Ferri's expose produced outrage in Florence, but thanks to the media empire of sometime Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, it acquired a national and international audience as well. The Berlusconi-owned newsweekly Panorama Panorama gave Ferri's story a second life (even if no credit to the reporter himself), dubbing the storage sites he'd uncovered "depots of shame." And with that, the relatively measured annual discourse about the flooded art took on an unpredictable, even frenzied character. The room where the Vasari gave Ferri's story a second life (even if no credit to the reporter himself), dubbing the storage sites he'd uncovered "depots of shame." And with that, the relatively measured annual discourse about the flooded art took on an unpredictable, even frenzied character. The room where the Vasari Last Supper Last Supper was housed was, was housed was, Panorama Panorama reported, "cold and dusty, with broken windows and heaps of tools dangerously close to other artworks, which are piled here and there protected only by cellophane." reported, "cold and dusty, with broken windows and heaps of tools dangerously close to other artworks, which are piled here and there protected only by cellophane."
Suddenly, reporters and photographers were converging around the Fortezza on the track of heretofore meek and anonymous art historians and restorers. The press and the public it purported to represent insisted on statements, explanations and, still more, immediate action. Pumped for answers, one official allowed that it might take ten years just to remove the velinatura velinatura from the Vasari. This was not what people wanted to hear, not this November. from the Vasari. This was not what people wanted to hear, not this November.
But within a short time the Fortezza summoned up the public relations skills it had possessed during the Baldini regime. Florentines wanted results and the press had already produced a poster child in the form of the Vasari. Suddenly, it made sense to revise what had previously seemed a well-reasoned restoration program for all the flooded artworks and make The Last Supper The Last Supper a top priority. If it hadn't been a masterpiece before, it had just become one. a top priority. If it hadn't been a masterpiece before, it had just become one.
The official put in charge, Marco Ciatti, the Fortezza's expert on panel paintings, hadn't seen the Vasari before. After examining it carefully, he said to his superiors, Ma voi mi chiedete un miracolo Ma voi mi chiedete un miracolo, "But you're asking me for a miracle."
The Fortezza could try refastening the paint to the warped panels or attempt a trasporto. trasporto. But neither of these were likely to succeed: where the Allori But neither of these were likely to succeed: where the Allori Deposition Deposition, for example, had cracks, ridges, and valleys, the Vasari had chasms. Ciatti could only plead for time, the principal thing a scandalized public and a voracious media would deny him. He'd made his own discovery in a Palazzo Pitti storeroom thirteen years ago: a Deposition Deposition by Salviati, also from Santa Croce, in a dank stack of planks. They'd been working on it ever since then and it would need two more years. With by Salviati, also from Santa Croce, in a dank stack of planks. They'd been working on it ever since then and it would need two more years. With The Last Supper The Last Supper he would have liked to take a couple of years just to do tests and consider his options: the most likely outcome of any hasty intervention would be to make things worse, to do irretrievable damage. Yet people seemed to expect to have the Vasari, restored, better than new, the day after tomorrow. he would have liked to take a couple of years just to do tests and consider his options: the most likely outcome of any hasty intervention would be to make things worse, to do irretrievable damage. Yet people seemed to expect to have the Vasari, restored, better than new, the day after tomorrow.
Still, the public had to be satisfied. A gesture toward at least the appearance of action had to be made. In January 2004, two months after Ferri's story appeared, the Vasari, now insured for 100,000, was moved to the Fortezza with film crews from the BBC in train. Inside, the panels were ceremoniously laid into a custom-built steel storage cradle, a sliding drawer for each of the five panels. And with that procession and display finished, Ciatti hoped, there would be time to think, to conjure up his miracolo. miracolo.
By the second week of November the river had returned to its normal level, but every day I saw the tangle of flotsam wrapped around the northernmost pier of the Ponte alla Carraia, a haystack-sized islet upon which birds and nutria-the possum-sized rodents who live along the banks-had begun to install themselves. I assumed their residence would be short-lived. I'd been in Florence two months and although I could manage in the Italian language, my grasp of how things were done here-how actions and reactions unfolded-was childlike. That it might sit there indefinitely, like the pile of rubble and debris in our cortile, was a notion beyond my imagination.
Similarly, when I read a feature story in one of Italy's most important national newspapers, Corriere della Sera Corriere della Sera, about the unrestored artworks in storage, I was scandalized, but scandalized in the American mode: why, I wondered of this state of affairs, didn't they fix fix it? It would take me some time to understand that Florentines would be scandalized in an almost radically different way: of course they wanted the art restored, but the essence of their preoccupation was the certainty that someone, corrupt and/or derelict, ought to be hung out to dry, but, just as certainly, that nothing would be done. You might imagine that given this combination of convictions, there was little point in becoming outraged in the first place. But being Continental Europeans, they were scandalized dialectically; they could maintain their hope and cynicism simultaneously, their faith in art and in the infinite, incorrigible variety of human misbehavior perfectly intact in parallel lines of thought. it? It would take me some time to understand that Florentines would be scandalized in an almost radically different way: of course they wanted the art restored, but the essence of their preoccupation was the certainty that someone, corrupt and/or derelict, ought to be hung out to dry, but, just as certainly, that nothing would be done. You might imagine that given this combination of convictions, there was little point in becoming outraged in the first place. But being Continental Europeans, they were scandalized dialectically; they could maintain their hope and cynicism simultaneously, their faith in art and in the infinite, incorrigible variety of human misbehavior perfectly intact in parallel lines of thought.
As an American, I also didn't understand the Florentine dialectic of art and life: I assumed that the scandal of the dams was vastly more significant than that of the artworks. Human lives, after all, had been at stake, and I'd managed to collect quite a dossier of supposedly undisclosed truths around the neighborhood. For example, everyone knew they'd never released the real death toll: the official number, thirty-three, was assurdo assurdo; the true count must be ten times that. Who knew? And of course, there were the warnings that had obviously been given to well-connected people who happened to be rich, goldsmiths and dealers in gems-che coincidenza! Finally, it went without saying that everyone knew they'd panicked at the dams and dumped a tidal wave onto the city. Then they'd covered up the whole thing, the Finally, it went without saying that everyone knew they'd panicked at the dams and dumped a tidal wave onto the city. Then they'd covered up the whole thing, the capo capo "they" on behalf of the minion "they." Within these other dialectics there was, I guessed, a third dialect of power and secrecy, just as eternal, consisting of "everyone" and "they." "they" on behalf of the minion "they." Within these other dialectics there was, I guessed, a third dialect of power and secrecy, just as eternal, consisting of "everyone" and "they."
