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The Resource Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces, Robert Clark

Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces, Robert Clark

Creator
Summary
  • Describes the November 1966 flood that inundated the city of Florence and its devastating impact on some of the Western world's finest collections of art, and details the vast global efforts to preserve and restore the city's treasures in the wake of theflood
  • "On November 4, 1966, Florence, one of the world's most historic cities and the repository of perhaps its greatest art, was struck by a monumental calamity. A low-pressure system had been stalled over Italy for six weeks and on the previous day it had begun to rain again. Nineteen inches fell in twenty-four hours, more than half of the annual total. By two o'clock in the morning twenty-thousand cubic feet of water per second was moving towards Florence. Soon manhole covers in Santa Croce were exploding into the air as jets of water began shooting out of the now overwhelmed sewer system. Cellars, vaults, and strong-rooms were filling with water. Night watchmen on the Ponte Vecchio alerted the bridge's jewelers and goldsmiths to come quickly to rescue their wares. By then the water was moving at forty miles per hour at a height of twenty-four feet. At 7:26 a.m. all of Florence's electric civic clocks came to a stop. The Piazza Santa Croce was under twenty-two feet of water. Beneath the surface, twelve feet of mud, sewage, debris, and oil sludge were starting to ooze and settle into the cellars and crypts and room after room above them. Six-hundred-thousand tons of it would smother, clot, and encrust the city." "Dark Water brings the flood and its aftermath to life through the voices of witnesses past and present. Two young American artists wade heedlessly through the inundated city carrying their baby in order to witness its devastated beauty: the Ponte Vecchio buried in debris and Ghiberti's panels from the doors of the Florence Baptistery, lying heaped in yard-deep mud; the swamped Uffizi Gallery; and, in the city libraries, one billion pages of Renaissance and antique books, soaked in mire. A Life magazine photographer, stowing away on an army helicopter, arrives to capture a drama that, he felt, "could only be told by Dante" amid the flooded tombs of Machiavelli and Michelangelo in Giotto and Vasari's Santa Croce. A British student, one of thousands of "mud angels" who rushed to Florence to save its art, spends a month scraping mud and mold from Cimabue's magnificent and neglected Crocifisso as intrigues and infighting among international art experts and connoisseurs swirl around him. And during the fortieth anniversary commemorations of 2006 the author asks himself why art matters so very much to us, and how beauty seems to somehow save the world even in the face of overwhelming disaster."--BOOK JACKET
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
1st ed.
Extent
354 pages
Isbn
9780767926485
Instance
Label
Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces
Title
Dark water
Title remainder
flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces
Statement of responsibility
Robert Clark
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
  • Describes the November 1966 flood that inundated the city of Florence and its devastating impact on some of the Western world's finest collections of art, and details the vast global efforts to preserve and restore the city's treasures in the wake of theflood
  • "On November 4, 1966, Florence, one of the world's most historic cities and the repository of perhaps its greatest art, was struck by a monumental calamity. A low-pressure system had been stalled over Italy for six weeks and on the previous day it had begun to rain again. Nineteen inches fell in twenty-four hours, more than half of the annual total. By two o'clock in the morning twenty-thousand cubic feet of water per second was moving towards Florence. Soon manhole covers in Santa Croce were exploding into the air as jets of water began shooting out of the now overwhelmed sewer system. Cellars, vaults, and strong-rooms were filling with water. Night watchmen on the Ponte Vecchio alerted the bridge's jewelers and goldsmiths to come quickly to rescue their wares. By then the water was moving at forty miles per hour at a height of twenty-four feet. At 7:26 a.m. all of Florence's electric civic clocks came to a stop. The Piazza Santa Croce was under twenty-two feet of water. Beneath the surface, twelve feet of mud, sewage, debris, and oil sludge were starting to ooze and settle into the cellars and crypts and room after room above them. Six-hundred-thousand tons of it would smother, clot, and encrust the city." "Dark Water brings the flood and its aftermath to life through the voices of witnesses past and present. Two young American artists wade heedlessly through the inundated city carrying their baby in order to witness its devastated beauty: the Ponte Vecchio buried in debris and Ghiberti's panels from the doors of the Florence Baptistery, lying heaped in yard-deep mud; the swamped Uffizi Gallery; and, in the city libraries, one billion pages of Renaissance and antique books, soaked in mire. A Life magazine photographer, stowing away on an army helicopter, arrives to capture a drama that, he felt, "could only be told by Dante" amid the flooded tombs of Machiavelli and Michelangelo in Giotto and Vasari's Santa Croce. A British student, one of thousands of "mud angels" who rushed to Florence to save its art, spends a month scraping mud and mold from Cimabue's magnificent and neglected Crocifisso as intrigues and infighting among international art experts and connoisseurs swirl around him. And during the fortieth anniversary commemorations of 2006 the author asks himself why art matters so very much to us, and how beauty seems to somehow save the world even in the face of overwhelming disaster."--BOOK JACKET
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1952 April 9-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Clark, Robert
Dewey number
945/.5110926
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
LC call number
DG738.792
LC item number
.C58 2008
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Floods
  • Florence (Italy)
Label
Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces, Robert Clark
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-354) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
190843577
Dimensions
25 cm
Edition
1st ed.
Extent
354 pages
Isbn
9780767926485
Lccn
2008001695
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)190843577
Label
Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces, Robert Clark
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-354) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
190843577
Dimensions
25 cm
Edition
1st ed.
Extent
354 pages
Isbn
9780767926485
Lccn
2008001695
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)190843577

Subject

Genre

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      38.944491 -92.326012

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