Florence all lit up for the celebration of Italy’s 150 years of unification! Here you can see Palazzo Vecchio all lit up in green, white and red!

The tower had the Italian flag down its side, there were flags everywhere, lots of people in the square and music to accompany the festive air. Happy 150 years, Italy!

History Florence

The 1966 Flood of the River Arno in Florence killed many people and damaged or destroyed millions of masterpieces of art and rare books in Florence. It is considered the worst flood in the city’s history since 1557.
With the combined effort of Italian citizens and foreign donors and committees, or angeli del fango (“Mud Angels”), many of these fine works have been restored. New methods inconservation were devised and restoration laboratories established. However, even decades later, much work remains to be done.

November 3, 1966
After a long period of steady rain, the Levane and La Penna dams in Valdarno began to emit more than 70,629 cubic feet (2,000.0 m3) of water per second toward Florence.
At 2:30pm, the Civil Engineering Department reported “‘an exceptional quantity of water.’”
Cellars in the Santa Croce and San Frediano areas began to flood.
Police received calls for assistance from villagers up the Arno Valley.
The flood’s first victim, a 52 year old workman, died while trying to reach a crumbling aqueduct.
November 4, 1966
At 4:00am, engineers, fearing that the Valdarno dam would burst, discharged a mass of water that eventually reached the outskirts of Florence at a rate of 37 miles per hour.
At 7:26am, the Lungarno delle Grazie cut off gas, electricity and water supplies to affected areas.
By 8:00am, army barracks were flooded.
By 9:00am, hospital emergency generators (the only source of electrical power remaining) failed.
Landslides obstructed roads leading to Florence, while narrow streets within city limits funneled floodwaters, increasing their height and velocity.
By 9:45am, the Piazza del Duomo was flooded.
The powerful waters ruptured central heating oil tanks, and the oil mixed with the water and mud, causing greater damage.
Florence was divided in two, and officials were unable to immediately reach citizens of the city past the Piazza Michelangelo.
At its highest, the water reached over 22 feet (6.7 m) in the Santa Croce area.
By 8:00pm, the water began to lower.
Impact

The flood has had a lasting impact on Florence, economically and culturally. City officials and citizens were extremely unprepared for the storm and the widespread devastation that it caused. There were virtually no emergency measures in place, at least partially due to the fact that Florence is located in an area where the frequency of flooding is relatively low. In fact, approximately 90% of the city’s population were completely unaware of the imminent disaster that would befall them as they were sleeping during the early hours of November 4, 1966.
Residents were set to celebrate their country’s World War I victory over the Austrians on November 4, Armed Forces Day. In commemoration, businesses were closed and many of their employees were out of town for the public holiday. While many lives were likely spared as a result, the locked buildings greatly inhibited the salvaging of valuable materials from numerous institutions and shops, with the exception of a number of jewellery stores whose owners were warned by their nightwatchmen.
Tragically, 5,000 families were left homeless by the storm, and 6,000 stores were forced out of business. Approximately 600,000 tons of mud, rubble and sewage severely damaged or destroyed numerous collections of the written work and fine art for which Florence is famous. In fact, it is estimated that between 3 and 4 million books/manuscripts were damaged, as well as 14,000 movable works of art.
Artist Marco Sassone, in an 1969 interview, recalled the impact of the flood on Florence’s residents: “The only thing you could do was watch and be helpless. Nature was master…the women became crazy with fear. They began throwing things from the windows and screaming ‘who is going to save my children?’” It was reported that 101 people lost their lives in the flood waters.

Leslie Halloran
Please check out my website at: www.lihdesigns.net

“A frog in the well does not know the sea.” Japanese Proverb

Italian style -Church of Santa Caterina

Help save the Church of Santa Caterina in LUCCA – Italian style
There is still time to record your vote to help save and restore one of Lucca’s most beautiful churches. FAI (the Fondo Ambiente Italiano) is a not-forprofit organisation modelled one the UK’s National Trust. It exists to raise funds to support the restoration and care of Italy’s national heritage, whether it be buildings or areas of natural interest, and to raise awareness and improve access to these sites for the benefit of all.
Every other year, it conducts a major survey among Italian residents of the places they would most like to see restored and preserved for future generations.

