He found himself in a place where he had the feeling, so to speak, that past events had disappeared, a place where time-and-space had an abysmal gap behind them. However, this vanishing of events actually ensured that the past could remain present in that place, and with a rather effective comparison someone could say that in there you could sense the ghost of the events that had taken place.

Giovanni Ferrara, Il senso della notte, 1995.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Fondo Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di Fotografie di Guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), n. 34.

On Saturday 29 July 1944, the German command issued an order requiring citizens to evacuate the streets and squares around the Arno river by noon of the following day.

From then on, a hustle and bustle of hand-drawn carts swarmed Via Guicciardini and the neighbouring streets: the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens welcomed more than five thousand Florentine people who had been forced to leave their homes with the few things they managed to save.

On Tuesday 1 August, at 4 in the afternoon, all access to the palace and garden was closed and it was forbidden to open the windows overlooking the square, while during the night, the Germans laid mines to destroy the bridges and houses facing the Arno.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367324.

Nello Baroni and his family were among those who found refuge in the building. He was also with his friends and colleagues Italo Gamberini, Giovanni Michelucci and Edoardo Detti. Baroni was an architect, member of the Tuscan Group that won the competition to build the Station of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. He was also a good photographer, and in those days he carried a camera that allowed him to provide evidence of the life inside the Palace and the Garden. The photographs are currently preserved in the Photographic Archive of the Uffizi Galleries, in the Florence State Archives, and in the Historical Institute of Resistance in Tuscany. Some months later, he wrote a few pages, which he entitled “Diario dei Cinquemila” (Diary of the Five Thousands), where he described the events that took place from Saturday 29 July to Friday 4 August 1944.

Courtyards, service rooms, staircases, attics and gallery rooms - once packed with paintings - were now full of people. They had to find a way to sleep, eat, wash themselves, and even to die. Because people kept dying - of starvation, illness, old age - and were buried inside the Boboli Gardens.

Words and images come together to describe seven extraordinary and dramatic days that marked the history of the palace and the city: from the feverish moments of the evacuation of the houses along the river, to the morning when Florentine people, locked inside the Pitti Palace, climbed the Boboli hill to see the cloud of dust rising from the bridges and houses destroyed by the Germans, while the first allied soldiers reached the left bank of the Arno.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Fondo Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di Fotografie di Guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), n. 2. The person standing on the right is Edoardo Detti.

“The Pitti Republic [was] a dream”, wrote Anna Banti a few years later. While the German mines destroyed her house in Borgo San Jacopo, together with the manuscript of her novel “Artemisia”, she also found refuge at the Pitti Palace. Some memories of those days are recalled with particular emotional intensity in “Veglie di Pitti”, a short text published on 10 August 1947 in the periodical “La Patria”, while the lost novel was completely rewritten, mixing the painter's biography with fragments of the writer's life, also with the narration of some moments lived in the seclusion of the Palace when the Germans abandoned the Oltrarno leaving behind pain and rubble.

Photo: Guido Morozzi, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367319.

Nello Baroni's photographs are preserved in the Photographic Archive of the Uffizi Galleries, in the Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell’Età contemporanea and in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, in the section dedicated to the donation made by the architect's heirs in February 2007. The entire collection of shots taken by Nello Baroni at the Pitti Palace and in the Boboli Gardens from 29 July to the first days of August 1944 has been published for the first time in the pdf file attached to this virtual exhibition.

The Hypervision itinerary consists of a large selection of Nello Baroni's shots, to which are added some photographs taken by architect Guido Morozzi (who then became Superintendent of the Monuments) and Nello Baroni himself, as well as images preserved in the Historical Institute of Resistance in Tuscany depicting the bridges of Florence and the surrounding areas before and after their destruction.

Some of these shots were displayed for the first time to the public at the Exhibition dedicated to the Destruction of Florence (Mostra della Firenze distrutta), inaugurated at Palazzo Strozzi on 11 August 1945, the first anniversary of the city's Liberation, the preparation of which saw the participation of Pietro Annigoni, Italo Gamberini, Carlo Levi, Giovanni Poggi, Ugo Procacci and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, among others. In more recent years, they were also partly presented at the exhibition Florence at War 1940-1944 (Florence, 23 October 2014-6 January 2015) and published in the book edited by Gianluca Belli and Amedeo Belluzzi, “Una notte d'estate del 1944. Le rovine della guerra e la ricostruzione a Firenze (2013)”, together with the complete transcription of the “Diario dei Cinquemila“ written by Baroni himself.

The photographs are combined with extensive excerpts from this text by Baroni alternated with quotations from Anna Banti's short essay “Le Veglie di Pitti” and her novel “Artemisia”.

The passages have been organised according to a criterion that respects the original texts. However, some minor exceptions have been made for narrative reasons and to ensure consistency with the images. In the same way, where possible, the combination of text and images was created while searching for a direct connection. However, in some cases, such as the narration of the agitated moments of the mine explosion on the night between 3 and 4 August, of which obviously there is no photographic evidence, the choice was to use images of an evocative character.

In addition, there might be a chance that some of the photos were taken after 4 August 1944, as the evacuees remained in the Pitti Palace for a few days after that date. As a consequence, it is possible that for narrative reasons, and in order to achieve visual correspondence, there might be a time discrepancy between text and images.

In the cases where the shots were kept in different archives, the choice was to select those that could be identified more easily.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 15.