With my American naivete I imagined there was someone "in charge" and that if I could interview this person, I could get to the bottom of things. As it happened, there was: the director of L'Autorita di Bacino del Fiume Arno, who, more amazingly, was willing to speak to me. He was a wiry, visibly intense man about my own age. Inside the palazzo housing the Autorita we sat in his frescoed office-such offices in Florence have frescoes the way offices in America have framed posters exalting "teamwork" and "excellence"-and with his computer and maps he told me about the river. When he was done, I had to admit that to maintain that the dams had caused or even significantly exacerbated the flood was itself assurdo. assurdo.
I hadn't been taken in or snowed. The director was a specimen of government official I'd never encountered, deeply versed in art, film, history, and poetry. He was just then in the midst of compiling a Dizionario dell'Arno Dizionario dell'Arno, a gazetteer of everything there was to know about the river from hydrology to Leonardo to wildlife to Dante. He 'd had a good education-as classical as it was scientific-at a school in Santa Croce called Pestalozzi, which had unfortunately been wiped out in 1966. He'd wanted to help with the flood then, but his mother hadn't let him, not initially. Now he was in charge of the whole river.
Giovanni Menduni knew art, literature, and politics-with his tapered goatee and fine hands, he looked very much the Florentine humanist savant-but he also knew his science and his facts: short of blowing up both dams simultaneously, there was no way anyone either accidentally or deliberately could have started or seriously augmented the flood of 1966. And it was extremely unlikely a flood on that scale would occur in the future: human interventions that had decreased the Arno's capacity or increased its velocity had been ameliorated, and a network of overflow basins had been built along the river into which future floodwaters could be diverted. And if there was a flood even bigger than 1966 that could overwhelm these new defenses, there would be effective warnings. A much more extensive and sophisticated system of meteorological and hydrological data collection tied together by computer modeling would assure that everyone and everything could be moved to safety in advance.
In all this Menduni hadn't quite carried out Leonardo's grand scheme-although it was five hundred years ahead of its time, it wasn't perfect-but da Vinci was his mentor, his patron saint. Leonardo the engineer had created a reclamation plan for the Arno that in its scale and invasiveness was, by modern standards, scarcely environmentally sensitive. But Leonardo the artist had drawn and, still more, dreamed a river that was both terrifying and sublime, not a channel for carrying water but an organism, an entity that embodied chaos, making and unmaking itself. The effects and images it produced-sculpted, tinted, and curved-were stunning and almost always beautiful where they were not terrible. The Arno was no work of art, but perhaps it was an artist.
Giovanni Menduni had the sensibility and vision of Leonardo, but he also required some of the skills of Machiavelli. When-and it was never a question of "if"-a major flood did come, he would be more involved than his mother forty years before could ever have dreamed. In the interim, and particularly each November, he was Tuscany's chief fielder of riverine speculation. Florence wanted to hear that everything could be made reliable, predictable, and safe, and they also wanted someone to blame when, inevitably, it didn't turn out that way. They wanted what they imagined was scientific certainty when the best Menduni could offer them-and he was honest and frank, a realist if not a cynic-were likelihoods. His science and, even more, Leonardo told him that the Arno was an organism, a machine, if you liked, whose nature was to flood. It was made to flood, even in some providential way intended to flood, and you really couldn't expect it to do otherwise. It did what it could do, not what it ought to do.
2.
Advent and Christmas came and went, and the weather grew bitter. It was hard to imagine this was paradisal Italy, land of Goethe's blooming lemon trees. The freeze held into January, and day after day I shuddered on a park bench while Andrew played soccer, oblivious to the viscously cold air through which he and his friends moved. I was busy learning about the Arno, not just in 1966 but all the deluges going back to Roman times. I wanted to catch up on everything there was to know about the subject before next November, the fortieth anniversary of the 1966 flood.
There would doubtless be the habitual recriminations, but I'd also been hearing that preparations were under way for exhibitions, memorials, and a grand reunion of mud angels. But on January 19 someone jumped the gun. Italy's minister of civil defense in Rome, Guido Bertolaso, announced that he had found 250,000 with which to restore Vasari's Last Supper. Last Supper. This might not have been surprising-in Italy's various state and local departmental treasuries money got "found" rather like old, apparently lost bags in a railroad station checkroom-but the source of the funds was incongruous, rather as if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were gifting the National Gallery a piece of its budget to buy a Giorgione. This might not have been surprising-in Italy's various state and local departmental treasuries money got "found" rather like old, apparently lost bags in a railroad station checkroom-but the source of the funds was incongruous, rather as if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were gifting the National Gallery a piece of its budget to buy a Giorgione.
The Vasari had, of course, been damaged in a flood that, after a fashion, was within the Department of Civil Defense's portfolio. The following week Bertolaso announced, as though an afterthought, that 200,000 was needed to make the Arno "safe" (whatever "safe" meant), albeit without any mention of where or when the 200,000 might be "found." All this was news to Giovanni Menduni.
The officials of the Superintendency and the art historians and restorers of the Fortezza were even more puzzled. Bertolaso was a Berlusconi appointee, dubbed l'uomo dalle mani d'oro l'uomo dalle mani d'oro, "the man with the golden hands," by one newspaper, and a bit of a grandstander. No one knew anything about the money: where precisely it had come from, when it would be disbursed, or what restrictions might be attached to its use. The money ought to have represented good news, but if Bertolaso turned out to be a loose cannon and his money disappeared back into the lost-and-found depot where it had come from, the Vasari's prospects would be that much worse: the Fortezza had been trying to raise restoration funds from the national government through its own channels, and the appearance of Bertolaso's 250,000 might make that effort look redundant. Moreover, in parallel with the Fortezza an Anglo-American charity, "The Angels of Florence," had been pushing forward with its own appeal for a major grant to perform the tests and studies Marco Ciatti needed to start the restauro. restauro. Now that too was in jeopardy. Now that too was in jeopardy.
Nor was Rome quite finished with Florence. Later in the spring, the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro launched a new sortie against the Fortezza, appealing to the incoming government of the new prime minister, Romano Prodi, to "rationalize and unify" restauro restauro in Italy by placing the Fortezza under its control. I had wanted to talk to Marco Ciatti for some time, but through the spring he was obviously preoccupied, not to say harried, his Fortezza under an almost literal siege. in Italy by placing the Fortezza under its control. I had wanted to talk to Marco Ciatti for some time, but through the spring he was obviously preoccupied, not to say harried, his Fortezza under an almost literal siege.
In May I finally got to see him. Ciatti was a slight man with a pendant walrus mustache and wore a tie with a collar that was just a little too big for him. A pair of spectacles dangled from a chain around his neck. In all, he looked long-faced and stooped. We talked about the Istituto's power grab. For him, it wasn't about Procacci versus Brandi or Baldini and Casazza versus the Moras or a high art variant of Florence's ancient feuds with Siena or Pisa. It was now a matter of two different styles of doing restauro, restauro, both of which ought to be honored and preserved. Florence had no problem with Rome's handling of Assisi or its controversial role in the cleaning of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes during the 1980s and early 1990s. Why couldn't the Istituto extend the same regard to the Fortezza? both of which ought to be honored and preserved. Florence had no problem with Rome's handling of Assisi or its controversial role in the cleaning of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes during the 1980s and early 1990s. Why couldn't the Istituto extend the same regard to the Fortezza?