This project is called I Luoghi del Cuore (places of heart) and FAI uses its results to raise awareness of deserving projects with local and national organisations, and to lobby for their restoration, with the financial support of the bank.
This year, high on the list of potential restoration projects is the Chiesa di Santa Caterina in Lucca, The church sits at the angle of Via del Crocifisso and Via Vittorio Emanuele II, opposite the former cigar factory, the Manifattura Tabacchi, itself scheduled for development by the Comune di Lucca. The unusually ovalshaped church, which dates from the mid 18th century, is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of the high baroque style.

Yet for over 20 years it has been closed, and is now in need of considerable repair. FAI was instrumental in having it opened briefly in May so that luchesi could get a glimpse of its extraordinary interior. If you are registered resident in Italy, and wiuld like to record your support for this architectural gem, here’s what you do. The process is slightly laborious, but only to deter dirty tricks, as this one prize worth winning.

. Go to the project website: www.iluoghidelcuore.it
. Hit the button Segnala il tuo luogo del cuore
. In the pop up screen enter your provincia and Comune, and select Chiesa di Santa Caterina from the choices offered to you (yes there are other deserving projects in Lucca, but the Church of Santa Caterina currently has the best chance of wining funds)
. Add additional comments or photographs if you wish but thi is optional.
. Complete the security test ( a simple addition of numbers)
. Finally press the Completa la segnalazione button, which takes you to the registration page, where you will need to enter your name, address, e-mail address etc.
. You will then receive confirmation that an e-mail has ben sent to you from I luoghi del cuore
. Open the e-mail and hit the Attiva button to confirm your vote (satisfyingly, you will then see the total number of votes cast for your choice increase by one on the I Luoghi del cuore website).
It costs nothing, so please do your bit. Final results will be announced by FAI after voting closes on 30 September.

Exceptionally, the church will be open from 5pm to 8 pm each Saturday and Sunday during the month of September. FAI petitions can be signed at the church while visiting.

Exhibition in Lucca

Immagini del suono (images of Sound)
A series of visual experience to accompany the Summer Festival pop concets. All shows are free.

VILLA BOTTINI
Immagini che suonano bene (great sounding images). Upstairs: photos, paintings, drawings, rock’n roll portraits, installations by Lou Reed, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Anton Corbijn etc.
Downstairs: videos.
Reckless Road Marc Canter’s photos of Guns N’Roses.
Open tuesday to sunday 10.00-13.00 and 16.00-19.00 till 29 August.

MUSEO VILLA GUINIGI (the Casermetta)
Via della Quarquonia, 4 tel. 0583 496033.
Love me Fender
Photos, drawings, memorabilia dedicated to Fender guitar. Open tuesday to sunday 10.00-13.00 and 16.00-19.00, till 29 August

GALLERIA 38  Via del Battistero
Wonderful Tonight photographic exhibition.
Shots of the Beatles in India, Jeff Beck, Rolling Stones etc. taken by Pattie Boyd. Open monday to saturday 10.00-13.00 and 16.00 to 19.30, till 29 August.

PALAZZO GUINIGI
Divas: fro the Dolce Vita to the latest scoop photos from a lifetime’s work by Rino Barillari the King of Paparazzi. Open monday to thursday 10.00-13.00 and 17.00-20.00; same hours and also 21.00-23.00 on friday, saturday, sunday. Till 22 August.

Lu.C.C.A Lucca center of Contemporary Art, Via della Fratta 36.
Steve Mc Curry and Pieatro Gilardi Time after Time. Giuliano Ghelli Le vie del tempo. Otto minuti al sole, un minuto dalla luna. Videoart. Closed mondays. Till 5 September.

VIAREGGIO
Centro Matteucci per l’Arte Moderna
Da Fattori a Casorati. Capolavori dalla collezione Ojetti. Experts have meticulously re-assembled the 19th and 20th century Italian masterpiece collection dispersed when the Florentine home of the writer and art critic Ugo Ojetti was turned into a Hotel. Tuesday – saturday 15.30-19.30 Sunday 14.30-20.00 Closed Mondays. Till 12 September.

