Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Natural Disasters and Art

Last week's earthquake in the central Italian region of Abruzzi killed more than 200 people and destroyed many homes, businesses and other buildings. But life, limb and livelihood are not the only things to have been damaged – churches, castles and other structures important to Italy's cultural heritage were damaged by the quake also, and Italy is asking other nations to help with the restoration process. This aspect of the tragedy reminds me how often we are unprepared to manage material threats to our cultural treasures, and of how gracefully people sometimes come together after a disaster to help restore buildings and art, and help communities to heal.

In November, 1966, the Arno River topped its banks in the Italian city of Florence, flooding the city and eventually rising to 22 feet in some neighborhoods. Florence is an ancient city with a huge store of libraries, museums, and private collections of paintings, sculpture, rare and antique books, and other treasures, many of which were put at risk by the flood's water and mud. Art conservators came from around the world to help restore Florence's books, paintings, and other artworks – these cultural lifesavers became known as angeli del fango or “mud angels.” In Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces, Robert Clark provides a broad view on the story of the 1966 flood, and on the many floods that preceded it. He begins with a history of flooding in Florence and how it intertwines with the history of the city as a center of fine art, and then goes on to discuss the world's response to the 1966 flood, and the disconnect between Florence, the city of fine art, and Firenze, the practical, working city in which Florentines actually live.

For those of us who prefer novels to nonfiction, there are still ways to learn about Florence's flood. Robert Hellenga's debut novel The Sixteen Pleasures follows Margot Harrington, one of the “mud angels,” who came to Florence to share her skills as a book conservator. After suffering under the unlacquered sexism of the leading mud angels who coordinate and assign book conservation tasks for the various libraries, Margot is assigned to lead restoration of the library belonging to a small convent. Short on money, she moves in with the nuns, makes friends with the mother superior, and discovers some unexpected treasures in the convent's library. The Sixteen Pleasures is a vivid, exciting story despite its mild-mannered setting in the book stacks, and careful readers will note that the technical details of book construction and conservation are both accurate and clearly described.

Of course, natural disasters have struck beloved antiquities in other places as well. In 1927, an earthquake damaged the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which marks the site where many Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified and buried. This most holy of Christian shrines is managed jointly by several churches – chiefly the Armenian Apolistic, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches, and the balance is a tenuous one. Monks and priests working at the church have regularly, if infrequently, come to blows over territorial claims and purported slights. For decades, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre sat damaged and in danger of falling in on itself. Yet somehow, the churches came together with the aid of popes, kings, architects, and many others, devised a plan to rebuild the church, and managed to begin to carry it out. Raymond Cohen's Saving the Holy Sepulchre traces this remarkable story from its roots in the unusual management of the church over time through the restoration now underway.

But these books all raise another question: what do we learn from the experience of cleaning up after a flood, earthquake, or other calamity? In Planning for Disaster, William G. Ramroth, Jr. looks at how events like the 1666 fire of London, the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, and the 9/11 attacks in New York City have affected how we build buildings and plan cities. When have we learned our lessons, and when have we simply repeated past mistakes?