On Bertolaso's 250,000 (of which there had been no sign or news after four months) and on funding in general, Ciatti seemed to be of two or even three minds. On the one hand, of course, he needed money, perhaps something on the order of 500,000 to begin with. And he had 40 percent less money overall to work with at the Fortezza than he'd had five years ago. But then he seemed to reverse himself: "If I had Rockefeller's millions, it wouldn't change anything," he said almost dolefully. "It just takes time." Given the duration of projects like the Cimabue Crocifisso Crocifisso or the Salviati or the Salviati Deposizione- Deposizione-ten and fifteen years respectively-that seemed self-evident, even if the public and media would never grasp or accept the necessity. More than anything, I felt, Ciatti wanted to be left alone.
But as he walked me back to the area of the Laboratorio where the planks of the Vasari were kept, he brightened. We maneuvered past dozens of artworks undergoing restauro restauro, some of them as massive as the Cimabue cross, others small as icons; some brilliantly colored and gilded, others extraordinarily worn, shabby, and dull, junk from a Renaissance landfill.
The racks on which the panels of the Vasari lay were dark blue steel surmounted by a sign with their corporate sponsor's name. When Ciatti reached down to pull one of the five out on its rollers, I held my breath. I was about to see a work of art I had never seen except in preflood photographs (only black-and-white images had ever been made), a relic untouched since November 1966, panels that five centuries ago had been touched by Giorgio Vasari. It wasn't a Michelangelo, but it was by someone who'd known known Michelangelo, who'd claimed to have been Michelangelo's pupil and friend. Michelangelo, who'd claimed to have been Michelangelo's pupil and friend.
But what Marco Ciatti revealed to me was nothing at all: a dirty gray board pasted over with what might have been toilet paper, breaks in the tissue patched with further scraps of toilet paper like stanched shaving cuts. The panel was cracked and fissured, incised and pocked with welts and blisters. It wasn't even a ruin. It wasn't picturesque. If you'd found it in your barn or cellar, you would have thrown it out. It wouldn't be worth the trouble to burn.
After some time, on the central panel, in the upper-left-hand corner, I was able to make out a little of what must have been Peter registering his shock at Jesus' prophecy from under the grime. But that was all there was to see.
Why, I wanted to know, had Vasari's painting fared so badly in the flood, worse in many ways than the Cimabue Crocifisso Crocifisso, which had been completely immersed? Cimabue, Ciatti explained, had been meticulous in his selection of materials and preparations. He had the best heartwood sawn from poplar logs for his panels, laid down his gesso in smooth, polished layers, and sheathed it in one continuous piece of canvas. Vasari, by contrast, used "tangential" cuts of lumber from the sides of the logs, put a thin layer of gesso on the wood, and painted directly upon it. Perhaps it was a matter of how the two painters had viewed themselves. Cimabue saw himself as a craftsman. His carpentry, his preparation of the ground, and the image he brushed and gilded onto it were all essential parts of the object he was making. Vasari, on the other hand, was an artist, a role he himself had helped invent. His eye was on the classical geniuses of the past and the posterity that he hoped the future might bestow on him, on Neoplatonic conceptions of beauty and the ideal rather than wood, glue, and gesso, on the art rather than the artwork. He wasn't unique in this: painted panels from the sixteenth century were among the most severely damaged victims of the flood.
"An American restorer told me it would be impossible to do anything with it," Ciatti said, his hand outstretched, palm up, in a gesture that might have signified either revelation or resignation. Maybe he thought I would come to understand the enormity of what he'd been asked to undertake if the assessment came from a fellow citizen. But I didn't need convincing. There was a tawdry coating of failure and loss all over Vasari's panels. I couldn't wait to get away from them.
Still, we stood there. Ciatti shook his head, and then he said, "There's something that might work." Trasporto Trasporto was, of course, out of the question. You couldn't excavate the wood away from behind in the usual way, not when in some places the paint had erupted a half inch upward from the original panel. After was, of course, out of the question. You couldn't excavate the wood away from behind in the usual way, not when in some places the paint had erupted a half inch upward from the original panel. After trasporto trasporto you'd have a crumpled, brittle membrane of paint that would disintegrate if you so much as looked at it sideways. you'd have a crumpled, brittle membrane of paint that would disintegrate if you so much as looked at it sideways.
And, after all, what, Ciatti asked, was a panel painting without a panel? Trasporto Trasporto was as falsifying as it was risky: in sacrificing the wood panel, it destroyed an entire physical and visual dimension of the artwork in order to save the two-dimensional image. It was only defensible as a last resort, even assuming you could carry it off. Ciatti had something else in mind, something he'd tried on a less ambitious scale almost twenty years before. There'd been a flood-damaged panel was as falsifying as it was risky: in sacrificing the wood panel, it destroyed an entire physical and visual dimension of the artwork in order to save the two-dimensional image. It was only defensible as a last resort, even assuming you could carry it off. Ciatti had something else in mind, something he'd tried on a less ambitious scale almost twenty years before. There'd been a flood-damaged panel Crocifisso Crocifisso by Giotto's contemporary Lippo di Benivieni from Santa Croce, in similar condition. As Baldini had done with the Cimabue, they viewed its wooden support as an essential part of the work and therefore ruled out by Giotto's contemporary Lippo di Benivieni from Santa Croce, in similar condition. As Baldini had done with the Cimabue, they viewed its wooden support as an essential part of the work and therefore ruled out trasporto. trasporto. Instead, they'd used a custom-made saw to slice the paint and its ground longitudinally from the panel in one piece. The paint-now two millimeters thick-was intact, as was the original panel. After the rucked and blistered ground of the paint was leveled and reconsolidated it was reunited with the panel. The only inauthentic ingredient in the entire work was the thin layer of bonding that held them together. Instead, they'd used a custom-made saw to slice the paint and its ground longitudinally from the panel in one piece. The paint-now two millimeters thick-was intact, as was the original panel. After the rucked and blistered ground of the paint was leveled and reconsolidated it was reunited with the panel. The only inauthentic ingredient in the entire work was the thin layer of bonding that held them together.
Ciatti's saw was analogous to a microtome, a device used to cut tissue samples for lab analysis. But with the Vasari, to maintain a consistent thickness the blade would have to move not just through the wood laterally but up or down relative to the uneven surface. Ciatti was thinking that by using new technology, the irregularities could be mapped with lasers and the blade guided by computer. It was all speculation at this point. They needed money and time-especially time-to see what was possible.