Tuscany

Australian author Lisa Clifford’s Death in the Mountains is a true story about the murder of a peasant farmer in the mountains of Casentino in north eastern Tuscany. The murder took place in the winter of 1907, it happened to the great-grandfather of Lisa’s Italian husband and it was never solved – until now.
Detailing the crime, Death in the Mountains also looks at what life was like a hundred years ago. The story paints a very real picture of the struggles, the poverty and the mezzadria farming system that engulfed seventy percent of the Tuscan farming community. Back then, families had to give half of everything they produced to the land’s owners.

The other half was barely enough food for survival. Only one or two generations ago, peasants lived in grinding poverty.
Clifford describes the stark living conditions, snow blowing through roof tiles into bedrooms, the backbreaking nature of the daily work, the lottery of good or bad weather for crop and ultimately family survival. Only one or two generations ago, peasants lived in grinding poverty.
Clifford describes the stark living conditions, snow blowing through roof tiles into bedrooms, the back breaking nature of the daily work, the lottery of good or bad weather for crop and ultimately family survival. The reader feels the cold, the damp and grimness of everyday existence, but also the determination and spirit of that generation.
The quest to solve this murder opens Lisa’s eyes and ultimately our eyes to how people thought back then. A murder was something to be ashmed of not for the murder but for the family of the person murdered. There is much insight into the culture, superstitions, religion and taboos of the times.

After three years of research Lisa solves the murder. She discovers a cousin who holds the key to the mistery and reveals the killer and why it happened. he gives his permission to write the book on the proviso that all the names be changed.
About writing the book, Clifford says, “In an emotional sense, writing Death in the Mountains gave more than I had bargained for. The killing of Grandpa Artemio was a big event in the family village… When I talked to the old people, cousins, and the ederly farmer folk who still live nearby, they recalled with great clarity what their past relatives had said about the famous murder of Artemio Bruni.
In 1907, almost everyone who worked the land was illiterate, so there was a lot of gossip, but no letters or journals to refer to. It was only by talking with people that I could figure out what happened in the onths leading up the murder”.

Death in the Mountains (2009) is published by Pan Macmillin Australia.
It’s available in Florence at the Paperback Exchange for 15,00 euro – www.papex.it, on www.amazon.com

Tuscan traditions

An example of local history: history of Lucca economy.
At hte end of the middle ages, and at the beginning of modern era, the Lucca economy was founded in large measure on the production and trade in silk cloth, business in which Lucca had long been one of the most important centres in western Europe.
Around the provincial capital, the mostly flat stretch of land which broadned to form to so called “Six Miles” was among the most fertile and intensively cultivated areas in Tuscany, with wide grain fields bordered by rows of grapevines and occasionally interspersed with jasmine, olives and fruit trees.

Also the hilly areas and, above all the lower slopes of the Pizzorne mountains were characterised by vines and olive trees, to which began to be added chestnut trees which became more established and largely dominant in the steeper areas-such as the Garfagnana, where the difficult environmental conditions limited cereal crop production, and it was the chestnut woods (along with sheep and pigs) which became the mainstay of local food production.
The economy based on woodland and fields fed a modest local craft industry and, in the larger towns of the Serchio Valley, metal working was also practised.

The only relevant transformations to this structure occurred between the 19th and 20th centuries with the set up of the spun cotton industry in Lucca, Bagni di Lucca, Massarosa, Gallicano (sewing thread for domestic and industrial use and knitwear), and with the creation of a tobacco industry in Lucca.
The industrialisation process is continuos, broadening its territorial base in the first half of 20th century, to the point where already in 1951 the secondary sector became the most noticeable in the province with installations (apart from those in Lucca) in the municipalities of Massarosa, Altopascio, Capannori, Seravezza, Villa Basilica, Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Barga and Porcari.

