Florence's catastrophic floods

Tuscan capital devastated on same day six centuries apart

Plaques on the Via San Remigio in
Florence mark the level of both floods

More than 3,000 people were believed to have been killed when the River Arno flooded the streets of Florence on this day in 1333.

More than six centuries later, 101 people died when the city was flooded on the same day in 1966. The 50th anniversary of the most recent catastrophe, which took a staggering toll of priceless books and works of art in the Cradle of the Renaissance, is being commemorated in the city today.

The 1333 disaster - the first recorded flood of the Arno - was chronicled for posterity by Giovanni Villani, a diplomat and banker living in the city.

A plaque in Via San Remigio records the level the water allegedly reached in 1333 and another plaque commemorates the level the water reached after the river flooded in 1966, exactly 633 years later.

Villani wrote in his Nuova Cronica (New Chronicle), ‘By noon on Thursday, 4 November, 1333, a flood along the Arno River spread across the entire plain of San Salvi.’

By nightfall, the flood waters had filled the city streets and Villani claimed the water rose above the altar in Florence’s Baptistery, reaching halfway up the porphyry columns.

The statue of Giovanni Villani in the
Loggia del Mercato Nuovo in Florence

Apart from its two central piers, the Ponte Vecchio was swept away when huge logs in the rushing water became clogged around it, allowing the water to build and leap over the arches.

An old statue of Mars that stood on a pedestal near the Ponte Vecchio was also carried off by the flood waters, Villani recorded.

The idea of creating a year-by-year history of Florence came to Villani after he attended the first Jubilee in the city of Rome in 1300. He realised Rome’s history was well-known and wanted to create a history of his own city.

In his Cronica he covers 14th century building projects, population statistics and disasters, such as the flood and the Black Death of 1348, which eventually took his own life. His work on the Chronicle was continued by his brother and nephew after his death.

There have been eight major floods in Florence since 1333 but the one that occurred on November 4, 1966, is considered to be the worst.

It happened after two months of wet weather across the region began to cause problems in the Arno valley upstream of Florence, exacerbated when 43cm (17ins) of rain fell in 24 hours on November 2.

Pathe News footage following the 1966 flood

Dams built in the valley at Levane and La Penna, more than 50km away from the city, were already discharging water at a rate of more than 2,000 cubic metres per second on the afternoon of November 3.  At around four o'clock the following morning engineers feared that one of the dams would burst and took the decision to open the sluices still more.

The effect was to send a huge volume of water hurtling along the valley at a speed of around 60km per hour (37mph), turning the Arno into a terrifying torrent.  Within just a few hours the city was under water as the river rose a frightening 11m (36ft) above its normal level.

A marker of how high the water rose
in the 1966 catastophe

Streets were flooded up to 6.7m (22ft) at the flood's peak and although miraculously few people died compared with 1333 the damage to the city's historic treasures was almost unimaginable.  It is estimated that between three and four million books and manuscripts were destroyed or damaged and that 14,000 works of art were affected to one degree or another, with up to 1,000 suffering serious damage.

Two major libraries - the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze and the Biblioteca del Gabinetto Vieusseux - and two notable archives - the Archivio di Opera del Duomo and the Archivio di Stato - suffered particularly badly.

Among the major artworks hit were Giovanni Cimabue's Crucifix at the Basilica di Santa Croce, the so-called Gates of Paradise doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti at the Florence Baptistry and Donatello's statue Magdalene Penitent, also at the Baptistry.

Astonishingly, thanks to the substantial generosity of donors and the work of experts from around the world, as well as many volunteers from among the citizens of Florence - dubbed the 'Mud Angels' by the Mayor of Florence - many of these works have been restored, although the task has taken many decades.

Cimabue's Crucifix has undergone
painstaking restoration work

Giorgio Vasari's Last Supper, a five panel painting completed in 1546, is being reinstalled in the Cenacolo, the old refectory of Santa Croce, to mark the 50th anniversary.

Travel tip:

Plaques in Via San Remigio record the level the flood waters reached in the city in 1333 and 1966. The street is just off Via de Neri in the centre of the city, not far from the Basilica di Santa Croce.