As we walked back Ciatti greeted several of his staff. One of them was Paola Bracco, who I knew had been Ornella Casazza's partner on the Crocifisso. Crocifisso. She'd also worked on the di Benivieni that Ciatti had just been telling me about. She stood in her white lab coat next to a small panel painting, a late medieval saint from the look of it. Her hand rested on an adjacent table crowded with chemicals, paint, brushes, and tools. Bracco looked to be about sixty-five, keen, genial, but unassuming. Unlike Casazza, she was still, now, a quotidian practitioner of her craft, an artisan-physician to wounded artworks. I imagined she must be content, although I knew nothing of her life. As Ciatti and I departed I shook her hand. I'd spent a lot of time by now studying Cimabue, and this was the hand that for an entire year had tended his broken Christ. She'd also worked on the di Benivieni that Ciatti had just been telling me about. She stood in her white lab coat next to a small panel painting, a late medieval saint from the look of it. Her hand rested on an adjacent table crowded with chemicals, paint, brushes, and tools. Bracco looked to be about sixty-five, keen, genial, but unassuming. Unlike Casazza, she was still, now, a quotidian practitioner of her craft, an artisan-physician to wounded artworks. I imagined she must be content, although I knew nothing of her life. As Ciatti and I departed I shook her hand. I'd spent a lot of time by now studying Cimabue, and this was the hand that for an entire year had tended his broken Christ.
3.
It was May and in a month I'd have to return to America. On the Ponte alla Carraia there was a truck with a hoist and a team of laborers with chain saws, some of them wearing scuba gear. They were standing on the tangle of debris wrapped around the north pier, cutting through the larger trunks, then attaching the hoist's cable to pull them loose. But beyond clipping back some of the longer trees and limbs, they didn't succeed much in reducing the bulk of the islet. Five months of the Arno bearing down on it had compacted and consolidated the snarl of flotsam into an impenetrably solid mesh. The workers might have been embarrassed to have accomplished so little with their engines, cables, and chain saws. Surely their ancestors seven hundred years ago hadn't been so easily stymied.
It was by then time for me to find Umberto Baldini. He was eighty-four years old, but by all accounts vigorous. After his retirement he'd founded a private college of restauro restauro and museum curating, the Universita Internazionale dell'Arte, where he was still teaching. I'd gotten his phone number and I'd been told he was approachable, that he even liked to give interviews. and museum curating, the Universita Internazionale dell'Arte, where he was still teaching. I'd gotten his phone number and I'd been told he was approachable, that he even liked to give interviews.
I dialed the number and I was afraid he wouldn't answer. Or that he would answer. Baldini was by now a legendary figure in my mind, maybe mythic. He had become the central figure in my story-at least among the living-without my quite intending it, almost as large as the river. But he, or someone, answered. It was an old if not weary voice, cultured and modulated. It was Baldini. I told him who I was, and his tone rose, as though he knew who I was. Maybe he'd heard about the American asking questions about the flood, asking questions about him.
He told me to call back in a week. He was busy reading papers and exams. It was the end of the academic year. I shouldn't worry-we'd talk. I felt relieved.
Seven days later, to the day, to the hour, I telephoned again. He knew it was me before I'd said three words, and I was taken aback at this eerie prescience. (It didn't occur to me that my execrable Italian delivered in a Midwestern buzz-saw accent might distinguish me from his other habitual callers.) He told me to call back next week. He was still reading exams.
When I called back a week later a woman answered. I asked if Dottore Baldini was there. No, she said. I told her that he had told me to call him today, as though this would somehow have precluded him from going out. "He's in the hospital," she said. I asked, densely, when he'd be back. "I don't know. He's old. He's sick," she replied, and hung up. Months later I realized the woman must have been Ornella Casazza.
Two weeks afterward I was back in Seattle. I spent the summer reading about Cimabue, Vasari, Leonardo, and the first art tourists and expatriates who followed them to Florence. On August 17 I read Umberto Baldini's obituary in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Post-Intelligencer. He had, indeed, been a great man, great enough to have his passing noticed far away in a medium-sized city in America. "Savior of Florentine Art," the subheadline said. He had, indeed, been a great man, great enough to have his passing noticed far away in a medium-sized city in America. "Savior of Florentine Art," the subheadline said.
I felt dread: I'd lost my chance to speak to my protagonist. There were things he knew that no one else knew. But I was also strangely relieved. I wouldn't have to undergo the trial of trying to appear competent before him, to ask intelligent questions, to extract the truth I wanted from him. Just a month earlier I'd had dinner with a prominent art historian. Hearing I was researching the Crocifisso Crocifisso, he said, "It's Baldini who should have been crucified for what he did to that Cimabue."
Perhaps I feared I wouldn't know what to make of him; that I'd be either taken in or too suspicious, that I wouldn't be able truly to see him or-perhaps just as likely-to see past him. But now he'd eluded me, slipped away into the great sea. That, people might have said, was just like him.
Whatever I wrote now would be, by necessity, a variety of restauro restauro, with all its concomitant dilemmas of falsification; of infilling, abstraction, and synthetic bonds. If I was fortunate, it might be as good as his Cimabue, or at least not worse: 20 percent of Baldini would still be apparent in it and the rest wouldn't be a gross distraction or distortion. But then I'd been to see the Crocifisso Crocifisso a dozen times and I couldn't make the least sense of it-of whether it was a masterpiece and whether Baldini's a dozen times and I couldn't make the least sense of it-of whether it was a masterpiece and whether Baldini's restauro restauro added or detracted from it. It was tempting to use the word "enigmatic," surely one of the great cliches in discourse about art: there was the enigma of the added or detracted from it. It was tempting to use the word "enigmatic," surely one of the great cliches in discourse about art: there was the enigma of the Mona Lisa Mona Lisa, of Piero della Francesca, of Caravaggio, and, later, of much of the entire modern movement. It might indicate mystery, the refusal of the work of art to resolve itself in an expected way, or pure incomprehension on the viewer's part-a failure of imagination, vision, or simple nerve.
But Cimabue's Crocifisso Crocifisso was no enigma at all. It was, I thought, what it was, and it remained so: Francis's fully human Christ. To claim that the chromatic abstraction somehow prevented one from seeing it was to be thick as a plank or maybe just God's fool, as Francis himself claimed to be. But, still, was it beautiful? Was it art? was no enigma at all. It was, I thought, what it was, and it remained so: Francis's fully human Christ. To claim that the chromatic abstraction somehow prevented one from seeing it was to be thick as a plank or maybe just God's fool, as Francis himself claimed to be. But, still, was it beautiful? Was it art?
4.
When I returned to Florence in September I discovered there had been, beyond the death of Umberto Baldini, other developments. In July, Guido Bertolaso of the Department of Civil Defense had announced that he'd found another 200,000, which he was earmarking for the restauro restauro of Donatello's of Donatello's David David in the Bargello. As with in the Bargello. As with The Last Supper The Last Supper, no one in Florence knew anything about it. Also, as before, none of 250,000 promised for the Vasari earlier had yet turned up at the Fortezza. Regardless, the Angels of Florence group announced they were withdrawing from the Last Supper Last Supper restoration. There were other worthy projects, and the grandstanding and incoherence surrounding the Vasari made it an untenable situation. restoration. There were other worthy projects, and the grandstanding and incoherence surrounding the Vasari made it an untenable situation.