A Tight Spot

I came across the Italian word tight some years ago. In fact, it looked so incongruous on the page, it fairly jumped out and smacked me in the eye. I’d no idea what it meant and it didn’t even occu to me to look for it in a dictionary, so  un-Italian did it seem.
It was coming across the alternative, phonetic spelling tait, and finding in the dictionary that solved this little mystery for me.
It’s what this sleek gentlman of 1900 or thereabouts is wearing and no doubt his  wardrobe also contained a frac and smoking.
A tigh is a morning suit, the kind that the bridegroom wears at a formal wedding nowadays, a frac is similar but the jacket is cut off at the waist at he front and a smoking is a dinner suit.
But why? because  tight/tait is a truncated translation of abito stretto, meaning a tigh-fitting garment, frac derives from frock coat, and smoking from smoking jacket which, however, it isn’t.
A feature that all three of these words, tait, frac and smoking, have in common is that they latch on to anly one part of the original two word combination. this mechanism is common in Italian and it works pretty well because the fact that a word is foreign makes it quite different from all the other words in the language, more or less.
So a miss, as in Miss World, is the winner of a beauty contest, gloss is what is lip gloss in English, un reality is a reality show, a sub, short for subacqueo, is a scuba diver, zoom is a zoom lens, spot is a both a TV and a spotlight, lifting is face-lift, spray is either a spray can or its contents, and so on. We do this in English too-opera for opera lirica, alto for contralto and, more recently, a latte for caffè latte – but not nearly as often as Italian does.
Some areas of Italian are particularly prone to adopting foreign words.
In the modern wardrobe there are jeans, slip, various types of woollies such as a golf, pullover and cardigan, perhaps even a montgomery and certainly some T-shirt as well as French items such as collant, gilet and foulard.
Soccer uses a fair number of English words as coner, dribbling, tackle and mister and breeds of dogs are often non Italian such as collie, husky and chihuahua.
English on the other hand, adopted Italian musical terms wholesale and many Italian food words, which means that we all know haow to pronunce – ce in inconcerto – te – at the end of andante, ghe – in the middle of spaghetti,  – i and  – zz – in pizza – sciu in prosciutto – ucci – in cappuccino and – ne – at the end of minestrone.
Which is all very useful to know. However, Italian pronunciation is very consistent ond often applied to borrowed words.

Clothes Show

The Clothes Show
Hundred years of fashion is on show in Lucca until the middle of May.
The State Archive in Piazza Guidiccioni (where the open air summer cinema is held) has been rummaging through the family wardrobe and various private collection to display clothes and fashions from the past.
Also using documentary material tailor’s bills and clothes shop accounts, as well as the recently acquired archive from thread makers Cucirini Cantoni Coats, the exhibition “Dal Filo al Vestito” offers a social commentary on how Italians dressed from the md 19th century up to the time of economic boom a century later.

Exhibition runs until 15 May.
To visit you must book by telephone on 0583 491465 or by e-mail at: as-lu@beniculturali.it

Web-site: www.beniculturali.it

Ristorante Antico Caffè delle Mura

Forgotten treasures of Lucca
Some Grapevine readers may have seen the recent exhibition in Lucca, “Lucca abbandonata, Lucca ritrovata” feauturing stunning black and white photographs of over 60 significant buildings in and around Lucca which have fallen into disuse and are lying empty.
Now the exhibition organisers wanted to draw attention to the wealth of history contained in these buildings and their  potential to play a role in the life of the city again.
Some of the buildings are well-known the Mercato del Carmine, the ex Manifattura Tabacchi, most less so. A few have already been restored the churches of the Suffragio and San Girolamo, both now used for concerts, the former Banca d’Italia in Via Mordini, now converted into apartments, and the Villa Niemack, as featured in our March issue. In other cases restoration in under way the Caffè delle Mura, for example. But for the most part these building lie wating for a new life, many in a serious state of deterioration.
The catalogue will be of interest to anyone who loves Lucca and its buildings, or who has ever wondered about the history of a particular abandoned building. 250 pages in a manageable paperback, crammed with fashinating photographs and a short history in Italian of each building. Some of the photographs can also be seen on www.flickr.com/luccabbandonata.
The promoters of the exhibition and the catalogue, CasaPound Italia and Associazione Culturale epsilon are to be congratuled on drawing this heritage to the attention of a wider audience, as indeed is the city of Lucca for its support. let’s hope their initiative succeeds in saving some of these treasures.
The catalogue is on sale at Lorenzini newsagents, Via Fillungo; Il Collezionista bookshop, Piazza San Giusto.