Original Treasures in the Museum and a Story of Rain

With Mark feeling a lot better today, we ventured off together to the Cathedral Museum which is well worth a visit.

Together with the originals of two of the three baptistry doors (the third is undergoing restoration) there was an explanation of how Brunelleschi’s dome was constructed, and also original stone work from the Cathedral facade, which was replaced in the nineteenth century.

By the time we got out, it was very late lunchtime (we had made a leisurely start to the day) and moreover, it was pouring with rain, so we dived in somewhere that was selling food and had a free table undercover. Our dry haven turned out to be a cafeteria-type place where the food is self-service and heated up in a microwave. It was edible and cheap, but not to be recommended, but as Mark pointed out the food would probably have been a lot better at 12 when it had been freshly cooked, than at 2.45, when we had it.

I have read somewhere that the Florentines get anxious when the weather turns wet, due to memories of the floods here in November 1966. (I was twelve at the time, but have no memory of them). Considered the worst flood here since 1557, 101 people died and millions of priceless works of art and rare books were damaged or destroyed.

Help arrived in Florence from many quarters (including Edinburgh, who are twinned with Florence, and loaned the Italian City a set of double-decker buses) but such was the devastation, it took Florence a long time to recover.

Among the casualties there were 6000 volumes of documents and 55 illuminated manuscripts from the archives of the Opera del Duomo (the Museum we have just visited).

The floodwaters, which also carried heating oil from ruptured central heating tanks, damaged the gates of Paradise on the Baptistry, and caused devastation in the Uffizi Gallery too.

We managed to get back to our apartment in a slight lull in the torrent, but as I am writing this it is coming down again in buckets (I wonder what the Italian idiom is? Perhaps someone can tell me).

Fifty-two years on, there are still items awaiting their turn at restoration. There was a positive outcome of the disaster though. Italy now has state-of-the-art laboratories to handle the restoration of works of art and there has been extensive research into the conservation of art treasures.