Meanwhile Marco Ferri's investigations on behalf of Il Giornale della Toscana Il Giornale della Toscana had turned up another eight abandoned paintings in a Palazzo Pitti storage room that was supposed to be empty. When interviewed, the official in charge of the had turned up another eight abandoned paintings in a Palazzo Pitti storage room that was supposed to be empty. When interviewed, the official in charge of the deposito deposito explained that explained that that that particular particular deposito deposito was outside her jurisdiction. But apparently it wasn't under anyone else's either. was outside her jurisdiction. But apparently it wasn't under anyone else's either.
I'd gone back to work interviewing people and reading old records and newspapers. Late in September, the month of the lowest water on the Arno, the divers and chain saw cutters came back again to the north pier of Ponte alla Carraia. It was a reassuring sight. After a few days they disappeared, and, although I was quite convinced they hadn't made so much as a dent in the thicket, that too was reassuring. I was becoming, I imagined, acclimated in Florence.
Through the autumn my intention was to learn everything I could about restauro restauro and, more particularly, about Umberto Baldini. I went to see Cristina Acidini, who was superintendent of both the Fortezza and the Uffizi. She'd been a mud angel at age fourteen and now she held Ugo Procacci's old position. When Baldini had died in the summer of 2006, she wrote the official tribute on behalf of the Superintendency. and, more particularly, about Umberto Baldini. I went to see Cristina Acidini, who was superintendent of both the Fortezza and the Uffizi. She'd been a mud angel at age fourteen and now she held Ugo Procacci's old position. When Baldini had died in the summer of 2006, she wrote the official tribute on behalf of the Superintendency.
Acidini's conversation seemed to me a curious mixture of official discretion and frankness. She didn't volunteer anything about Baldini that wasn't in the obituary she had already written, but was happy to discuss the parlous state of the Superintendency itself. She didn't, for example, have money in her budget to buy fuel for the motor fleet, but there was, on the other hand, several 100,000 earmarked and ready for projects there wasn't time or staff to launch. Her responsibilities overlapped with other directors of other agencies. Only Rome, apparently, had a copy of the organization chart. "We're all pieces on the ministry's chessboard," she sighed.
Acidini had, however, news regarding the Vasari Last Supper. Last Supper. Bertolaso had in fact finally issued a check for the 250,000, but had sent it to the wrong bank account. It should have gone to the Patrimonio Storico Artistico at the Palazzo Pitti. I should go talk to its director, an art historian named Bruno Santi. Bertolaso had in fact finally issued a check for the 250,000, but had sent it to the wrong bank account. It should have gone to the Patrimonio Storico Artistico at the Palazzo Pitti. I should go talk to its director, an art historian named Bruno Santi.
Santi too had been a mud angel, an art history student in 1966, who nearly forfeited his last exam on account of the flood. Now he held one of the most important cultural posts in Tuscany. We sat in his office in the Palazzo Pitti, the rooms Ugo Procacci had occupied when the Germans blew up the bridges and Frederick Hartt rolled up in his Lucky 13. Like Acidini, Santi offered me only the customary boilerplate about Baldini, but he did tell me he'd first met him in the Limonaia just after the flood: he and another mud angel, an English kid named John Schofield, had been put in charge of keeping mold off the Cimabue Crocifisso. Crocifisso. Baldini and his restorers hadn't even realized that the cross was being consumed from the rear by runaway mold. But he and Schofield had gotten it under control; or, really, John had. All the ideas, right down to buying a drugstore perfume atomizer, had been his. John Schofield was one of the people, as much as Procacci and Baldini, who'd saved the Baldini and his restorers hadn't even realized that the cross was being consumed from the rear by runaway mold. But he and Schofield had gotten it under control; or, really, John had. All the ideas, right down to buying a drugstore perfume atomizer, had been his. John Schofield was one of the people, as much as Procacci and Baldini, who'd saved the Crocifisso. Crocifisso. I should call him-I promised Santi I would-and say hello from Bruno. Maybe they'd see each other again this November. I should call him-I promised Santi I would-and say hello from Bruno. Maybe they'd see each other again this November.
The fortieth-anniversary commemorations of the flood were already in evidence by early October. A mud angel reunion had been scheduled, discussion panels organized, and exhibitions curated. Nick Kraczyna's photographs from the first few days of the flood were going to be published by the press of Syracuse University, on whose Florence faculty he now taught printmaking. Marco Ciatti had composed a massive catalog to accompany the unveilings of the Fortezza's restauro restauro of the Salviati of the Salviati Deposition Deposition and other works from Santa Croce. Giovanni Menduni would do a reading from his and other works from Santa Croce. Giovanni Menduni would do a reading from his Dizionario. Dizionario.
The habitual discussions and suspicions of every other anniversary of the flood were also surfacing, albeit more prominently and insistently than in other years. Giorgio Bocca, perhaps the most distinguished journalist in Italy, weighed in on the dams. Bocca had fought as a partisan against the Nazis, which lent him an authority, at least on the political left, few commentators could match. He lamented the "recklessness of those who had allowed the flood to take place" and cited the Sunday Times Sunday Times investigation of forty years earlier as his authority, the gospel in what had long ago become a matter of belief rather than fact. investigation of forty years earlier as his authority, the gospel in what had long ago become a matter of belief rather than fact.
Meanwhile Marco Ciatti launched an uncharacteristic preemptive counterattack against the accusations he correctly assumed would come with the anniversary. The legend of the Cimabue Crocifisso Crocifisso floating facedown in the refectory-everyone knew it; people had seen it, regardless of what floating facedown in the refectory-everyone knew it; people had seen it, regardless of what they they had said-was by now an old if unforgotten canard. But Ferri's expose and Bertolaso's showy largesse from Rome had sharpened the media's taste for stories of the Fortezza's supposed ineptitude and procrastination. In his catalog for the Fortezza's exhibition Ciatti wrote, "Only the arrogant superficiality of a few journalists has allowed the responsible methodological attitude followed in projects [by the Fortezza] to be interpreted as an incapacity to act." Not since Baldini had appealed to the evidence of David Lees's photographs of the upright had said-was by now an old if unforgotten canard. But Ferri's expose and Bertolaso's showy largesse from Rome had sharpened the media's taste for stories of the Fortezza's supposed ineptitude and procrastination. In his catalog for the Fortezza's exhibition Ciatti wrote, "Only the arrogant superficiality of a few journalists has allowed the responsible methodological attitude followed in projects [by the Fortezza] to be interpreted as an incapacity to act." Not since Baldini had appealed to the evidence of David Lees's photographs of the upright Crocifisso Crocifisso had the Fortezza been so assertive in its self-defense. had the Fortezza been so assertive in its self-defense.
