[CPProt.net] Hundreds of artworks still awaiting restoration after Florence's 1966 flood

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Hundreds of artworks still awaiting restoration after Florence's 1966 flood
ART 
AP 
Sunday, December 04, 2005
 
ROME, Italy (AP) - Scattered among Tuscan villas' garrets and stores,
hundreds of frescos, paintings, statues and pieces of wooden furniture have
lingered for nearly 40 years.

They have been there since teams of experts and volunteers rescued them from
the waters of a 1966 flood in Florence. Now, an art historian is seeking to
rescue them once again.

"What I'm trying to do is to restore and give these artworks back to where
they belong, mainly Florentine churches," said Maria Matilde Simari, who
works for the city's office that oversees its artistic and historical
heritage.

Simari, who has been in charge of the recovery for more than three years,
said most of the artworks are from the 16th to the 18th century.
Since she started on the project, Simari has been busy locating and
archiving the works and looking to finance the restorations.

On November 4, 1966, floodwaters and mud swept through Florence after the
rain-swollen river Arno overran its banks and burst into the museums and
churches, heavily damaging some of Italy's greatest art treasures.

Since then, thousands of paintings, frescoes and rare books have been
restored, many remarkably well, while thousands others waited their turn for
years.

"There shouldn't be footlights for some artworks and the darkness of garrets
for some others," said Stefano Sieni, a Florence-based art historian who is
not involved in the project. Sieni said the artworks that are waiting to be
restored represent an "immense precious heritage".

"This is an important effort to make these artworks available for display
and let the public see masterpieces that would never have been seen
otherwise," he said.

Simari said floodwaters reached six meters (19 feet) in some churches. "It
was a very dramatic situation, in some churches water remained for a week,"
she said.

The rescued artworks include Vasari's 'Last Supper', a painting on wood from
the 16th century that is being restored in the Florentine laboratories in
the cavernous Fortezza da Basso, a Renaissance fortress built for the Medici
family.

"On the paintings on wood, the colour layer could be ripped off as a thin
film," Simari recounted. "When a painting is in that condition, we can say
it has reached the worst condition it could ever reach."

Among the most famous recoveries at the time was the 14th-century Cimabue's
crucifix, a painted wooden cross that was scarred so badly it became the
symbol of the tragedy.
Now the crucifix is back in the old refectory - now a museum - of Santa
Croce Church.