their services for absolutely no pay.
Collectively, these people have been fondly referred to as "Mud Angels",
due to their commitment to working in such deplorable conditions.
[11][12]
The "Mud Angels"
Mario Primicerio,
the mayor of Florence from 1995 to 1999, helped celebrate the Mud
Angels' efforts during an anniversary celebration in 1996. Thirty years
earlier, he was a professor who lent his assistance in preserving the
priceless artefacts of Florence. The Angels cleaned the city of refuse,
mud and oil, and retrieved works of art, books and other materials from
flooded rooms; experts from around the world volunteered their time and
knowledge in the conservation of the aforementioned materials.
In a 1996 interview, Primicerio offered three principal reasons as to
why the Mud Angels felt compelled to help: a concern for future
generations, a feeling of international unity and a pervasive sense of
solidarity.
[13]
What we were doing was dictated by the desire to give back the traces
of the history of the past to future generations, so that it could be
used for the spiritual growth of people who perhaps had yet to be
born...it was the international community that worked to try to save
Florence, this unique patrimony which belonged to the whole world.
— Mario Primicerio, Speciale Alluvione
Conservation measures
Many experts in the field of conservation, such as
Peter Waters,
utilised their knowledge in restoring the works of art and literature
ravaged by the flood. Staff from the Central Institute of Restoration
and Institute of Book Pathology, for example, volunteered their time,
efforts, and expertise in this enormous undertaking. New concepts, such
as "phased conservation," and methods in conservation, such as mass
deacidification, were conceived during this period after the flood
ravaged the city of Florence.
[14]
Books and records
Priorities were established during the process of conserving damaged
books and records, the most critical of which became the retrieval of
materials from flooded rooms. After they were rescued, books and records
were typically washed and disinfected. In certain cases,
bindings
were cut and sheets treated individually.
Following a thorough
cleansing, the materials were then dried in Florentine libraries, space
permitting, or at locations outside of the city, such as
tobacco kilns and
granaries.
In some circumstances, large quantities of books were covered with
sawdust, as a means of drawing out moisture. When not washed prior to
drying, dried mud was then scraped off the exterior of the books.
One or both of two drying techniques was applied: interleaving by
hand and/or drying with the aid of domestic heaters or other mechanical
equipment. Interleaving involved the placement of blotting papers within
the text-block of a book and replacing them once they were fully
soaked; a variety of papers were used, including mimeograph paper and
green blotting paper (the latter of which ultimately caused more
damage). In kilns, the
humidity
level was slowly lowered from ninety to forty percent. If deemed
necessary, bindings were removed and dried separately. Removed pages
were hung out to dry on an apparatus similar to a
clothes line.
Fearing the spread of
mold,
workers completed these tasks with the greatest speed possible. After
they were disinfected and dried, the items were then reassembled,
restored and, if necessary, rebound.
Card catalogs and in some cases, the actual books and documents were reproduced by reprinting on early
presses,
photocopying, or copying by hand.
[5][11] [15][16][17]
The National Library Centers of Florence: a case study
Initially the transportation of large numbers of books to other
institutes (to repair and rebind) was considered, but decided against on
logistical grounds. Within six months of the flood, the National
Library of Florence had 144 workers on hand: three binders, eight binder
trainees, two librarians, forty-two workmen, eighty-one student
volunteers and eight other library staff members.
Together they devised a logical and efficient method of book repair, involving nine separate and clearly defined steps:
- Books were selected for treatment. The details of work to be done
were recorded on a formatted card that accompanied its respective book
throughout its treatment. Once work was completed, the card was
permanently filed. A universal language utilising symbols, created with foreign workers
in mind, was employed in the formatting of this card. Symbols were
assigned to key phrases that communicated the condition of each book and
how its repair was to be conducted, such as:
- historically important-only to be dealt with by experts
- incomplete
- medium mud
- rebind
- collation part missing
- The book was photographed.
- The book's collation was verified and its covers removed and stored in a marked case (if they were to be used in a new binding).
- If necessary, the book was carefully taken apart to wash it in warm water and disinfect it with Topane.
- In certain cases, the leaves of the book were deacidified and buffered.
- The text-block was pressed.
- The text-block was dried in specially designed cabinets.
- Sections of the book were then reconstructed and the text-blocks collated.
- Finally, each book was wrapped in a paper sheet that had been
impregnated with an antimicrobial substance, then they were set aside
for any later repair or rebinding. The binding was completed in the main
reading room of the library, which had been converted (temporarily) for
this purpose.
This methodical nine-part system enabled workers to process between seventy and a hundred books a day.
[5]
After the Florence flood, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale was not allowed to put books back into the lower levels.
[18]
Paintings
Many panel paintings were critically damaged as a result of water saturating their wood, causing the glue and
gesso,
which compose the priming layer, to dissolve. Consequently, the
paintings' colours dissolved as well.
In addition, the moisture caused
paintings to buckle and crack or develop blisters, and the paint to chip
and fall. Actions were taken to stabilize the problem by applying
rice paper
to the affected paintings and storing them in cool, stable environments
where humidity was slowly decreased. In extreme cases, the paint layer
was extracted from the wood and gesso and then reapplied to a new
support.
Nystatin,
an antifungal, was sprayed on the wood to prevent mold from growing.
Treatment facilities were established at locations such as the Boboli
Garden Lemon-House, where over two hundred of these panel paintings were
restored.
