Florence apres le deluge
Sir: I should like to express my deep appreciation of Joseph Macleod's article 'Florence glints le deluge in your issue of 24 February. It is entirely accurate, both with regard to the facts it reports and the spirit it describes, and is clearly written by someone who both knows and loves Florence.
May I add to it one piece of information with regard to the artisans and small tradesmen, of whom Mr Macleod rightly says that what they want is not charity but to get back to work? Many of these men, who have received the state grant of £150, and also some who have not (either be- cause they were ineligible or because they applied too late), are being helped to get back upon their feet again by the Florentine Artisans' Fund, a private organisation founded immediately after the flood, which has now distributed over £45,000 to craftsmen and small tradesmen, mostly in grants varying between £150 and £250. Typical grants: a new loom, or money to repair an old one, for some families of weavers; tools and a minimum of raw material for leather-workers, carpenters, furniture-restorers, gilders, workers in wrought iron, etc.; a larger grant (£800) to a group of silversmiths, to enable them to show their work at the Florentine exhibition of arts and crafts in the spring; scholarships to craftsmen's sons whose studies have been interrupted by the disaster; a grant to the owner of a puppet theatre who, with his family, makes his own puppets and produces his own plays, but whose theatre was swept into the Arno ('that cursed and ill-fated ditch,' said Dante). All these men are now back at work again and form a necessary part of the life of Florence, if it is not to survive merely as a dead museum. Moreover, it is perhaps worth remem- bering that Orcagna and Ghiberti, Verrocchio and Donatello all started as goldsmiths' apprentices.
Contributions come to FAF from all over the world, but it is also still receiving an average of one hundred new applications a week. Will your readers help us? We shall be very grateful. The Florentine Artisans' Fund, like the British Con- sulate Relief Fund, is incorporated in Lord Hastings's 'Italian People: Flood Appeal,' so con- fributions, earmarked .FAF: can be sent to IPFA, CIO Barclays Bank, 1 Pall Mall East, London SW1.
Iris Origo Chairman of FA* Palazzo Orsini, Monte Savello 30, Rome
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