The Destruction of Santa Trinita and Siege of Florence, WW2
The great structure had shuddered -- but withstood -- the shock of the dynamite blast.
Santa Trinita, once called “the most beautiful bridge in the world,” would only fall after the third detonation, such was the strength of its design by Bartolomeo Ammannoti with the assistance of the superb hand and mind of Michelangelo, in the mid 16th century.
The old Santa Trinita
[IMG]
[/IMG]
[IMG]
[/IMG]
Santa Trinita after demolition
[IMG]
[/IMG]
It is early August, 1944. The retreating German soldiers had their orders: to blow up every bridge in Florence, except the Ponte Vecchio (the oldest bridge in the city), in the face of the advancing Allied forces. They had spared Rome’s bridges just two months earlier on their withdrawal from the city, which aided the Allied sweep into Italy, and they wouldn’t make that mistake again.
On Aug. 25, 1944, in his Letter From Florence for the New Yorker, Daniel Lang explained why the city, its people and its art and architecture ended up paying such a terrible price:
“Florence … was a city rather too close to the Gothic Line. In his last-ditch effort to drag the war into yet another winter, Gen. Albert Kesselring, commander of the German army in Italy, didn’t want to concede any military advantage to the Allies. The destruction of the city’s bridges, he calculated, would slow down the Allies’ advance and help the German army’s retreat to the north of Italy.”
War weary Florence, occupied by German forces for a year, wept.
As it turned out, the Allies were able to use a portable, pre-fabricated “Bailey bridge,” assembled atop the surviving piers of Santa Trinita, to successfully cross the Arno. The “most beautiful bridge in the world” had been destroyed for nothing.
Bailey bridge across Arno
[IMG]
[/IMG]
Florence would be one of the venues the art world would fear loss the most: art rich and historically significant, where 80% of the greatest art of western civilization had been created and carefully preserved, was now in the crosshairs of the war.
Not wanting to destroy the incredible art located in Florence, an elite Allied squad was called in to execute one of the most precise bomb strikes in all of WWII at the Florence Rail Yard. Allied bombers had been given maps with white Xs identifying locations of art that were not to be bombed. Bomb crews recalled maps crowded with white Xs in their runs over the city. Luckily, the critical bomb sites were primarily located in an area of train depots for cargo stations, but still uncomfortably close the city’s art treasures. The bombers were incredibly successful in destroying just the Rail Yard, only 400 feet wide, preventing the Nazis from receiving critical supplies.
If you are a WW2 history fan, you can read more at http://www.omgfacts.com/History/The-Allies-used-a-specialized-bomb-squad/59003#9htSAcy7fQJOeA31.99
But there was more to be retrieved. Santa Trinita had statues of the 4 seasons, which appear at each corner of the bridge.
[IMG]
[/IMG]
According to art historian and Monument Man Frederick Hartt
“The four seasons were smashed and had fallen into the river. A young sculptor by the name of Giovanni Mannucci was diving in the Arno in search of fragments and on one day encountered a severed human head bobbing in an eddy every time he resurfaced. Large sections of the statues were found along the Lungarno; Autumn was found under the rubble in the river bed and his head was found in five feet of water. Spring’s head remained missing for years. Many rumors persisted as to the whereabouts of the head, but it was found downriver in 1961.”
Spring with reattached head
[IMG]
[/IMG]
But the Ponte Santa Trinita was rebuilt. Its reconstruction is described by Hartt
“Architect Riccardo Gizdulich made complete measure drawing of all the remaining fragments and twenty-one plaster casts of sections recovered from the river bottom. The bridge was reconstructed using these as well as photographs, previous drawings, measurement of the ruins, and the original plans taken from the Florentine archives, which indicated that the original stones were taken from a quarry in the Boboli Gardens. For the fragments that could not be recovered, more stones were quarried from the Boboli Gardens. With dedication and monetary contributions from Florentines and foreigners alike, the reconstruction of the Ponte Santa Trinita was completed in 1958.” (Hartt, Florentine art under fire, 57 & History of Italian Renaissance art, 666)
Santa Trinita today
[IMG]
[/IMG]
[IMG]
[/IMG]
On May 2, 1945 German troops remaining in Italy lay down their arms for good. The war in Italy had come to an end.
On August 11, 2014, Florentines celebrated the 70th anniversary of its liberation from Nazi occupation and fascist control.
= new reply since forum marked as read