Since the middle of July, cannon shots have been starting at dusk. The whole city of Florence leaned over the Arno, almost relying on the testimony of that liquid vein, the only one with the chance to travel and slide through the approaching war. In the breeze of a non-aggressive summer - the weather was not so hot - those who admired the clarity of the sky, pervaded by ineffable exaltation, confused the infinity of the evening with the urgency of the awaited hour. On the banks of the river, and especially on Ponte Santa Trinita and on the terraces hovering above the water, the citizens were like sentries speculating and interpreting their fate. Despite the consternation caused by the stories, the raids, and the precipitated evacuation, a sort of gaiety prevailed, at the same time threatening and unconscious. The sun was setting, the artillery roared, the Germans ate ice cream and apricots taken from carts full of fruit.

The thud of hurriedly closed doors marked the quick return home of the few men who had ventured out. In Pitti Square, the girls slowed their pace to enjoy the rising moon. At the foot of the silent houses, the echo of the battle was broken by the moonlight: even the walls were listening, all night long, stuffed with people who thought to be safe.

But on the night of 29 July, the abandoned walls remained stuffed only with objects and things, too many helpless things. They were no longer a shelter for the living.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: Santa Trinita Bridge before the destruction of August 4, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 41293.

It is a Saturday; we just sat at the table when someone rings the bell. Mum opens the door and returns with Mrs Clara, who is very agitated: she informs us that at the municipal office her husband found out that by the end of the day there will be an order from the Germans to evacuate all the houses along the Arno.

[...] There is no time to waste, we must get ready as soon as we can; we didn't even doubt that the news could be false. We have already seen enough; the Allies are only a few kilometres away and the Germans will have to disengage at any moment. But we always hoped that they wouldn't go that far.

[...] Making assumptions is now useless; we immediately think that as soon as the announcement is posted, it will no longer be possible to find a means of transport, so we divide our tasks:

- You go out and look for transport, any type of cart, whether big or small, whatever you can find; I'm going to see where we can find shelter; we'll meet here at four o'clock.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Ponte alle Grazie, passage banned in area subject to evacuation by German Army, Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell'Età contemporanea, Fondo Angiolo Gracci (Sezione Fotografica), n. 2ss1/2/31.

On the way back to Ponte Vecchio, in the corner of Via Vacchereccia, there is a group of people pressed against a poster. Here we are. I read as well: “Order – As a precautionary measure, all inhabitants of the following streets and squares will have to leave their dwellings by noon tomorrow, 30 July” - here follows a long list of locations - “those who cannot find hospitality with relatives and friends are advised to head for the northern part of the city, particularly in the districts of Campo di Marte and Le Cure. The citizens of displaced areas shall leave their belongings inside their homes”. – This was the order, more or less.

[...] There is turmoil on Ponte Vecchio: people running, asking questions, answering by shrugging their shoulders. Some refuse to believe and claim that perhaps there will be a revocation. Most people have no illusions and the more practical are already busy looking for carts, wagons, even a sedan chair, something to carry the furniture, some food, mattresses, if nothing better is available.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Piazza Nazario Sauro and Via de' Serragli, Florentines engaged in evacuations, Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell'Età contemporanea, Album Fotografico Nello Baroni.

After a brief discussion, we decide to ask if they can host us at the Pitti Palace. In the meantime, one of us will read the list and mark the boundaries of the displacement area on the map of Florence.

[...] They agree to host us at the Pitti Palace. We quickly get to work to save as much as we can, to take away as much as we can. Because by now no one has any doubt that what will not be destroyed, will be plundered.

[...] We have been assigned some rooms dedicated to the passage of lifts; they are dark, cold, unsuitable for living, but at the moment they seem good enough.

[...] We improvise a bed on elastic sacks, without blankets, and despite the emptiness and damp cold of those uninhabited and unsuitable rooms, as soon as we lie down, tired as hell, we fall asleep. During the night, close by, we can hear the cannons.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367320.

At dawn - the dreary dawn of a foggy day - we are awake and out on our way to Via Guicciardini. We are not the first: at all the gates there is a continuous movement of people bringing stuff down and loading it onto any type of cart. Every means of transport is put to work: from mason's wheelbarrows to children's buggies; there is even a gentleman - very distinguished - who seriously pushes an 18th-century cart with oversized wheels and curly, squiggly iron structure. I wonder where he found it.

Two uninterrupted rows of people pulling carts cross each other in the narrow Via Guicciardini. They sweat, toil, stumble, but there is a sense of discipline in everyone, like an awareness that at this moment there is no need to indulge in the lethargy so dear to Florentine people, and perhaps there is too much resentment towards those who are forcing them into this suffering that no rage is left for others.

[...] They are the least indispensable things, but perhaps for this reason the most beloved; those that made us most happy when we bought them.

The furniture (which cannot be transported) is now empty; doors and drawers are wide open as if they were shouting for help. On the ground, only straw, sheets and a few rags.

In a corner, a piece of my childhood toy, which I hadn't seen for a long time, fell out of a box: I glance around, then secretly put it in my pocket.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 32). The man looking to the right is probably Giovanni Michelucci.

A massive dust cloud obscured the slanting rays of the sunset. The dust was raised by the furious handcarts, which scourged the streets in the last hours of freedom. The devil possessed those poor crunching wheels under mattresses and caged birds: the bustle of the rotating stream threatened the first floors, the storm had begun. Now it was time for the refugees of the Pitti Palace, a storm of voices.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367325.

