Based on real events, this story shows how a team of international volunteers worked together to save priceless artifacts after a flood. When the Arno River floods the city of Florence, Italy in 1966, it leaves slimy, smelly mud everywhere. A young girl watches students from around the world, many from the US, help save the town's rare treasures, earning themselves the nickname Gli Angeli del Fango, the Mud Angels.
Art and poetry, mystery and desire collide in this sensual and “elegantly moving” literary romance set in the cobbled streets and painted halls of Florence, Italy (New Yorker). Margot Harrington, an American volunteer in Florence, is an expert at book conservancy. While struggling to save a waterlogged convent library, she comes across a fabulous volume of 16 erotic drawings by Giulio Romano, accompanying 16 steamy sonnets by Pietro Aretino. When first published over 4 centuries ago, the Vatican ordered all copies destroyed. This one—now unique—volume has survived. The abbess prevails upon Margot to save the order’s finances by selling the magnificently illustrated erotica discreetly—meaning without the bishop’s knowledge. Margot’s other clandestine project is a middle-aged Italian who is boldly attempting radical measures to save endangered frescoes. She is 29 and available; he, older and married. He shares her sense of mission and soon her bed in this daring story of spiritual longing and earthly desire.
Based on real events, this story shows how a team of international volunteers worked together to save priceless artifacts after a flood. When the Arno River floods the city of Florence, Italy in 1966, it leaves slimy, smelly mud everywhere. A young girl watches students from around the world, many from the US, help save the town's rare treasures, earning themselves the nickname Gli Angeli del Fango, the Mud Angels.
In Backpack Ambassadors, Richard Ivan Jobs tells the story of backpacking in Europe in its heyday, the decades after World War II, revealing that these footloose young people were doing more than just exploring for themselves. Rather, with each step, each border crossing, each friendship, they were quietly helping knit the continent together.
Birthplace of Michelangelo and home to untold masterpieces, Florence is a city for art lovers. But on November 4, 1966, the rising waters of the Arno threatened to erase over seven centuries of history and human achievement. Now Robert Clark explores the Italian city’s greatest flood and its aftermath through the voices of its witnesses. Two American artists wade through the devastated beauty; a photographer stows away on an army helicopter to witness the tragedy first-hand; a British “mud angel” spends a month scraping mold from the world’s masterpieces; and, through it all, an author asks why art matters so very much to us, even in the face of overwhelming disaster.
An art conservator heads back to Florence, to solve the mystery of a painting and a crime that still haunts her In 1966, when Florence’s Arno River unleashed its worst flood in four hundred years, killing people and destroying much of the city, the teenage Kate Holland felt compelled to act. She became one of the “angels of the flood,” helping to restore Florence, and in the process she fell in love with the city—as well as with David, one of her fellow volunteers. She also forged a transformative friendship with a local girl, Francesca. But a shattering accident left Francesca dead and forced Kate to return to England. Now a successful art conservator, Kate is plunged back into her Florentine past. David turns up at one of her lectures, and she confides to him that an anonymous dealer has been sending her some unsettling paintings. The works have been altered in ways that suggest a message for Kate specifically. For instance, a female figure is overpainted with blood that echoes Francesca’s fatal injury. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Kate and David set off for Italy. Francesca’s family had dark secrets, and their power lingers. Are the signals in the paintings a trap, or a cry for help?
Grace has always had wild red hair like no one else in her family and a birthmark on her shoulder that her mother told her was the mark of an angel. When Grace is sent from New York to spend the summer with her grandmother in Trinidad, she looks through the family album and discovers a blurred photograph of a stranger with a birthmark -- her birthmark -- and Grace is full of questions. No one is able to identify the man in the photo, and Grace is left with no choice but to find out who he is and what he might mean to her. What Grace does not know is that her search will lead to a discovery about herself and her family that she never could have imagined. Tracey Baptiste's first novel is a tender coming-of-age story set on the island of Trinidad. Angel's Grace explores the meaning of identity and truth, and the unbreakable ties of a family bound by love.
Number one international bestselling author Lorna Byrne, an Irish mystic who gives hope and a sense of peace (The Times, UK), shares the encouraging messages she receives from angels to help carry us through life's challenges. Lorna Byrne sees and speaks to angels physically every day, communicating with them as clearly as the rest of us see people. In A Message of Hope from the Angels, Lorna comforts and consoles us with the knowledge that, no matter how alone you might feel, you always have a guardian angel by your side. As she writes, These days I see a lot of angels holding lights in front of people, helping to encourage them. I see so much to be hopeful about and in this book I pass on these messages of hope. Through this inspiring and uplifting book, Lorna reveals how we can call on the help of angels to carry us through the difficulties that we all inevitably face, including loneliness, depression, stress, financial strain, heartbreak, the death of a loved one, or feelings of inadequacy. No matter what obstacles you encounter, you can always call on the support of angels to make your life happier and more fulfilling.
