Fifty years after the Flood of Florence, we recall the event, which saw thousands of people join forces in an attempt to save art heritage which belonged to all humankind.
In the recorded history, there are notes on numerous floods in Florence region. But the 1966 flood exceeds them all with its effects. Not only by the lives it took and the great material damage it caused, but also because of the devastating impact on the famous Florentine art pieces, on the old masters' works that were kept in galleries and churches near the riverbanks.
Piazza Santa Croce, Florence 1966.
In the legend, Florence emerged from the flooded and marshy area when ancient hero Hercules drained the ground. Even then the Arno river valley and its surroundings were known for their beauty, rich and copious flora
, but also for the river’s unpredictable temper. Every once in a while, the water would burst from the riverbed, causing deluge, destruction and often epidemics.
In the Medici era, heavy work was conducted in order to gain control over the Arno River and its streams, and Lorenzo Medici was celebrated as an example of Renaissance Man who could even bridle the nature. The paintings from that period stand as a poignant sign of a great role that art once held in remodelling the public opinion, or even the traces of the past.
The abundant settings glorified the city and its patron. But there is something more to it, aside of the plain propaganda, something that could be even called apotropaic. The whole setting represented the city and the people in it, transforming everything into a perfected state, reaffirmed and protected.
For the Florentines, Saint Sebastian overcoming his torture resembled their city’s struggle and effort to succeed.
Saint Sebastian, by Sandro Boticcelli
It is estimated that in 1966 flood about 14,000 artworks were destroyed and over 3 million books archived in the Biblioteca Nazionale basement soaked and wasted. Many people rushed to help: students, foreigners, locals, all together in a brigade of volunteers called Mud Angels, in order to save the precious heritage that was not only the heritage of Florence and Italy but the cultural history of the whole world.
Volunteers carry the painting
Christ and the Wife of Zebedee
by Mateo Rosselli
by Mateo Rosselli
away from the water debris.
Cimabue’s Crucifixion survival
But the damage was to the largest possible scale, most of all for the Basilica Santa Croce and Cimabue’s Crucifixion from the 13th century. It was found floating on the water, almost completely destructed — great part of the colouring simply dissolved in water.
Cimabue Crucifix
before the flood
1280s. Panel.
Museo di Santa Croce, Florence
The state of Cimabue’s Crucifixion when it was found after the flood.
During that time, a great effort was put to save the destroyed pieces.
It took 10 years and a new notion of colouring to have Cimabue’s Crucifixion finally restored.
It took 10 years and a new notion of colouring to have Cimabue’s Crucifixion finally restored.
The Gates of Paradise
Lorenzo Ghiberti’s bronze doors of the Baptistery in the Piazza del Duomo, named for its grandeur and exceptional beauty as The Gates of Paradise, were heavily affected by the water battering, and 6 of 10 panels were ripped away. The Gates are now restored and kept in the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.
Vasari’s Last Supper returns to Santa Croce
Fifty years after the flood, one of the most prominent works of Florentine Renaissance , Vasari’s Last Supper is being shown for the first time after the complicated restoration process paid by the Getty Foundation.
But for a very long time, Vasari’s Last Supper was considered unrestorable. Due to the water, the wooden panels have contracted by 3 cm and cracked. The glue on the surface vanished and the painting was in a great danger.
Basilica Santa Croce interior
during the flood.
during the flood.
Image of Vasari’s Last Supper
before the flood.
However, OPD conservators achieved to fill the cracks with tiny wooden slivers and restored the surface using the glue made from sturgeons, еру method developed by Russian experts.
Watch "Last Supper" restored 50 years after Florence flood
Happy end of Donatello's Penitent Magdalene
Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene wooden sculpture, created around 1453−1455, was also affected by the flood.When the waters of the Arno came rushing through, the Maddalena’s lower half was immersed. By the time she was rescued, she had been heavily stained with oil and her thighs were cracked in two places. In a far wing of the Palazzo Pitti, in a far corner of a dark, unheated room, she lay there on her back like a invalid. Most of the oil appeared to have been cleaned off, but she was still cracked; white paper had been placed underneath her to catch flakes of gesso, polychrome, and splinters, and her lower half wrapped in rice paper.
The Maddalena’s ending is a happy one. Her restoration, performed largely by sculptor Pelligrino Banella, would not simply return her to her pre-flood condition, but reveal her true nature from underneath the residue of chemicals and paints left by seventeenth and eighteenth century restorers. Thanks to the deep cleaning, she was revealed to be a polychrome, painted with many subtle colors, instead of a monochrome. Donatello used terra-cotta and flesh tones to give her leathery tan and added gilded streaks to her hair to enhance Mary Magdalene’s red hair. As wooden figures were sometimes carried through streets in processions, the golden streaks in her hair may have been added to reflect the sunlight.
It is believed that she now looks closer to her original appearance than she has in centuries.
She now resides in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
Visitors can still look her in the eyes.
She now resides in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
Visitors can still look her in the eyes.
The city of Florence managed to rise above the dark times. The Florentine art that has been saved from the flood by the dedicated men and women of all nations, and thriving work of the people from the art conservation field and their effort brings back the notion of the Renaissance
Man, of the power and skills that enable the individual to develop and break the boundaries, to stand tall among the dreadful circumstances.
Mud Angels team at rest.
On materials from: Getty Foundation, Comitee of Cultural Policy , The Guardian, NY Times, The Florentine, Artway, Visit Florence, PBS News Hour, Arno 66, Biblioteca Nazionale