Hotels in Florence from Hotels.com

Travel tip:

A statue of chronicler Giovanni Villani can be found in one of the niches of the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo in Florence. The New Market is also the home of Il Porcellino, a 17th century copy in bronze of a Roman statue of a wild boar in the Uffizi. Visitors who rub its nose are said to return to Florence some day and coins dropped in the water basin below it are collected and distributed to the city’s charities.

More reading:

Giorgio Vasari - painter and the first art historian

Donatello - the greatest sculptor of 15th century Florence

Florentine Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy

Also on this day:

1737: Teatro San Carlo in Naples opens its doors for the first time

(Photo of high water mark by Gryffindor Wikimedia Commons)


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Vincenzo Bellini – opera composer

Short but successful career of Sicilian musical genius

A portrait of Vincenzo Bellini

The talented composer of the celebrated opera, Norma, was born Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini on this day in 1801 in Catania in Sicily.

Bellini became known for his long, flowing, melodic lines, which earned him the nickname, ‘The Swan of Catania’. He enjoyed great success during the bel canto era of Italian opera in the early part of the 19th century and many of his operas are still regularly performed today.

Born into a musical family, Bellini showed early talent. It was claimed he could sing an aria at 18 months and could play the piano by the age of five. Although some writers have said these are exaggerations, Bellini is known to have already begun composing music by his teens.

He was given financial support by the city of Catania to study music at a college in Naples and while he was there he was profoundly influenced by meeting the composer Gaetano Donizetti, having heard his opera, La zingara, performed at Teatro di San Carlo.

Bellini then wrote his first opera, Adelson e Salvini, which his fellow students performed to great acclaim.

In 1825, Bellini began work on what was to be his first professionally-produced opera, Bianca e Fernando. It was premiered at Teatro di San Carlo on 30 May, 1826 and was a big success. Donizetti attended the performance and wrote about it enthusiastically to his former tutor in Bergamo.

Teatro alla Scala in the 18th century

After Bellini was commissioned to compose an opera by Teatro alla Scala in Milan he moved to live in the city in 1827.

During the six years he spent in Milan he wrote four masterpieces, Il pirata, I Capuletti e I Montecchi, La sonnambula and Norma.

The tenor, Giovanni Battista Rubini, attracted rave reviews for his performance in Il pirata, having been urged by Bellini to act the part as well as sing it.

Norma was given 39 performances in its first season at La Scala and was equally popular when it was later performed in Bergamo.

When Bellini returned to Sicily in 1832, his opera, Il pirata, was a big success at the Teatro della Munzione in Messina and he was given a civic welcome when he arrived in Catania.

Excerpts from his operas were performed in a concert at the Teatro Massimo Bellini, which had been named by the city in his honour.

The Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania

Bellini’s visit to London in 1833 was a triumph, with La sonnambula and Norma attracting excellent reviews, and he was fêted by the fashionable set when he moved on to Paris.

However, when he began composing I puritani he moved out of Paris to live in nearby Puteaux in order to concentrate fully on the opera.

The opera was premiered at the Theatre-Italien in Paris on 24 January 1835 and was given an enthusiastic reception.

In the aftermath of the opera’s success, Bellini was named by King Louis-Philippe as Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur and he was awarded the cross of the Order of Francesco I by King Ferdinand II in Naples.

But Bellini was being increasingly troubled by gastric problems and became seriously ill later in the year. The composer died on 23 September 1835 at his home in Puteaux. He was just 33 years old.

Bellini was buried in a French cemetery as a short-term arrangement and his remains were taken to Catania and reburied in the Cathedral there in 1876.

Vincenzo Bellini's tomb in the Duomo
in Catania, his birthplace

Travel tip:

Catania, where Bellini was born, is an ancient city on Sicily’s east coast, situated at the foot of Mount Etna, an active volcano. There is a monument to Bellini in the Cathedral in Piazza del Duomo and a museum dedicated to his life, the Bellini Museum, which was opened in 1930 in Palazzo Gravina-Cruyllas, the house where he was born.