In the meantime, more and more people are coming to the Palace asking for shelter: first artists and people like that, friends of the Superintendent; then, as the evening approaches, when time is running out, more and more people, pertaining to all social classes, are gathered at the door looking for a place to stay. It is no longer possible to say no to anyone; everyone will make themselves comfortable wherever they can.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Guido Morozzi, Pitti Square, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367318. The photograph was taken before the closing of doors and windows at the Pitti Palace imposed by the Germans on 1 August 1944.

Here at the Pitti Palace, we are four families gathered in the same rooms; for a total of thirteen at the table. We have the good fortune of having a group of rooms only for ourselves. Even though they are not too nice and a little dark, at least we can close them. Every other place in the Palace is already filled up: the halls of the Modern Gallery, the Palatine Gallery, corridors, staircases, courtyards; every area is full of people, kids, bundles.

Towards the evening, Superintendent Venè gathers the heads of the families in the monumental courtyard and - briefly - exhorts everyone to maximum discipline, cleanliness, organisation; they seem grateful and moved for having the possibility to take shelter and for this exhortation. We shall see.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367361.

The Pitti Palace is swarmed in every room that can somehow accommodate people. Even the large central courtyard, under the arcades, is now populated with evacuees trying to camp out as best as they can. People keep coming. Outside, it seems that the Germans, not content with all the areas they have displaced, are now raging also in other neighbourhoods. As a matter of fact, new families are always arriving; they only bring a few pots and pans, some food and mattresses.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367341.

The Superintendent called some refugees among the people he already knows. About ten of us are gathered in his office, all friends or acquaintances; the majority are architects. We immediately decide to organise something. The situation appears to be serious; we still don't know how many of us are hiding here, but we should be more than three thousand, mostly poor, without food, like lost sheep.

The Palace is certainly not equipped to accommodate such a large number of people. There are very few sanitary facilities, drinking water is already lacking, and so is electricity. We have three really serious and urgent problems to solve: food, hygiene and discipline.

Therefore, we decide to form an internal committee to provide for this in the best way possible; we divide the tasks. Superintendent Venè will supervise. We post an announcement in the courtyard to make everyone aware of what has been decided in the interest of the community, listing the names of those in charge and their assignments. Piazza, Spilimbergo and Michelucci will take care of the food. Ciompi Gamberini, Detti and I of hygiene and discipline.

We immediately look for people who are familiar with their neighbours and the inhabitants of their street. We find around fifteen people who at a guess (who knows them?) seem to fit the bill, and with them we organise a three-man guard duty with turns every two hours. From dusk till dawn.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 28. The man in the top left-hand corner is probably Giovanni Michelucci, while the man with a white shirt in the back should be Italo Gamberini.

Also water is a serious problem: there are only two drinking fountains, one in the Grotto of the central courtyard, the other at the end of the portico on the right; but they are scarce, especially the latter, as it takes five minutes to fill a jug.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367328.

Obviously, there is already a huge line at both of them. Also for this reason, we decide to take turns.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 29.

Before the evening, I take a tour around the Palace: the rooms of the Modern Gallery are full of mattresses lying on the floor together with all kinds of household goods. Also some rooms of the Palatine Gallery have been opened to evacuees.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Palatine Gallery (The Footmen’s Antechamber), Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367334.

The monumental staircase is full, as well as the courtyard and Poccianti's Staircase. Also the Meridiana district and the apartment of the Count of Turin are swarmed with people; a certain elite flavour is already emerging over there.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Palatine Gallery (The Footmen’s Antechamber), Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367345.

On the vast floor of the Palatine Gallery, the scene is truly picturesque: the entire floor is literally covered with mattresses, sacks and blankets on which are lying, in the most varied poses, half-naked bodies, legs, shoulders, backs glistening with sweat; dishevelled and upturned heads, half-open mouths as if they were dead. Many snore, while others moan in an agitated sleep. From the walls, large neoclassical statues stare impassively at all this humanity slumped over in a heavy sleep full of nightmares. In one corner, a small lamp casts deformed shadows on the vaults; a mother is keeping it lit because her little baby is afraid. The whole scene is dominated by the continuous, heavy, oppressive roar of the nearby cannon, combined with the continuous vibration of the window panes.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Palatine Gallery (The Statue Gallery), Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367346.

Each night blossomed in a rose of fear, the tormented sleep came and went over the thorny multitude of a thousand cries that each morning died out of exhaustion, when a single infant, always the same one, burst into tears, with his despair echoing over the sleeping people like in a desert. Under the portico crowded like a cemetery, in the grey air, the gestures of mothers wilting on their beds had a solemn, archaic slowness, as if they were ancient women in the act of resuscitating. And another day began.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367354.

The milk canister to be distributed in two hours at the dispensary, the faces of the complaining women, each one with her instant grimace of disappointment and discouragement, the two whimpering beggars, the epileptic asking for the unobtainable narcotic, the man with heart disease suffering an attack, the storyteller with tuberculosis, the five cheating children trying to obtain a double portion. It's a miracle how Angelica, the paralytic kid, is slowing down this procession: I remember her heavenly eyes, enchanted and treacherous, and how her mother, the grocer, used to say: «She is so religious».

Anna Banti, Artemisia.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367352.

The Pitti Palace must be full this morning; more people arrived in the early hours because the Germans emptied other streets. Instead, the inhabitants in front of me, here in the square, were able to return to their homes. Nobody understands anything. We heard that last night a lot of artillery and tanks passed through Via Maggio and other streets while heading north. It should be the disengagement.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 36.

People invaded every possible corner of the Palace and also the garden: the Echo Grotto, the Kaffehaus, the Lemon House, the Greenhouse. Almost everyone has some food, but little; some have nothing.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Nonfinito Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 22.