For whatever reasons, by the beginning of November it seemed to me that the predicted carping had been replaced by a sense of occasion, of a suddenly recognized need to remember and to think rather than speculate and blame; to recollect the losses and the deeds of those days in a serious and even self-critical manner. I was surprised, for example, to read an interview with Antonio Paolucci, one of Cristina Acidini's predecessors at the Superintendency, that seemed to suggest Florence's art was at the root of some of the city's problems rather than purely its crowning glory. The city was a "monoculture," "a kind of victim of art," that was driving out traditional artisans in favor of "shows" rather than genuine new artwork and restauro restauro of the old. Florence was in real danger of becoming a museum of itself, not just in the highbrow Berensonian sense, but in embodying all the worst aspects of the contemporary world of blockbuster exhibitions: the museum as a brand, a theme park dislocated from place, time, or context; from what Ruskin would have simply called the real. of the old. Florence was in real danger of becoming a museum of itself, not just in the highbrow Berensonian sense, but in embodying all the worst aspects of the contemporary world of blockbuster exhibitions: the museum as a brand, a theme park dislocated from place, time, or context; from what Ruskin would have simply called the real.
The Arno too was being seen in a different light. Florentines had never imagined it as simply the villain of 1966, but as a moody, obstreperous relation, half child and half paterfamilias. You couldn't really blame the river; if Florentines hadn't wanted to deal with it, they shouldn't have moved their settlement down from Fiesole two millennia ago.
That attitude was manifest at a reading and panel discussion of Giovanni Menduni's Dizionario dell'Arno Dizionario dell'Arno a few days before the anniversary. There were questions about the Arno as a present danger to be controlled as well as the possibility of being able to predict its floods. Menduni responded to these a little impatiently. It was Leonardo's Arno, it seemed, that he wanted to talk about and to reflect upon, the Arno as metaphor, as the connecting thread that ran through Florence and Tuscany's heart and soul, the creative force that sculpted and washed it away, so as to begin again. The Arno was, for Menduni, the Hammond B-3 he'd never owned-the one that the river itself had drowned and smashed to splinters-upon which he could improvise and compose. a few days before the anniversary. There were questions about the Arno as a present danger to be controlled as well as the possibility of being able to predict its floods. Menduni responded to these a little impatiently. It was Leonardo's Arno, it seemed, that he wanted to talk about and to reflect upon, the Arno as metaphor, as the connecting thread that ran through Florence and Tuscany's heart and soul, the creative force that sculpted and washed it away, so as to begin again. The Arno was, for Menduni, the Hammond B-3 he'd never owned-the one that the river itself had drowned and smashed to splinters-upon which he could improvise and compose.
5.
I'd imagined November 4, 2006, would be something like November 4, 2005, or perhaps even November 4, 1966. But it resembled neither of those. It was eerily clear, still, and cool, like a placid summer day with the temperature lowered by thirty degrees. I got up early. There were a half dozen events I wanted to attend, most of them overlapping.
The first was a mass in the Duomo presided over by the archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Antonelli, in memory of the dead and in honor of the city emergency workers who'd rescued the survivors. On an ordinary day, the Duomo was divided into two parts, the rear two-thirds swarming with tourists and the area around the altar reserved for prayer and services, nearly deserted but thrumming with the overspill of tourists' voices. But today the whole place was opened up, filled from one end to the other with neither tourists nor the devout, but ordinary Florentines, working Florentines who normally stayed in their own neighborhoods, in San Frediano or Santa Croce. A large number of them wore the uniforms of police, firefighters, and paramedics. These were the Florentines you never saw anywhere near the Duomo, reclaiming the heart of their city for a day.
The mass began with a procession, the same slightly disconcerting mix of the ecclesiastical and the civic, the Franciscan and Machiavellian, that had attended Pope Paul on Christmas 1966. Men in martial Renaissance dress carried the Gonfalone, Florence's republican flag, followed by a line of priests, deacons, acolytes, and the cardinal. The Duomo was crammed with people, and I pressed myself up against a column perhaps thirty feet from the altar. A portrait of Dante-Giotto's friend, the recorder of Cimabue's declining fame-was fixed on the wall opposite me, and above me was Vasari's painted cupola, the vast rendering of Heaven and Hell that covered the inscape of Brunelleschi's dome. It was Vasari's last public work and his most prestigious, the plum project he hadn't lived to see finished.
The mass began and I watched the demons and the damned they tormented hovering above me. Their heavenly counterparts seemed a little bland in comparison. That was the usual complaint about Vasari. He hadn't painted painted God and Christ in their majesty and mercy, but flattered them. But his monsters were monstrous. God and Christ in their majesty and mercy, but flattered them. But his monsters were monstrous.
Then came the readings. The first was the story of Noah. I'd wondered if anyone would allude to it today, and had imagined no, it would be obvious or corny and possibly in bad taste. It seemed neither apt nor kind to impose this fairy tale on people who'd lost real loved ones, homes, and livelihoods in the flood: their story was a fact while this was a "story." But although I thought I knew a fair amount about how to "read" a work of art like the Vasari looming overhead, I'd seemed to have lost the capacity to read a story like this one.
I couldn't see that Noah's story was the story of both the the flood and every flood, as Mary was both flood and every flood, as Mary was both the the mother and every mother in all the mother and every mother in all the Maestas Maestas of Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto. It's in this way that images and stories extend themselves outward to include and comprehend each and every particular; come to mean rather than merely stand apart as objects, to incorporate us and our experience within them. That capability, before we started calling it art, was art. And that was why, in Cimabue's day, when every of Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto. It's in this way that images and stories extend themselves outward to include and comprehend each and every particular; come to mean rather than merely stand apart as objects, to incorporate us and our experience within them. That capability, before we started calling it art, was art. And that was why, in Cimabue's day, when every crocifisso crocifisso was the was the Crocifisso- Crocifisso-particular and universal, every example an exemplar-the maker took such pains over his timber, his ground, and his paints.
So, as they listened to the Noah story, there were three or four thousand Florentines-cops, nurses, firefighters, people who ran cafes and bars, bakers, clerks, and carpenters-who understood this, even if it was beyond me. And what happened at the end of the Noah story was a promise: that, when the waters withdrew, there would be a new alleanza- alleanza-a compact or alliance-between God and man, between Creator and creature, between hope and this broken, drowned, sodden world. So Noah and the deluge, in fact, was precisely the story to read on this occasion. There was no irony in it. For Francis, Cimabue, and even Vasari, the promise was going to be fulfilled, and that was why you painted Last Suppers Last Suppers and and Crocifissi. Crocifissi. There'd been a flood and there was loss and now there would be consolation. And so we go on. There'd been a flood and there was loss and now there would be consolation. And so we go on.
