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The latest issue of The Curators’ Quaderno, “Women of the Flood: A New Future for Florence,” presents archival photographs and accounts of women’s work during and after the 1966 Arno flood. The publication highlights museum rescuer Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli, women cleaning the city, and conservation work at the National Central Library.
The Curators’ Quaderno has published a new issue, “Women of the Flood: A New Future for Florence,” using archival photographs and accounts to document women’s roles in the aftermath of the 1966 Arno flood. The publication was created by Calliope Arts and Restoration Conversations, with The Florentine Press, and focuses on rescue, recovery and the development of conservation work in the city.
One account follows Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli, then director of Florence’s Museum of History of Science, now Museo Galileo. As floodwaters threatened the collection, she moved valuable objects to upper floors. Fearing the building might collapse, she climbed through a window, moved along the exterior wall and entered the Uffizi through a window, carrying objects she could manage. The account says she made repeated trips to save instruments, including Galileo’s telescope. A photograph credited to Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli and the Galileo Museum Archives accompanies the story.
Other images show the work of residents and volunteers. One photograph from the Alinari Archives depicts a woman using a pitcher to clear sludge from the door of the Duomo’s rectory. The issue describes the scale of the damage across Florence and says 600,000 tons of mud and rubble entered the city. It also recounts that women began wearing trousers in public in Florence that November, presenting the change as one social effect of the disaster.
The publication also turns to the National Central Library of Florence, where more than 1.3 million books and periodicals were lost in the sludge, according to the report. With limited access to running water in the city, washing books began at the railway station. Young volunteers known as the Mud Angels came from Italy and abroad to help salvage cultural materials. Among the women involved in the library’s recovery were bookbinder Dorothy Cumpstey and chemist Margaret Hey.
Women’s work shaped Florence’s recovery
The photographs make visible forms of recovery that can be overlooked in accounts focused on damaged buildings and collections: hands-on rescue, cleaning and specialist restoration. Bonelli’s actions illustrate the risks taken to preserve museum objects, while the library account shows how a large-scale effort relied on volunteers and technical expertise.
The issue also links emergency work to lasting changes in preservation. By the spring of 1967, the National Central Library had established a permanent restoration laboratory to handle analysis, washing, drying, mending and rebinding. The report says the flood helped revolutionize conservation history; the library continues a programme to recover and restore holdings damaged in the disaster. The photographs therefore serve as a record of both immediate aid and the longer institutional response.
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From flood rescue to restoration
The Arno burst its banks in November 1966, flooding Florence and damaging homes, public buildings and cultural collections. The report describes residents facing a difficult clean-up while aid and heavy equipment from Rome were slow to arrive. The library’s losses and the scale of mud and rubble convey why efforts to salvage books and objects became urgent.
In the months after the flood, volunteers and specialists worked on recovery. The National Central Library’s restoration laboratory, established by spring 1967, organized repair into multiple stages rather than treating damaged books as a single clean-up task. The new issue revisits these events through images from the Galileo Museum Archives, Alinari Archives and National Central Library archives, alongside accounts of the people who took part.
What the photographs cannot establish
The source report does not provide a full publication catalogue, page count, price or distribution details for the new issue. It also does not identify every person shown in the photographs or give individual dates and locations for all images. The account of Bonelli’s rescue and the figures for flood damage are presented in the report, but the supplied material does not include supporting records or independent verification for each detail.
The publication’s description of women beginning to wear trousers in public after the flood is a reported social observation; the material does not specify how widespread the change was or provide evidence measuring it. The article also does not quantify the library’s ongoing restoration programme or state how many flood-damaged items remain to be treated.
The library’s restoration continues
The National Central Library continues to support recovery and restoration of holdings damaged in the flood, according to the report. No completion date or total for the remaining work is given. The new Quaderno’s photographs and accounts offer a record of the people behind the response, while further information about the issue’s availability and the library programme was not included in the source material.
Key Questions
What is “Women of the Flood: A New Future for Florence”?
It is the latest issue of The Curators’ Quaderno, created by Calliope Arts and Restoration Conversations with The Florentine Press. It documents women’s roles in Florence during and after the 1966 Arno flood through photographs and written accounts.
Who was Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli?
Bonelli was director of Florence’s Museum of History of Science, now Museo Galileo. The report says she moved collection objects to safety during the flood, including Galileo’s telescope.
How badly was the National Central Library damaged?
The report says more than 1.3 million books and periodicals were lost in the sludge at the library. It does not give a breakdown of the losses or the number of items still awaiting restoration.
What happened after the flood to book conservation in Florence?
By spring 1967, the National Central Library had set up a permanent restoration laboratory for work including analysis, washing, drying, mending and rebinding. The library continues a programme to recover and restore holdings damaged by the flood.
Source: theflorentine.net