The Superintendent meets with us to discuss what to do; we decide to attempt a hurried census to find out how many of us are staying here.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367358. The man seated at the table with a white shirt is Italo Gamberini.

It was also decided to collect money to buy food for the poorest people, if possible.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 33. The sign affixed to the table reads: “Donations of food and money for the needy”.

Among the refugees, there are also two or three doctors and a few nurses. We will prepare a makeshift infirmary in the antechamber of the Palatine Chapel.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367330.

Another very serious problem is represented by hygiene and pest control, because we only have a little lime left. Once the decisions are made, everyone sets to work.

We divide the areas of the Palace with signposts: Central Courtyard, Administration Courtyard, Bacchus Courtyard, Poccianti's Staircase, Echo Grotto, Kaffehaus, Marini Garden, Meridiana, Apartment of the Count, Modern Gallery, Palatine Gallery, Attic, Occhi Corridor, Lemon House. Gamberini and I prepared many signs with brush and ink and affixed them.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Nonfinito Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367340.

Immediately after lunch, someone informs us that there are signs announcing the state of emergency, which will become effective at four o'clock in the afternoon. This news almost gives us a sense of relief, because it is a clear evidence that the situation is deteriorating. Now everyone is returning. So far, we haven't seen any Germans in here. At four o'clock, all the entrances are punctually closed: the Bacchus Gate, the two gates on Pitti Square, the Annalena Gate, the Calza Gate and that of the Royal Stables. We are isolated. The Siege of Alcazar comes to mind.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard (clothes laid out on the top floor), 29 luglio/4 agosto 1944, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367338.

The Superintendent urgently convened the Internal Committee and announced that the Germans ordered that all windows on the outside must be hermetically sealed; the patrols were ordered to shoot in the event of an infringement.

I immediately set off with two or three others to check all the rooms with windows on the outside. Room by room, window by window, we make sure that (many windows do not have shutters) everything is closed and nobody looks out because there is a risk of getting shot. It is a very delicate situation; we are afraid that someone, out of curiosity or otherwise, might not obey, and that they might even shoot at the Germans. It would be very dangerous, because in such a closed environment, a reprisal would be a slaughter.

Tonight we will double the patrols.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 9.

The summer was weighing down on us, the pressing heat persuaded us to wait for more threats. In front of those windows, from which it was forbidden to look out, we had the sensation that we were fighting and we could achieve something if, by sticking our heads through the shutters, we could spy the shadows of the sentries at the entrance to the streets of our mined houses.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: German soldiers between Pitti Square and Via Guicciardini, Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell'Età contemporanea, Fondo Angiolo Gracci (Sezione Fotografica), n. 2ss1/2/29.

Tonight, all thirteen of us are at the table. To celebrate the event, we light two acetylene lamps. The table looks like the work bench of a watermelon seller. Since we have been here, three days, we never ate bread. With just a little flour, and without yeast, the women managed to prepare some flat breads that tasted like nothing. However, they filled our stomachs giving us the illusion that we were less hungry. At the table, the women make nothing but pessimistic predictions about what we will eat during our stay in this place. However, this is just the beginning.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Guido Morozzi, Pitti Palace, Ajax Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367317.

In the central courtyard, almost all people under the portico are awake and many have formed huddles; a hushed whispering can be heard everywhere. Everyone makes assumptions, sharing hopes or fears. We are using a table as the meeting place for patrols in front of the main hall; tonight the shifts have increased and everyone is taking their mission very seriously, with a feeling that any accident could have serious consequences.

In the last few hours, some members of the Internal Committee have been looking different, they seem strange. They seclude themselves, confabulate. Every now and then, a guy comes along with secret news from “someone”. The conspiracy concealed during the clandestine period was now peeking out from every pore.

[...] At dawn, we are still at the table where all night, while chatting under the milky moonlight, we have been making cigarettes with bad tobacco cutting a sheet of tissue paper.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367351. The man with a white shirt sitting at the table is Italo Gamberini.

After the almost sleepless night, I go out in the courtyard at around 10 in the morning. So far, no news. Everyone is trying to settle in as best they can: women sweeping around their rags; kids swarming like flies, which have multiplied drastically in just a few days.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367329.

In the courtyard of Bacchus, since it is forbidden to light fires inside the Palace and in other courtyards, they have built some rudimentary cookers using a few bricks, and the women are busy cooking their poor food around smoky fires. The fires with green wood (I'd like to see the face of the gardener) smoke and screech in the merciless blaze of the scorching sun.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 21.

In the early afternoon, they brought here in Boboli some dead bodies (of natural death). Given the state of emergency, it is not possible to transport them to the city cemeteries. Tonight they will be buried in the Meadow of the Two Columns. I don't know why this gives me a sense of dismay, as if the normal organisation of the city could not exist anymore; a sense of macabre destruction, and it reminds me of Manzoni's scenes of the plague in Milan.

[...]

Once again, the sunset has come. I assisted to the burial of two or three corpses in the Meadow of the Two Columns. In the shadow by which it is already invaded, even though the Garden of the Knight is still illuminated by the sun, this place appears truly lugubrious: the large meadow surrounded by tall trees, two white columns; in happier times, maybe the signs of an old game, the remains of rough boards lined up on the lawn. Who would have thought that it could look like this a little over [a] month ago? *

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens (Meadow of Columns), Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 6. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti, Oltrarno distrutto), agosto 1944, n. 2. For many years, Florentine people have been calling this place “Prato dei Morti” (Meadow of the Dead), in memory of the temporary burials carried out here during the Liberation of the city.

