The Florence Flood

Here is some footage (1:42) of the Piazza Signoria on the night of the 40th anniversary of the flood. You can see the slideshow in the loggia and the purple lighting, etc. It was a very moving exhibit. We were there that night but only have still images.

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The "The Years of the Cupola" is a digital archive of all the works belonging to the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore relating to Brunelleschi's Dome. Of course, that means work damaged by the flood of 1966:

"The project to make images of the archival material contained in The Years of the Cupola available in Internet is a response to the challenge posed by the state of conservation of the original manuscripts, so damaged after the 1966 flood that traditional photography alone would be of limited usefulness for the reading of the faded script. The project presents both photography carried out before the flood, when available, and new images processed through techniques of "virtual restoration," in such a manner as to distinguish visual tools for reading from evidence of the current appearance of the leaves. Effort has been made to render the relationship between the various types of photography presented by the project as intuitive as possible.

This is an amazing project (and website) and should be a great source for scholars.

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Here is a really interesting resource - a video on the restoration of books immediately after the flood:

Originally produced by the Royal College of Art, London, 1968.

Book conservators begin to restore the many books damaged by the devastating flood in Florence, Italy in 1966. Peter Waters covers a book in leather. Christopher Clarkson makes a velum binding.

This video is made available from the University of Utah. Hat tip to PhiloBiblos

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