Florence: the Days of the Flood

NY Stein and Day, 1967,, 1967. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. Small quarto, hardcover, near fine in lightly edgeworn blue pictorial dj. Preface by Enrico Mattei. Translated from the Italian. "On the night of November 3rd-4th, 1966, Florence slept as the waters rose. Disaster had already overwhelmed the low-lying areas in the surrounding countryside, and in the city itself the drains could no longer cope with the pitiless rain and the endless flow of water. Then, at about four o'clock in the morning tragedy struck: an enormous volume of water and mud, racing along at forty mile s an hour, reached the city, overwhelming everything in its track, carrying away motorcars and trees, bursting into churches, homes, palaces and galleries. Few precaustions had been taken to save the world's most concentrated collection of treasure s, and those too late. Fourteen hundred priceless major works of art were damaged, many seriously; countless valuable and irreplaceable books and manuscripts were submerged; frescoes, sculptures, paintings, archaelogical objects, archives, carvings were soaked with mud and oil, irreparabley damaged, or even totally destroyed. " 133 pp. B/w photos throughout.