* In Nello Baroni's original text, this second paragraph refers to 3 August. For narrative reasons, it has been merged with a passage from 2 August.

Towards the evening, I don't know from which side, we are informed that from 8 o'clock onwards the mines will be exploded.

[...] It is almost 8 o'clock, the fatal hour, and the agitation is growing. We go around warning everyone; we advise people not to stay in the attics and to keep away from the windows. In the courtyards, we advice to take shelter under the portico and behind the pillars; no one is allowed to remain outdoors. We have no idea of what might happen, but we assume that, in addition to the air displacement, we might be hit by a hail of debris, tiles and stones. As the moment approaches, the agitation grows. In the central courtyard, all the people are huddled together under the portico and some uninformed or uncaring person who ventures into the middle is immediately called out with great shouts.

[...] It is way past eight o'clock; it is almost nine o'clock and no one believes in the dreaded explosion anymore. On the contrary, everyone wants to go their own way, even though we try to make them wait; whoever manages to keep them here is good. At half past nine, we also decide to have dinner and wait for the events; some saint will help us. After dinner, tired from the sleepless night, I go to bed.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammannati Courtyard, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 367359.

We were no longer looking at the sky, we rummaged through the darkness in the corner of the square like beggars among the rubbish. We could sense some wiggling, a slow, non-human manoeuvring, like some sort of antennae, of large insects rambling with delight.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: German soldiers undermine Ponte Vecchio, Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell'Età contemporanea, Fondo Angiolo Gracci (Sezione Fotografica), n. 2ss1/2/28.

Once again this morning, nothing new so far. No mines have exploded and nobody thinks about it anymore. As for the rest, the wait has now become nerve-racking.

[...] We keep worrying with dismay (and perhaps with a hint of selfish certainty) for so many people stuck in their homes, without water, without the possibility - not everyone has supplies - of getting food, locked in a few rooms, while we, whether we like it or not, have all this space at our disposal.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 6. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti, Oltrarno distrutto), agosto 1944, n. 3.

We didn't talk that much, all the fears, all the predictions were superfluous, everyone kept their own, waiting to lie on the ground ruminating on them, without sleeping.

[...] Then, as the eyes kept searching through the darkness for new premonitions, the bell tower of Santo Spirito stroke ten o'clock. Its sound felt like an assiduous questioning, to which immediately responded the tireless voices of the smaller bell towers on this side of the Arno. They were still alive, all of them, but we were not worried for them. The seconds ticked by, a minute passed, and as hope began to flicker, we heard the first ring of the bell of Palazzo Vecchio. Indifferent to the most obscure plans of the Germans, the measure and the interval of those sounds came to us from the precluded city, crossing mined bridges. They miraculously lifted us to an abstraction of time and space that surpassed any concrete contingency and represented our poor victory as prisoners.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace (Afternoon view of Santo Spirito), Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 6. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti, Oltrarno distrutto), agosto 1944, n. 4. For the sake of accuracy, it is worth mentioning that the photo was probably taken shortly before picture no. 5 from the same series, which dates back to the early afternoon of 4 August or the days immediately after, as suggested by the rubble at the entrance of Via Guicciardini. The choice was to include it here for narrative purposes.

After dinner (it is already pitch dark) I go with Gamberini for a walk to the Meridiana. While we take a stroll, we talk about silly things. As we approach the staircase of the lions, suddenly we see a dazzling flash towards the amphitheatre, and immediately a violent blow that almost throws us to the ground; then an explosion, a shattering, inconceivable rumble. An instant of silence follows, broken only by the crashing of shattered glass, and then a confused, growing scream of people running out of control in the dark, in all directions.

At first, I don't understand what happened. Out of habit, I think of an aerial bombardment, but I immediately reflect that there was no sound of fighters; I finally realise: mines! They waited more than twenty-four hours to blow them up: it's exactly ten minutes to ten. I will remember this moment.

[...] We enter the Meridiana district; obviously we should give some sort communication, but we are not yet familiar with it. It is complete darkness, all the lamps are out; people screaming and shouting, calling each other, women shrieking hysterically and, the most painful, the convulsive crying of children. In the darkness, we step on the glass shattered all over the place; no one can show us the way; but in the confusion, we meet Michelucci who leads us through the corridors until we reach the top of a staircase.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Rubble in Borgo San Jacopo, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 65930.

We run - it is less crowded here - to our rooms; we are immediately reassured: a lot of fright but no serious trouble. As soon as they realise that nothing happened here, the women run to the infirmary.

Hurry up - they tell us - take the lamps. We grab the carbide lamps and run. The room is full of people, many are injured and many are making noise. The doctor arrives immediately, in shirt sleeves, sweating, with bloodied arms. He bustles around the table covered by a sheet that is also wet and bloody.

[...] Injured people keep coming, many children are holding the necks of their stunned mothers, with their faces covered in blood, cut by glass. There is no alcohol, just some sublimate solution used by the doctor and some women to wash them. Fortunately, many have only superficial cuts, which cause a lot of bleeding but are not dangerous. However, some people have serious injuries: sitting on the ground, a man is in pain, soiled with earth and lime, drenched in sweat. We lift him up, but he screams because every movement must hurt him so bad. After placing him on the table, the doctor examines him: both ankles are broken, already swollen from internal bleeding. A statue fell on his legs.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace (Afternoon view of Santo Spirito), Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 6. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti, Oltrarno distrutto), agosto 1944, n. 6. The photo was probably taken on the morning of 5 August, or one of the following days, from the windows of Nello Baroni's home in Via de' Bardi 33. In the same series of photos, there are pictures of the interior of a house, which can probably be identified with that of the architect: it is therefore possible that, once he had been allowed to leave the Palace, he went to check the condition of the house and took some photos.