Travel tip:

Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where Bellini’s first professionally-produced opera was staged, is thought to be the oldest opera house in the world. It was officially opened in 1737, way ahead of La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice. The theatre is in Via San Carlo close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples. It was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I. In the magnificent auditorium the royal box is surmounted by the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

More reading:

The genius of Gaetano Donizetti

Giovanni Battista Rubini - as famous in his day as Pavarotti

Teatro San Carlo - the world's oldest opera house

Also on this day:

The end of the First World War in Italy

(Photo of Bellini's tomb by G.dallorto)

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Battista 'Pinin' Farina - car designer

Family's 'smallest brother' became giant of automobile history

Battista 'Pinin' Farina (right) pictured with
 Fiat's Gianni Agnelli

Battista 'Pinin' Farina, arguably the greatest of Italy's long roll call of outstanding automobile designers, was born on this day in 1893 in the village of Cortanze in Piedmont.

His coachbuilding company Carrozzeria Pininfarina became synonymous with Italian sports cars and influenced the design of countless luxury and family cars thanks to the partnerships he forged with Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Nash, Peugeot, Rolls Royce and others - most notably Ferrari, with whom his company has had a continuous relationship since 1951.

Among the many iconic marques that Pinin and his designers created are the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the Ferrari Dino 206 and the Cisitalia 202.

Battista was the 10th of 11 children raised by his parents in Cortanze, a small community in the province of Asti, situated about 30km (19 miles) east of Turin.  He was always known as 'Pinin', a word from Piemontese dialect meaning 'smallest brother'.  In 1961, he had his name legally changed to Pininfarina.

He acquired his love of cars at a young age and from 12 years old he spent every spare moment working at his brother Giovanni’s body shop, Stabilimenti Industriali Farina, learning about bodywork and design.

Pinin Farina's breakthrough design, the stylishly
aerodynamic 1947 Cisitalia 202

Five years later, even before he was 18, he won his first commission, to design the radiator for the new Fiat Zero.

He could have emigrated to America, where the exponential growth of the automotive industry intrigued him.  He obtained an interview with Henry Ford and was offered a job but turned it down, preferring to return to Italy with the ideas he had gathered and a dream to start his own business.

In 1930, by which time he had married and started his own family, he left his brother and opened Carrozzeria Pinin Farina from a workshop on Corso Trapani in Turin.  Vincenzo Lancia, whom he had met during a brief career as a racing driver, was one of his first customers, along with Fiat and Alfa Romeo.

The Second World War interrupted the growth of the business and as an Italian Pinin found himself shackled somewhat in the aftermath as the hugely important Paris Auto Show barred him from exhibiting as a citizen of a former Axis power.

It was not long, however, before he had the break that was to establish the name of Battista Pinin Farina as one of the great car designers, when Piero Dusio, a wealthy Turin industrialist and racing driver, offered him a commission to produce a car on behalf of the Compagnia Industriale Sportiva Italia. 

The result, the Cisitalia 202, a two-seater sports car, broke away from traditional boxy designs and presented a single shell notable for its continuous flowing lines, in which the body, hood, headlights and fenders were integral to the overall, aerodynamic design.

Although not a huge commercial success, because it was a handmade rather than mass-produced model, it is still regarded as one of the most beautiful cars ever made, to the extent that it was exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the first high
volume success for Pinin Farina's company

The company expanded and prospered through the 1950s, moving to a larger site at Grugliasco, outside Turin, in 1958.  Apart from commissions from all the major Italian manufacturers, Pinin Farina began to work on behalf of companies outside Italy, breaking into the American market with Nash and later Cadillac, designing for the French manufacturer Peugeot, and for BMC in Britain.

Commercially, the first high volume success was the aforementioned Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the open-top two seater.  In the first year of production, in 1956, the Grugliasco plant turned out 1,025 Spiders.  By 1959, with a high number of orders from the United States, it had risen to 4,000 a year.

Pininfarina's relationship with Ferrari began in 1951, when Pinin met Enzo Ferrari in a restaurant in Tortona, halfway between Pininfarina's headquarters and Ferrari's base in Modena.  The two men struck a deal over dinner, after which Pininfarina took responsibility for all aspects of Ferrari design, engineering and production in a relationship that in the next half century would create some of the most expensive and prestigious but most aesthetically beautiful cars in the industry's history.

Pinin retired in 1961, putting the business in the hands of his son, Sergio, and his son-in-law, Renzo Carli. He died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1966, aged 72.

Sergio ran Pininfarina until 2001, then handing over to his own son, Andrea, who was tragically killed in a road accident in 2008.

