Book: 'Dark Water', Flood of Florence in 1966 and Arno's Historic Anger
 
THE ANNOTICO REPORT

Seventeen inches of rain fell in central Italy one November day 43 years ago, and overnight, one of the world's greatest treasures, the historic center city of Florence, was 20 feet under water. Thirty-three people were killed. 

But Florence has repeatedly been awash in the Arno's floodwaters and other catastrophes, centuries of earthquakes, war,and the quiet degradation of time.

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 
By Jay Furst 
Mon, Feb 16, 2009

Seventeen inches of rain fell in central Italy one November day 43 years ago, and overnight, one of the world's greatest treasures, the historic center city of Florence, was 20 feet under water. Thirty-three people were killed. 

That catastrophic night, when the Arno River rushed over its banks to flood historic museums, churches and homes, remains very much alive in the memory of Italians and art lovers everywhere. On Nov. 4, 1966, hundreds of immortal artworks by masters such as Cimabue and Giotto, Michelangelo and Ghiberti, were waterlogged, damaged or destroyed. Donatello's late masterpiece, the wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene, was hip-deep in oil-stained water. Millions of rare books in the Italian national library and archives were submerged; many were lost and others are still being restored. 

The Piazza Santa Croce, the plaza in front of the church where Michelangelo and Rossini are buried, was under 22 feet of water and 12 feet of mud, sludge and pollutants that ruined everything it touched. Inside the church, frescoes by Giotto were being lapped at by floodwaters. 

"Dark Water," by Robert Clark, is a compelling history of that flood, but it's more than that. It's a deeply personal meditation on the idea of Florence, the importance of art and its transient, fragile place in our lives. Clark, a Seattle writer with strong ties to the Twin Cities, has written three novels (including one entitled "Love Among the Ruins"), and he brings a strong literary touch to this work. 

It's miraculous that Florence remains intact at all, Clark says, after centuries of earthquakes, war, floods and the quiet degradation of time. It does so only because of heroic work by its residents and an international effort that provided money and manpower to dry it out and put it back together. 

Though it's not a straightforward history, Clark tells much of what you need to know about the city's artistic heritage, beginning with the earliest days of the Renaissance, and how it has repeatedly been awash in the Arno's floodwaters and other catastrophes, including the Nazi occupation during World War II. 

Along the way, he vividly describes the city's 20th century heroes, such as the American art historian Frederick Hartt, who served in the Army during World War II and assisted in the liberation of Florence and protecting the city's artistic heritage as the Nazis retreated; Ugo Procacci and Umberto Baldini, who directed efforts during the flood's early hours to protect the Uffizi museum and rescue countless art works throughout the city; and Life magazine photographer David Lees, who was among the first journalists on the scene in 1966. 

Among the greatest artistic losses was the damage to the "Crucifixion," by Cimabue, a huge image of Christ painted on an almost life-sized crucifix that hung in the Sante Croce church. Cimabue was the great transitional artist between the late Gothic and early Renaissance periods, and as Clark relates, the paint was literally washed right off the wood and glittered on the surface of the floodwaters: 

Unable to sleep, Procacci got to the (Santa Croce) refectory at six the next morning. By then the water inside had receded to ankle depth over the mud. Only a little light reflected off the water, casting waves and glints onto the walls and, as Procacci began to make out, onto the Crucifix. It was a shadowy, immense gangling form among still more shadows, but as the dawn light slowly unveiled it, he could begin to make out its details, or rather, all that was gone: half the face, much of the right side of the body and legs plus the chest and the abdomen. Perhaps three-quarters of the image was gone, stripped down to the gesso or to the canvas beneath it. Procacci could not be sure -- hearing the drip and slop of water everywhere, of things being sloughed off -- that it wasn't continuing, in the dim light, to disintegrate before his eyes. 

The Crocifisso was salvaged, dried out over a period of many months and later -- controversially -- repainted in neutral ways to suggest what was lost. This artwork is the centerpiece of Clark's book and a metaphor for the entire experience of recovery and restoration....

At its best,, "Dark Water" is a meditation on the perishability of art. Of Cimabue, he writes that the artist's lofty reputation already was being eclipsed in the early 14th century -- even Dante notes in the "Divine Comedy" that Giotto's reputation was on the rise, overtaking Cimabue's. "Except for a handful of 'lesser' works, there would not be much left of Cimabue except his cross. But that, perhaps, was all there was anyway. Dante tried to tell Florence this: Reputation turns to ruin, wealth to poverty, pride to disgrace, inspiration to despair."

Fortunately, it's not as bleak as all that. Florence lives, as does Cimabue, thanks to people such as Clark who love it and cherish the art. 

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