We return “home”; everyone is awake and talking nervously. When I am about to lie down, another violent blow takes our breath away and shuts off the lights, immediately followed by a deafening burst. Here inside the Palace, everything shakes. Instinctively, I bend over as if to protect myself. Nothing else happens.

[...] I'm exhausted, I lie down on the bed and immediately fall asleep.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Allied Army, View of Ponte Vecchio with the rubble, April 1945, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 42414.

At around four (it is daylight now) I get up and go out in the courtyard. Everyone is awake, most of them are standing together behind the pillars, as if they were taking shelter. The explosions are continuing, more or less violent, at irregular intervals.

[...] It's six o'clock. No explosions have been heard for a while. The sun has risen, and the reddish light filters through the murky air full of heavy dust. I reach the “Occhi” corridor at the end of which there is a window overlooking the city: Via Guicciardini is a pile of rubble that goes almost as far as Pitti Square; behind the houses you can see all the way to the Arno.

At first, I do not understand; then I realise that half of Borgo San Jacopo has disappeared; only the shapeless skeletons of houses and towers are still standing. Even lungarno Acciaiuoli is now an immense landslide of wreckage overflowing into the Arno. Ponte Vecchio appears to be intact; from here I can't see the other bridges. Dense clouds of black smoke rise from where Por Santa Maria used to be, behind which I glimpse Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo, still intact.

[...] In the growing light, the air remains murky with a veil of stagnant red dust. Clouds of smoke are rising from Por Santa Maria and Parte Guelfa. As I look there, I see a new explosion igniting a fire, with new smoke covering the building while I hear the roar of the burst.

Next to me - I did not hear him come - a man looks in silence with the eyes full of tears. As I walk down the staircase (there is nothing left to see up there) I realise that since the Germans have blown the bridges they must be gone.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, View of Florence from the roof of Pitti Palace, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 11.

I look for the roof of Palazzo Bargagli, towards Via dei Bardi, and in the dust I glimpse a part of it, pitched, but standing: perhaps my house has not collapsed. In the corner of Via Tomabuoni, I can also see Palazzo Ferroni; from here it is not possible to see the bridge, but from the state of the nearby houses I can tell that Ponte Santa Trinita is no longer there.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Esercito Alleato, View of the destroyed Ponte Santa Trinita, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 380127. The photo was taken by the allied army in the days immediately following the destruction of the bridges.

At four o'clock in the morning we had nothing left to defend: while drifting through the Boboli boxwoods, the dawn found squalid, poorly covered bodies patiently climbing the grand dukes' ingenious avenues. They walked slowly almost like if they had to be careful of the gravel, stumbling in their slippers as if they were moving in the dark. The voices coming from the courtyard were timeless, neither pertaining to the night nor the morning, they had lost their urgency of irritated hive, they seemed lost rather than weak, and it was impossible to remember how they screamed during the night, amidst the immense bursts of the mines. The pilgrims walked alone or in pairs, choosing the longest route, and when they reached an open area, where it was possible distinguish the city, they seemed uncertain as if they were dazzled, lacking the courage to continue.

From the last terrace of the Belvedere emerged the busts of the hasty ones, those who wanted to know the truth right away: through the morning fog, laden with strange acrid scents, those dirty faces looked like dull, voiceless fish. However, they spoke softly, generating a text of helpless pain that everyone would repeat: almost a prayer made of curses, astonishment, resignation. Each one of us looked for the windows of a collapsed house, lied to the neighbour who deluded himself into recognising a balcony, and then remained silent, with the arms hanging down.

The women moaned: the cupboard, those new casseroles, the Singer, the radio. The white sun seemed to reflect the outline of the invoked objects, which had become fiery, animated, angelic. In the dull carelessness that followed those outbursts, the tremendous wonder of the new landscape materialised in front of us: we could see the side of the cathedral; down to the plinth, to the door. In those moments, a rumour somehow spread: Ponte Santa Trinita refused to collapse, they had to explode four mines, the last one half an hour ago.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Photo: Guido Morozzi, View of Florence from the Soffittoni of the Pitti Palace, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, senza numero.

Few things exist for me in this tiring, white dawn of an August day while I sit on the ground, on the gravel of the Boboli avenues, like in a dream, wearing my nightgown. From the stomach to my head, I'm all tears, I cannot help it, in good conscience, and my head is on my knees. Under me, among the pebbles, my bare, grey feet; above me, like waves on a drowned man, the dull hustle and bustle of people ascending and descending the slope from which I came, unable to take care of a woman nestled in her sobs. At four o'clock in the morning, they go out like a frightened flock to see the ruins of their homeland, to witness first-hand the terror of a night in which German mines, one after the other, shattered the crust of the earth.

Without realising it, I cry thinking about what they will see from the Belvedere, and my sobs boil over, unrelieved, generating flashes of crazy festoons, Ponte Santa Trinita, golden towers, a flowered cup where I used to drink as a child. Once again, as I pause for a moment and realise, in my emptiness, that I need to get up, the sound «don't cry» quickly touches me like a receding wave. I finally raise my head and it is already a memory, and in this form I listen to it. I remain silent, astonished, as I discover the most painful loss.