Similar measures were necessary to conserve canvas paintings. First,
an original canvas was relined and gauze applied to the painted surface,
which was then ironed. This process is referred to as the
rintelatura, or "new canvas" method. Relatively minor surface work was often completed with a variety of solvents and/or types of
resin.
Frescoes
Frescoes
demanded more complicated treatment. Normally water, once it
evaporates, will leave a layer of residual salt on the surface of the
wall that absorbed it. In some instances, the resultant
efflorescence
obscured painted images. In other cases, the impermeability of the
fresco plaster caused the salt to become trapped beneath the surface,
causing bubbles to form and erupt, and the paint to fall. The adhesion
of the plaster to the wall was often also seriously compromised. A
fresco could only be detached when fully dry. To dry a fresco, workers
cut narrow tunnels beneath it, in which heaters were placed to draw out
moisture from below (instead of outwards, which would have further
damaged the paintings). Within a few days, the fresco was ready to be
detached.
Fuel oil, which coated many painted works of art, was removed by
using Japanese tissue paper to apply a solvent, which dissolved the tar.
An
absorbent, such as
talcum powder, was then distributed on the tissue paper.
Sculpture and other objects
It became imperative to clean sculpture immediately, before it fully absorbed the oil. Flaking sculpture was sprayed with a
silicate mixture, while wooden pieces were treated with
insecticides and toxic gases to kill insects and prevent future infestation.
Weaponry, like firearms and swords, were taken apart, cleaned with
paraffin, and finally lubricated to prevent future rusting.
Bronze
objects were kept in dehumidification chambers for a few weeks and
cleaned with distilled water or polished. For more severely damaged
pieces, experts completed "depth cleaning," which entailed the use of
small drills and vacuuming. Similar measures were taken with gold.
Broken objects were reassembled using photographs and other retrieved
documentation.
[11][15]
Work undone
The disastrous results of the flood established an international
awareness of the need for preservation and conservation education and
facilities. In the United States, for example, it is no coincidence that
the
National Historic Preservation Act was passed in 1966.
[19] During the next twenty years:
2,000 to 3,000 preservation organizations actively engaged in public
education, advocacy, preservation and restoration projects of various
kinds, many of them operating revolving funds. In terms of geographic
interest, distinctions among the regions are no longer drawn. Membership
in the National Trust for Historic Preservation grew from 10,700 in
1966 to 185,000 in 1986. More than 35 university graduate professional
and technical courses directly related to historic preservation were
created in the interim. It would be reasonable to estimate that more
than 54,000 jobs were created in the administrative aspect of
preservation alone.
— Robert E. Stipe and Antoinette J. Lee
The National Library Centers of Florence
A significant amount of restorative work remains to be done in
Florence. Due to a lack of awareness, funding, and manpower, a great
number of works of art and books lie in storage, dirty and damaged.
Christopher Clarkson, noted conservator, called attention to this
problem in a 2007 letter, stating that the National Library still has a
"warehouse" full of books to be repaired and bound; many others need
cleaning or reassembling. According to a 1993 report, approximately 25%
of the 80,000 items belonging to the Magliabecchi and Palatino
collections had not been fully restored in the nearly thirty years since
the flood. The number of conservators that work at the library
presently is only about a tenth of the amount that worked there
immediately after the flood.
[14]
Environmental measures
Regional officials in Tuscany are responsible for organizing a
massive project, the purpose of which is to not only protect the area
from future flooding but to maintain high water quality and effectively
utilize water resources.
Work commenced in 1984, with the construction of the Bilancino Dam, near Florence. The Sieve tributary and spillway at
Pontedera
are among other developments. The national government has funded a
majority of these various subprojects, with the city of Florence being
the primary recipient of the money.
[20]
References
2.
Jump up ^ "Arno River". The World Book
Encyclopedia 1. World Book, Inc. 2005.
3.
Jump up ^ "The Florence Floods: 4 November 1966". The
Geographical Journal 133 (2): 277–9. June 1967.
6.
Jump up ^ Barton, Phyllis. County Artist Relives Florence
Disaster. The Register, Sunday 2 November 1969, p 10
7.
Jump up ^ Bonelli, Maria Luisa Righini (January 1969).
"Rehabilitation of the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in
Florence". Technology and Culture (Society for the History of
Technology) 10 (1): 62–4. doi:10.2307/3102005.
JSTOR 3102005.
11. ^ Jump up to: a b c Batini, Giorgio (1967). 4
November 1966: The River Arno in the Museums of Florence:Galleries, Monuments,
Churches, Libraries, Archives and Masterpieces Damaged by the Flood.
Florence: Bonechi.
12. Jump up ^ "Thorough flood...". The Burlington
Magazine 128 (1004): 779. November 1986.
15. ^ Jump up to: a b "The Florentine Flood
Disaster". The Burlington Magazine 109 (769): 192–4. April
1967.
16. Jump up ^ Rubinstein, Nicolai (1 December 1966).
"Libraries and Archives of Florence". Times Literary Supplement:
1133.
18. Jump up ^ Lenzuni, Anna. “Coping with Disaster.”
Preservation of library materials: conference held at the National Library of
Austria, Vienna, 7–10 April 1986. Ed. Merrily A. Smith. IFLA publications,
40–41. München: Saur, 1987.
- Taylor, Kathrine Kressman
(1969). Diary of Florence in Flood. New York: Simon and Schuster
-
