From Publishers Weekly
The Arno River flood that deluged Florence, Italy, in 1966Π²Πβkilling 33 people and damaging 14,000 works of art and countless books and antiquesΠ²Πβframes this meditation on the relationship between art and life. Clark (River of the West) embarks first on a leisurely history of Florence's intertwined experience of great floods and great art, through the perceptions of Dante, Leonardo, E.M. Forster and other writers and artists. The world's rapt concern for Florence's cultural treasures contrasts sharply with its neglect of the city's inhabitants, Clark argues, offering his impressionistic account of the 1966 disaster as seen through the eyes of artists, photographers, volunteer mud angels who swarmed the city to help rescue its waterlogged art and Communist militants who organized relief for poor neighborhoods. He then follows the decades-long and rancorously debated restoration projects, especially the controversial rehabilitation of Cimabue's 13th-century Crucifix, seeing in them a metaphor for artistic beauty as an endless work-in-progress. Clark's study is sometimes unfocused, but by building up layers of atmospheric chiaroscuroΠ²Πβthe drying city, he notes, lay lacquered in tints of warm earth and azzuro sky... like pigments just brushed on and still moistΠ²Πβhe achieves an evocative portrait of Florence as its own greatest masterpiece. (Oct. 7)
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From Booklist
Clark provides a unique twist on the horrific flood that ravaged Florence on November 4, 1966, killing 33 people, leaving countless numbers homeless, and damaging a huge number of priceless art treasures and rare books. Instead of merely recounting the devastation, he reaches back into the past, analyzing the historical dichotomy between Firenze, the city where natives live and work, and Florence, the art mecca students, scholars, and tourists flock to visit. Interweaving eyewitness accounts and experiences from those who lived through the deluge of 1966 and those who came to help with salvage and restoration projects, he paints a vivid portrait of a natural disaster with an array of sociological and cultural consequences. --Margaret Flanagan