Under the rubble of my house, I lost Artemisia, my long-time companion, which breathed softly, lying by me on a hundred pages of writing.

Anna Banti, Artemisia.

Photo: Allied Army, View of Ponte Vecchio with the rubble in Borgo San Jacopo, April 1945, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 42417. In 1944, Anna Banti was living in Borgo San Jacopo. Her house was completely destroyed by German mines and the handwritten draft of her novel Artemisia was lost in the collapse. In the months that followed, she completely rewrote the novel, mixing the narration with the autobiographical experience of the war she had just experienced and, in particular, with her seclusion in the Pitti Palace marked by the dramatic destruction of the bridges.

There is a breath fresh air in the courtyard. I see many people with a tricolour bracelet on which is written C.T.L.N. - Tuscan National Liberation Committee. A guy - who yesterday was introduced to me as a major - came to the courtyard with a belt and the revolver under his jacket. Detti goes to meet him and he hands him the weapon. He tells him that no one can be armed unless they have a badge of the C.T.L.N. Later, they explain to me that this guy is actually suspected to be a major of the 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla or something like that.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 20.

Seven or eight communist partisans with red handkerchiefs around their necks and camouflage parachutist trousers enter the courtyard from the Boboli ramp. Some are armed with muskets, others have old pistols and a few hand grenades on their belts.

They say that there was a shoot-out with the last Germans who were still on this side of the Arno, and that now they are all on the other side; that we cannot stay in the lungarno because the Germans are shooting indiscriminately from the northern stretch of the river. The allies are said to be at Porta Romana.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 25.

Everyone is confused, everyone wants to go out but the streets are still deserted. In the distance, we can hear grenade shots and bursts of machine guns; from time to time, some closer isolated gunshots.

Some allied fighters fly very low over the garden. The turmoil grows. Many partisans are coming and going; they carry strange weapons. Only a few of them have machine guns.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 27.

As I leave the Superintendent's room where I went to look for news, I hear confused voices from the side of the administration courtyard; everyone is running towards the passage. From here, surrounded by a crowd of people shouting out of control, two “tommies”, one after the other, come out holding their machine guns and with their helmets slanted to one side. In their faces, an indefinable expression of disgust for this ragged crowd that surrounds them.

Nello Baroni, Diario dei Cinquemila.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammanati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 35.

Later, I saw the first South Africans, who were warmly welcomed by the crowd. Their somewhat cruel faces looked alert and fiery, like Cretan warriors, under their netted helmets.

Anna Banti, Le Veglie di Pitti.

Human cicadas buzzed all over the Pitti Palace. It is already noon, we had eight hours of light, and six hours ago the South Africans got kissed by the women, as we could see from the shattered windows of the Palatine Gallery, which was our refuge.

Anna Banti, Artemisia.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace, Ammanati Courtyard, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 27.

Dusk is upon us, last night all the stones of Florence were firm, all the things they sheltered were intact. Down there, the last beams are collapsing: mysterious fires are said to be burning among the rubble. We enter the cursed night once again.

Anna Banti, Artemisia.

Photo: Nello Baroni, View of Ponte alla Carraia destroyed, Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, n. 65856.

Nello Baroni was born on 27 October 1906 in Via Coluccio Salutati 11 in Florence. He was the son of Anna Benedetti, originally from Santa Fiora sul Monte Amiata, and Niccolò Baroni, a theatre lighting technician. Since 1922, he attended Art School, where he became friends with Italo Gamberini, while in 1927 he enrolled at the Royal School of Architecture in Florence, where he was a pupil of Raffaello Fagnoni and Giovanni Michelucci, among others.

At the age of twenty-six, in 1932, he was a member of the Tuscan Group that won the competition to design the new building for the Station of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Under the guidance of Giovanni Michelucci, he worked together with a group of architects, including his friend Italo Gamberini, none of whom was over thirty years of age. In the same year, he was appointed assistant to the Chair of Applications of Descriptive Geometry and Scenography at the School of Architecture in Florence, a position he held until 1944.

In 1935, he married Rita Ciardetti, who gave him two daughters, Fiorenza and Ilaria.

During these years, he developed a specific interest, probably inherited from his father's job, for scenography and theatre stagecraft, subjects that he taught at the Art School and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence until 1944. As a matter of fact, in the 1930s he curated the staging of several shows in the major Florentine theatres, from the Boboli Gardens, where Michelangelo Buonarroti's La Tancia was staged in 1936, to the Teatro della Pergola, up to the Teatro Comunale for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

In 1936, he designed his first and most representative architectural work, the Rex Movie-Theatre in Via Nazionale in Florence, which in the following decades would be listed by critics among the most important buildings constructed in the 20th century in the Tuscan capital.

In 1940, he moved with his family to their new home in Via dei Bardi 33, and opened the new studio in Lungarno Corsini 6, together with Pietro Porcinai and Maurizio Tempestini.

During the war years, which marked an abrupt pause in his professional activity, he devoted himself mainly to photography and developed the Sigma movie projector for 8 and 16 mm film formats, for which he obtained an international patent.

In the immediate post-war years, he was commissioned by the Superintendence of the Monuments of Florence to carry out surveys and restoration works on buildings damaged by the war in the provinces of Florence, Pistoia and Arezzo, while together with other colleagues, including Italo Gamberini, he won the competition to design the new Ponte della Vittoria in Florence.

