Restoration: The Salvage of Florence

The floods that tore through the Renaissance city of Florence have gone, but the mud and shock remain. So far, 885 objects of irreplaceable art have been declared casualties. The principal victim: Cimabue’s 13th century Crucifix ion, drowned inside the Santa Croce museum, where waters rose more than 14 feet. “It’s a corpse, the paint is gone, and it can only be displayed as a relic,” said University of Pennsylvania Art Professor Frederick Hartt.

For Ugo Procacci, superintendent of the city’s museums, the loss of the Cimabue was the major single catastrophe. “One of the hinges of Italian art,” he said. “The work that opened the way for Giotto.” But, says Procacci, “Not one percent of Florentine art was lost.

Even so, one percent is quite a patri mony in itself.” He agrees with the estimates of foreign experts that no less than $32 million will be needed to salvage works already damaged — a task that may take up to 20 years.

Freezing the Manuscripts. The greatest loss is that to Florence’s archives.

The Uffizi Gallery’s basement, where art and records were kept in storage, is still a vile reservoir. Those of the ancient synagogue’s 12th century scrolls that survived the Nazis are gone. The expert who arrived from Rome took a good look at the remains and dropped dead of a heart attack.

Fuel oil, ripped from tanks, turned the flood waters into a greasy gruel. No one is yet sure quite how to cleanse the stains on countless marbles and murals.

Wet manuscripts have been put in deep freezes to stop mold from thriving; paintings on wood are being carefully kept wet so that the paint will not crack when the panels dry.

Working the Record. From the way help is arriving, the Renaissance belongs to everyone. Spontaneously, a Committee to Rescue Italian Art (CRIA) was set up in the U.S. by museums and college art departments, with Jacqueline Kennedy as its active president. Its aim: to raise $2,500,000 for salvage operations. One of its first acts: to dispatch 16 expert restorers to the site to help out. But the biggest requirement is helping hands. One California art historian, Eve Borsook of Pasadena, who rescued 130,000 negatives of art objects from the Uffizi, rushed them to Harvard’s Villa I Tatti in Florence, the former hilltop home of Connoisseur Bernard Berenson. Then she carefully washed them one by one, saved them all.