The company, based now in Cambiano, much smaller than at its peak and no longer a producer of cars, is now 76 per cent owned by the Indian Mahindra Group, but retains a Pininfarina link through its chairman, Paolo Pininfarina, Andrea's younger brother.

Travel tip:

The medieval village of Cortanze, home nowadays to just a few hundred residents, has been the site of a settlement since Roman times.  Later it was controlled by the bishops of Asti before falling in turn into the hands of the armies of Savoy, France and Spain in the 18th century.  There is a medieval castle, its style typical of Piemontese castles, that has been restored and is open to the public and a number of notable churches, including the 17th century Church of the Saints Pietro and Giovanni.

The Piazza Duomo in Tortona

Travel tip:

Tortona, where Pinin Farina and Enzo Ferrari struck their historic deal in 1951, is an elegant small city not far from Alessandria in the area of Piedmont that borders Liguria.  It has a neat colonnaded square around the Duomo, the main structure of which was built in the 16th century with a neoclassicist facade added in the 19th century.  There are some Roman remains thought to be of the mausoleum of the Emperor Maiorianus.

More reading:

Vittorio Jano - engine maker behind racing success of Ferrari

Enrico Piaggio - the man behind the Vespa scooter

How Sergio Marchionne rescued Fiat

Also on this day:

The death of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the professional soldier charged with defending 15th-century Bergamo. 

(Photo of Alfa Romeo Giulietta by genossegerd CC BY-SA 3.0)


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Pietro da Cortona – painter and architect

Outstanding exponent of Baroque style

Pietro da Cortona: a self-portrait

Artist Pietro da Cortona was born Pietro Berrettini on this day in 1596 in Cortona in Tuscany.

Widely known by the name of his birthplace, Cortona became the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and contributed to the emergence of Baroque architecture in Rome.

Having been born into a family of artisans and masons, Cortona went to Florence to train as a painter before moving to Rome, where he was involved in painting frescoes at the Palazzo Mattei by 1622.

His talent was recognised and he was encouraged by prominent people in Rome at the time. He was commissioned to paint a fresco in the church of Santa Bibiana that was being renovated under the direction of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624.

Then, in 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned Cortona to paint a large fresco on the ceiling of the Grand Salon at Palazzo Barberini, his family’s palace. Cortona’s huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marked a watershed in Baroque painting as he created an illusion of an open, airy architectural framework against which figures were situated, creating spatial extension through the medium of paint.

Cortona's masterpiece: the ceiling
of the Palazzo Barberini

Cortona was commissioned in 1637 by Grand Duke Ferdinand II dè Medici to paint a series of frescoes representing the four ages of man in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. He returned there in 1640 to paint the ceilings of a suite of apartments in the palace that were named after the planets.

Cortona trained a number of artists to disseminate his grand manner style, which had been influenced by his interest in antique sculpture and the work of Raphael.

Towards the end of his life, Cortona spent his time involved in architectural projects, such as the design of the church of Santi Luca e Martina in Rome and the design and decoration of the Villa Pigneto just outside the city.

Cortona died in 1669 at the age of 72 in Rome.

The Via Janelli in Cortona: reputed to be
one of the oldest streets in Italy

Travel tip:

Cortona, the birthplace of Pietro da Cortona, was founded by the Etruscans and is one of the oldest cities in Tuscany. Powerful during the medieval period it was defeated by Naples in 1409 and then sold to Florence. The medieval houses that still stand in Via Janelli are some of the oldest houses still surviving in Italy.


Travel tip

Palazzo Barberini, where Pietro da Cortona painted his masterpiece on the ceiling of the Grand Salon, is just off Piazza Barberini in the centre of Rome. The palace was completed in 1633 for Pope Urban VIII and the design was the work of three great architects, Carlo Maderno, Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The palace now houses part of the collection of Italy’s National Gallery of Ancient Art.

Also on this day:

The birth of sculptor Antonio Canova, creator of The Three Graces

More reading:

Cigoli - the first to paint a realistic moon

Raphael - precocious genius renowned for Vatican frescoes

Michelangelo - 'the greatest artist of all time'



(Photo of Palazzo Barberini ceiling by Livioandronico CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Photo of Via Janelli in Cortona by Geobia CC BY-SA 3.0)

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