Maybe, huddled against my pillar, scratching in my notebook, I didn't really "read" anything as well as I thought I did, least of all art. Maybe I didn't even understand the Vasari looming overhead, at least not well enough to claim that my taste was of a higher order than Vasari's technique.
After the readings the cardinal rose to give his homily, and I expected truisms and uplifting hooey from him, or at best elegies. He mentioned, of course, the rescue workers, the angeli angeli, and the patient, sometimes misunderstood Catholic humanism of Mayor Bargellini. But he also took up the notion of a new alleanza alleanza from the Noah story and asked what it might mean. What kind of city would Florence be after its flood? The cardinal was tough-minded. As matters stood, Florence hadn't done much on its side of the bargain. Today the from the Noah story and asked what it might mean. What kind of city would Florence be after its flood? The cardinal was tough-minded. As matters stood, Florence hadn't done much on its side of the bargain. Today the centro centro was dominated by offices, high-end shops, tourists, and overseas students able to pay exorbitant rents while artisans and working families were abandoning their historic was dominated by offices, high-end shops, tourists, and overseas students able to pay exorbitant rents while artisans and working families were abandoning their historic quartieri quartieri, leaving a lonely and sick population of the elderly behind. It was a harsh assessment, but, he said, a necessary one. The energies people had found in themselves forty years ago needed to be revived. Community, family, and faith would help, but so too would art, leading into and out of them. I couldn't make out the last few words of the cardinal's homily, but I know-I heard it clearly-that the final one was bellezza bellezza, "beauty."
After the mass, I went to the Palazzo Vecchio for a reunion of the angeli angeli held in the building's grandest public room, the Salone dei Cinquecento. By my reckoning-no one knew exactly-there had been at most fifteen hundred held in the building's grandest public room, the Salone dei Cinquecento. By my reckoning-no one knew exactly-there had been at most fifteen hundred angeli. angeli. If so, it seemed that almost all of them were here, a mass of late-middle-aged people who looked surprisingly youthful-the mud had preserved them, someone joked-talking ebulliently, almost desperately, in the manner of people who have shared an adventure and haven't seen each other in a very long time. They were surrounded by a younger generation of television crews, reporters, and organizers, men and women who might have been their children; not much older than they'd been in 1966. If so, it seemed that almost all of them were here, a mass of late-middle-aged people who looked surprisingly youthful-the mud had preserved them, someone joked-talking ebulliently, almost desperately, in the manner of people who have shared an adventure and haven't seen each other in a very long time. They were surrounded by a younger generation of television crews, reporters, and organizers, men and women who might have been their children; not much older than they'd been in 1966.
The official program began with flags, more men in Renaissance costumes, and welcomes from civic officials. John Schofield's friend from art school in London, Susan Glasspool, spoke. In many ways she embodied the collective experience of the angeli. angeli. Bilingual, possessed by a love of art, she'd come from another country, but had stayed. She'd saved books and artworks, and best of all, she'd found love, a husband among her fellow Bilingual, possessed by a love of art, she'd come from another country, but had stayed. She'd saved books and artworks, and best of all, she'd found love, a husband among her fellow angeli. angeli. Like everyone else's subsequent life, her story was not quite the one they'd all envisioned forty years before: the world had not been transformed, was arguably no better than it had been, and maybe a little worse. But they had saved a bit of the better parts of it, maybe even some of the best of it, a masterpiece here or there. They'd believed, against cynicism and despair, that there was something in it worth saving; things that meant more than themselves, things that could save you by your saving them. Like everyone else's subsequent life, her story was not quite the one they'd all envisioned forty years before: the world had not been transformed, was arguably no better than it had been, and maybe a little worse. But they had saved a bit of the better parts of it, maybe even some of the best of it, a masterpiece here or there. They'd believed, against cynicism and despair, that there was something in it worth saving; things that meant more than themselves, things that could save you by your saving them.
The angeli angeli were by no means congratulating themselves, but they seemed pleased and somehow surprised to be in Florence again, together. Had they really been here all those years ago, in all that cold, damp, and mud? They hadn't been heroes: they'd been having the time of their lives. The odd thing was not so much the memory of what had been, but that they'd ended up here, after all this time, as old people, having persisted all that while just like everything they'd saved in Florence. I'd been looking for John Schofield-we'd talked on the telephone several times-but he hadn't been able to come. He was busy renovating his family's old home in Cornwall, busy tending his mother, who was old and ailing. were by no means congratulating themselves, but they seemed pleased and somehow surprised to be in Florence again, together. Had they really been here all those years ago, in all that cold, damp, and mud? They hadn't been heroes: they'd been having the time of their lives. The odd thing was not so much the memory of what had been, but that they'd ended up here, after all this time, as old people, having persisted all that while just like everything they'd saved in Florence. I'd been looking for John Schofield-we'd talked on the telephone several times-but he hadn't been able to come. He was busy renovating his family's old home in Cornwall, busy tending his mother, who was old and ailing. Restauro, sempre. Restauro, sempre.
My eye wandered up the high walls and ceiling, tumescent with gilding and murals. Here, as in the Duomo, we were being overseen by another gargantuan Vasari, his La Battaglia di Marciano La Battaglia di Marciano, whose clashing armies formed a kind of counterpart to the milling angeli angeli below. It was said that Vasari overpainted his mural on an unfinished Leonardo masterpiece, below. It was said that Vasari overpainted his mural on an unfinished Leonardo masterpiece, La Battaglia di Anghiari La Battaglia di Anghiari; genius wallpapered over by competent mediocrity, as the connoisseurs would have it. In upper center was Vasari's cryptic legend cerca trova cerca trova, "seek, find," which some believe is a coded reference to the painting underneath, which might even be intact, protected behind a hollow cavity. The word "enigma" again came uselessly to mind. Vasari was famously practical, not someone given to sly mysteries or hoaxes. So perhaps cerca trova cerca trova meant no more or less than the tale of Noah did; perhaps it meant to simply get on with your work, mine, Vasari's, or anyone's. meant no more or less than the tale of Noah did; perhaps it meant to simply get on with your work, mine, Vasari's, or anyone's.
Just before noon I went to the Arno, to the Ponte Vecchio. It was full of people but didn't feel crowded in the usual way. It was almost silent. The bells would begin to toll soon, all over the city, up and down the river. Drummers in Renaissance dress would pound out a dull funereal beat. Children in red jackets were standing by, waiting, holding lilies and marguerites. All this for the dead.
At noon the bells and drums began and the children gathered at the center of the downstream side of the bridge. They had perhaps three dozen flowers in all, one for each victim; one at least for the youngest, Marina Ripari, who would now be forty-three; one for the bravest, Carlo Maggiorelli, who stayed at his post on the aqueduct until the water siphoned him away; one for the one who suffered most of all, Azelide Benedetti, who drowned in the cage of her apartment, lashed to her window bars.
