(Norton, $29)
“Imagine an Italy without da Vinci’s Last Supper, the Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” said Matthew Price in Newsday. That scenario almost became a reality, and would have, author Robert M. Edsel reports, without a concerted effort by a small group of historians, architects, and artists assigned by the American and British armies to preserve Italy’s cultural treasures during World War II. Edsel, a former Texas oil tycoon who has lived in Florence and now devotes much of his time and money to memorializing the work of the so-called Monuments Men, clearly has passion for his subject. His 450-page book teems with detail and subplots, some of them extraneous.
Often enough, “the book reads like a good spy thriller, with double and triple crosses, frantic chases and hiding places, and a fascinating cast of characters,” said Bill Marvel in The Dallas Morning News. Two scholars from Yale University assume center stage: Fred Hartt took orders from no one as he roamed Italy in a jeep, often arriving at a scene in the immediate wake of a shelling. His colleague, Army Capt. Deane Keller, quickly rounded up a team of engineers and craftsmen to piece together priceless frescoes in Pisa that were damaged by American artillery fire. Generals, foot soldiers, and ordinary citizens all play significant roles, too; Father Guido Anelli, a Catholic priest and resistance fighter who parachuted behind enemy lines, “probably deserves a book and a movie all by himself.” Yet art remains “always in the foreground” in Edsel’s account. Michelangelo’s David survived thanks to a brick cocoon built by local artisans. By contrast, the fresco-filled Abbey of Monte Cassino was obliterated by Allied bombs.
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Indeed, the Allies weren’t always heroes in the battle Edsel describes, said Hugh Eakin in The Wall Street Journal. Allied bombings, including a 1943 air assault on Milan that nearly erased da Vinci’s The Last Supper, destroyed numerous cultural treasures. And Edsel doesn’t hesitate to give credit to a few men on the other side, including Gen. Karl Wolff of the S.S. Though the Nazis smuggled many priceless works out of Italy, they also established a very effective art-protection unit of their own. “One of the awkward lessons of Edsel’s revealing history,” in fact, is that defending freedom and defending culture don’t always go hand in hand.
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