In addition to his work as an architect, which saw him involved in important projects such as the restoration of the Verdi Theatre in Florence and the Metastasio Theatre in Prato, he also taught Applications of Descriptive Geometry at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, while also showing a significant cultural commitment that led to his appointment as Academician at the Academy of Drawing Arts in Florence in 1952.

At the age of 51, an incurable illness took him away prematurely on 28 May 1958.

Photo: Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Fotografie d'arte di Nello Baroni, 158. Vari ritratti di Baroni, anni vari.

Lucia Lopresti was born in Florence on 27 June 1895. Her mother, Gemma Benini, was originally from Prato, while her father, Luigi-Vincenzo, came from Calabria. Until 1905, she lived with her family in Bologna and then moved to Rome, where she attended the Tasso High School. Here, in 1913, she met the art historian Roberto Longhi, then professor of art history, whom she married in 1924.

After discussing her dissertation in Literature with Adolfo Venturi in 1918, the following year she published her first essay Marco Boschini scrittore d'arte del secolo XVII, which was praised by Benedetto Croce in “La Critica” as one of the most valuable Italian works. During those years, she taught Literature and History of Art at high school and collaborated with the Superintendence of the Monuments of Rome, dedicating herself to the cataloguing of works of art.

In 1930, under the pseudonym Anna Banti, she entered a literary competition and published the short story Barbara e la morte, which was later incorporated into her first novel, Itinerario di Paolina (1937), which in 1940 was followed by the publication of the collection entitled Il coraggio delle donne. The pseudonym, which will accompany her throughout her life, was the name of a relative of her mother, whose fascinating memory had been lingering in her thoughts since childhood.

After moving briefly to Bologna in 1934, at the end of 1938 Anna Banti and her husband moved to Florence, where they lived in villa Il Tasso in Via Benedetto Fortini 30.

The war period was particularly difficult and sad: Longhi was suspended from teaching for refusing to join the Republic of Salò, while in 1944 the couple was forced to move to their apartment in Borgo San Jacopo, which was destroyed by German mines on the night between 3 and 4 August. In those days, the couple took refuge in the Pitti Palace together with thousands of homeless Florentines: this dramatic experience is described in some pages of the novel Artemisia (1947) and in the short story Le veglie di Pitti.

After the war, she returned to writing with works such as the collection Le donne muoiono (1951), Allarme sul lago (1954) and Il bastardo (1953), thanks to which Anna Banti achieved success and full artistic maturity. These were followed in the 1960s by La casa piccola (1961), Le mosche d'oro (1962) and the novel on the Italian Risorgimento Noi credevamo (1967).

In the meantime, in 1950 she founded the magazine “Paragone” together with Longhi, divided between Art and Literature, through which she promoted and defended illustrious writers of the Italian 20th century, including Bassani, Cassola, Pasolini, Fenoglio and Tomasi di Lampedusa.

Following Roberto Longhi's death in June 1970, upon his specific request, the Foundation for Art History Studies was established after his name, of which Anna Banti was president from 1980 until her death.

In 1981, she published her last novel, the autobiographical work Un grido lacerante. Four years later, on 2 September 1985, Anna Banti passed away at her summer residence in Ronchi, near Marina di Massa.

Mostra della Firenze distrutta, exhibition catalogue (Florence, Palazzo Strozzi), Florence, 1945.

A. Banti, Artemisia, Florence 1947 (ed. Milano 2023).

O. Barbieri, Ponti sull'Arno. La Resistenza a Firenze, Rome 1964.

A. Banti, Le veglie di Pitti, in “Paragone. Letteratura”, no. 384, 1982, pp. 3-11.

G. Izzi, Lopresti Lucia, in “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, Vol. 65, 2005.

C. Cordoni, Nello Baroni. Architetto (1906-1958). Archive inventory, Florence 2008.

G. Belli, A. Belluzzi, Una notte d’estate del 1944. Le rovine della guerra e la ricostruzione a Firenze, Florence 2013.

Firenze in guerra 1940-1944, exhibition catalogue (Florence, 23 October 2014-6 January 2015) edited by F. Cavarocchi, V. Galimi, Florence 2014 (in particular C. Cordoni, Nello Baroni in “the days of the emergency”, pp. 105-118).

Photo: Nello Baroni, Boboli Gardens, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti), agosto 1944, n. 26.

Archivio di Stato di Firenze

Nello Baroni, Scritti, no. 24 Diario dei Cinquemila.

Nello Baroni, Fotografie d'arte di Nello Baroni, 120. Florence (Pitti Palace), August 1944.

Nello Baroni, Fotografie d'arte di Nello Baroni, 158. Various photos by Baroni, various years.

Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 5. Florence (Pitti Palace), August 1944.

Nello Baroni, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 6. Florence (Pitti Palace, Oltrarno destroyed), August 1944.

Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell'Età Contemporanea

Photo album “Nello Baroni”.

Angiolo Gracci Fund (Photographic Section), Case 1, 2. Florence at War.

Photo: Nello Baroni, Pitti Palace (Afternoon view of Santo Spirito), Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Nello Baroni, Negativi, Negativi di fotografie di guerra, 6. Firenze (Palazzo Pitti, Oltrarno distrutto), agosto 1944, n. 5.

FLORENCE 1944

A movie based on the audio documentary by Amerigo Gomez and Victor de Sanctis (1954) edited by Massimo Becattini and Renzo Martinelli.

Production: Film Documentari d'Arte (2010). Post-production: FST-Mediateca Toscana Film Commission for the Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell'Età Contemporanea.

From minute 19:00 onwards, you can see video sequences and audio testimonies of the evacuees from the Pitti Palace.