From November 9-17, Splendor of Florence will present Sott’ Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities, which will commemorate and celebrate both cities with a series of programs and events in Providence that will use the arts to engage the public in meaningful dialogue about climate change and its impact on our communities.

On the morning of November 4, 1966, Florence, one of the world’s most historic cities and the repository of some of its greatest art, was struck by a monumental disaster. A low-pressure system had been stalled over Italy for six weeks and on the previous day it had begun to rain again. Nineteen inches fell in twenty-four hours, more than half of the annual total. By two o’clock in the morning twenty thousand cubic feet of water per second was moving toward Florence.  Cellars, vaults, and strong-rooms in the famous museums of the city were filling with mud as the water moved at forty miles per hour at a height of twenty-four feet. Dozens of lives were lost, great works of art destroyed, and a million antiquarian books in the low-lying Biblioteca Nazionale were submerged.
 
On the morning of August 31, 1954, an ugly storm with the pretty name of Carol brought the summer in Rhode Island to an abrupt halt. The hurricane arrived at breakneck speed and departed just as quickly, leaving 19 dead, many injured and the entire state devastated. Property damage was over $200 million, nearly 4000 homes either disappeared or lay in tatters, and more than 2000 boats were destroyed or seriously damaged. The storm surge, driven by 90 mph winds with gusts of up to 105 mph, gushed into the heart of Providence, and downtown was under 12 feet of water for the remainder of that terrible day.
 
Two cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic as well as the cultural spectrum. Two cities struck by natural disasters which left each of them underwater in the last century. Two cities marking the signing of a 25-year-old Friendship Pact.