The children began to throw their flowers over the parapet into the river. The flowers would float on the Arno all the way to the sea. They'd drift in the Tyrrhenian like beautiful wreckage. But the river was slack today, dead still, so unlike itself. The flowers languished motionless, almost beneath the arch of the bridge. Then-perhaps an invisible puff of Shelley's west wind came up, or perhaps it was a trick of the eye-the river almost seemed for an instant to be flowing upstream, carrying the flowers with it, against itself, back toward Monte Falterona. Cerca trova. Cerca trova. You might seek, and find-not an enigma but a small miracle, a fragment of You might seek, and find-not an enigma but a small miracle, a fragment of bellezza bellezza, a leaf or a flower on the stream, ascending.
6.
The restorers and conservators who'd come from overseas and worked as or alongside the angeli angeli had their own reunion a few days later at La Pietra, Harold Acton's villa, which was now owned by New York University. Nick Kraczyna had told me about it. He was excited. He was going to see people like Joe Nkrumah and Tony Cains for the first time in decades. I found a way to go along. had their own reunion a few days later at La Pietra, Harold Acton's villa, which was now owned by New York University. Nick Kraczyna had told me about it. He was excited. He was going to see people like Joe Nkrumah and Tony Cains for the first time in decades. I found a way to go along.
The Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU was sponsoring the event, and scholarly papers-some of them quite technical-would be presented. Nick would settle down Nkrumah and Cains and they'd reprise the tale of the totaled Volkswagen and Joe's broken leg. But the formal point of the symposium was to examine the legacy of the flood as it applied to restorers and conservators. The book conservators formed the largest contingent, people from overseas who'd come to Florence's libraries and had invented their profession in the process. The presiding genius of the entire operation, Peter Waters, had died the previous year, a victim of the asbestos tools he'd used in his work. His wife, Sheila, spoke in his stead without sentimentality or conceit. They'd done a good job. They had learned a lot.
In another session Marco Grassi, who'd pasted velinatura velinatura on the Vasari on the Vasari Last Supper Last Supper, looked back with some amusement on what they'd all accomplished, given their age, inexperience, and naivete, their capacity to slap together jerry-built solutions and recover from their own blunders. It had been an achievement merely to slog through the mud, the liquefied chaos that clung to your feet, hands, and entire body, that was always slowly, tirelessly laboring to pull you in and under.
Now they were all grown up: Grassi himself was a beautifully spoken, elegant gentleman who divided his time between Manhattan and Florence. These one-time angeli angeli held positions of great responsibility, were held positions of great responsibility, were dottori dottori, professori professori, gran' signori. gran' signori. But together they'd had this grimy golden youth. Afterward, lunch was served and people made plans to meet in the city that night for drinks and dinner, to talk into the night, to laugh and reminisce. But together they'd had this grimy golden youth. Afterward, lunch was served and people made plans to meet in the city that night for drinks and dinner, to talk into the night, to laugh and reminisce.
Then Joe Nkrumah took the podium. He'd always cut a large figure, physically and in the gravitational force of his character. Now the director of the Foundation for Contemporary Art in Accra, he'd come all the way from Ghana. He'd aged magnificently. Vested in a blue and gray boubou, he looked like a prophet or a king. He began in his customary manner, sly, jocund, and self-deprecating. And then he said, "Joe Nkrumah is a very angry man." He repeated this twice more, and he laid into all of them, and especially into himself. "We can't finish even one one thing," he continued. "Half our work is still awaiting completion. We couldn't create an institution to finish it." He shook his head. "If art is important, if culture is our soul, our identity . . ." His voiced ebbed into silence. thing," he continued. "Half our work is still awaiting completion. We couldn't create an institution to finish it." He shook his head. "If art is important, if culture is our soul, our identity . . ." His voiced ebbed into silence.
He began again. "So I'm angry. Forty years on, I can't see much of what I-what we-did." He shook his head again, as though he'd had a text he'd misplaced, or thrown away. "Why do we even care . . . to disturb the dead, to disturb the dead, if this is how we are-not finishing this work." And he stepped off the dais and went back to his seat near Nick Kraczyna.
Afterward there was a presentation about loose vellum bindings, and another about the solubility of acrylic resins. Or I think they were. I was preoccupied. I couldn't quite understand what Nkrumah had been so angry about, why he'd trailed dejection through the room amid all the fond nostalgia, the hard-earned ease of these people who'd saved so much. And statistically, he wasn't right: I'd checked, and there were at most 25 percent of the Biblioteca Nazionale's flooded books left to restore.
The next morning I went down to the river and crossed the Ponte Santa Trinita to a photographic exhibition at the Palazzo Vecchio. I'd seen Nick's photographs-grainy, angular, and precipitate-and Zeffirelli's film, with its gyres of water and floating cars and the bleak overcast of Burton's voice. But these were David Lees's photographs. They'd been enlarged to a massive scale and hung, illumined by pools of light, within a shadowy, vaulted room.
I'd seen them again and again over the last year, and I knew, of course, who David Lees was. So I must have known that his were the photographs by which I'd come to know about the flood when I was a boy: it went without saying. But I hadn't seen it. It was a face I hadn't recognized. And then, gazing at the Madonna poised on her delta of mud, I remembered.
In many ways the other photographs I'd seen were more immediate, and I suppose they gave a truer impression of what the flood had really been like: the disorder and filth, the unraveling of every normalcy and routine, the panic, misery, tears, and shrugs. But the profound impression I received from Lees's photographs was of an eerie motionless silence, peace as far as the eye could see; Leonardo's infinite water, now calm, and a bird settling upon a drifting tangle of bodies, an islet of stilled flesh.
It was terrible, or at least sad, and yet I might have just then been back in Minnesota forty years before, looking-languid and spread upon the sofa or the blue wool carpeting-at a magazine, seeing tragedy five thousand miles distant rendered into beauty, entering me, asking me to give it its due. It made me think of those forty years, and what I'd made of them, and I think then I knew a little of what Joe Nkrumah had been trying to say. In my life, in all the things I might have saved and remade, I hadn't done the half of it, either.
I wanted to know everything about David Lees. I was sure he was dead, but I looked in our two-year-old telephone directory, and he was listed as residing just down the street from us, opposite the Piazza Santo Spirito. There was no answer. He'd been dead two years. But the catalog for the exhibition listed a Lorenzo Lees among the acknowledgments. Surely this was a relative and surely, given the unusual name-half Italian, half English-he could be tracked down. wanted to know everything about David Lees. I was sure he was dead, but I looked in our two-year-old telephone directory, and he was listed as residing just down the street from us, opposite the Piazza Santo Spirito. There was no answer. He'd been dead two years. But the catalog for the exhibition listed a Lorenzo Lees among the acknowledgments. Surely this was a relative and surely, given the unusual name-half Italian, half English-he could be tracked down.