The 1966 Florence flood revolutionized the field of art conservation as had no other single event, and served as a catalyst for the development of new materials and methods of restoration, particularly for mass and large-scale treatment. The lessons learned extend far beyond a list of approved materials and techniques or of approaches to avoid. The papers in this volume not only give us a record of the conditions at the time, but also allow us to be better prepared to face such a disaster again, and how to mitigate the risk of damage occurring in the first place.
Forty years after the catastrophic flood in Florence, Italy of November 1966, a symposium was held at New York University's Villa La Pieta to commemorate the conservation efforts of the international community. Many of the invited speakers were those who had participated directly in the recovery of damaged works of art, books and monuments, working alongside Florentine specialists. Even among the seasoned practitioners of conservation, few had dealt with problems of the scale that awaited them.
While some of the papers in this volume deal with specific treatment problems, e.g. the soaked and stained books of the Biblioteca Nazionale or the marble structures of the Bargello Museum, many of the papers touch on broader challenges that relate to other major art disaster scenarios including: difficulties in procuring specialized materials; retrofitting suitable spaces; training personnel; and overcoming language and cultural barriers.
This book also includes material collected as part of the concurrent oral history project, documenting insights and memories from some of the most important and representative figures of the international conservation community who participated in the aftermath of the flood, assessing their experiences in the light of the past forty years.
Preface
Ellyn Toscano
Foreword
Rebecca Rushfield
Introduction
Michele Marincola
Acknowledgements
Press release 11 November 2006
Senator Edward M. Kennedy
Oral history of the Florence flood: personal recollections
Marco Grassi, Andrea Rothe, Joe Nkrumah, Peter Matthiesen, Natalie Brooke, Dorothy Cumpstey, Lucilla Kingsbury, Mette Bjarnhof, Karel Stretti, Dorota Niesiolowska, Erling Skaug, Henrik Bjerre, Anne Pelikan, Anthony Cains, Robert Feller, Nicolette Bingham, Kirsten Aschengreen Piacenti and Peter Mallory
An account of the flood and the days that followed
Sandro Pintus
The development of mass treatments: an overview of the experience of book and paper conservators
Sheila Waters
The work of the restoration centre in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze 1967-1971
Anthony Cains
Training in book conservation after the flood
Christopher Clarkson
Where is the progress?
Joe Nkrumah
Improvements in the treatment of individual books as a result of the flood: a personal review
Dag-Ernst Petersen
The Florence flood in the popular imagination
Joanna Hines
The Florence flood: some personal recollections
Marco Grassi
Restoration in Florence following the flood
Giorgio Bonsanti
The rescue of statues and sculptures in Florence and Venice
Kenneth Hempel
New methods of paintings conservation developed in response to the flood
Andrea Rothe
The flood and the Palazzo Davanzati laboratories
Kirsten Aschengreen Piacenti
Transfer of panel paintings after the flood
Erling Skaug
The Italian Art and Archives Rescue Fund
Frances Clarke
Building a network of support for conservation: the Committee to Rescue Italian Art
Fred Licht
Experiences from a selection of disasters from 1966 to 2003
Alan M. Farancz
The experience of an American mud angel
Peter Mallory
Recovery of the panel paintings of Florence
Cristina Acidini
The United States Heritage Emergency National Task Force: disaster recovery now and in the future
Debra Hess Norris, Jane S. Long and Mary Rogers
Reviews
Conservation Legacies will give conservators much interesting detail about the Florence flood that revolutionized their profession and served as a catalyst for the development of many new materials and techniques...the book succeeds in showing the rationale underlying principles of conservation developed during an extraordinary time when a concentration of like-minded conservators gathered together with a single purpose.
Journal of the Institute of Conservation 33(2) (September 2010) 195-198
Anyone wishing to understand the actions of preservation experts who gathered in Florence after the unimaginably disastrous flood of 1966 will find this an essential book. The questions answered in Conservation Legacies are still relevant.
Studies in Conservation 57(3) (July 2012) 190-191
