Speaking to Ilaria Dagnini, born in Padua, constructs a vivid, romantic, patriotic tale of how the Italian museum keepers and volunteer patriots combined to protect Firenze's potable art work from the schemes of the doomed Fascist Party of Italy and the long-range larceny of Reichsmarshall and art-goon Herman Goring of the demonic Nazi Party.  All of Italian art and architecture and archeology was at risk as the combined Allied force fought its way from the beachheads north on the 

peninsula, but the situation for Firenze became unacceptable and tragic in July 1944.  A goon named Alessandro Pavolini, secretary of Mussolini's Fascist Party, arrived in Firenze in early July as the Allies were approaching Tuscany and the Germans were preparing a strategic retreat.  Pavolini wanted all of the art, such as the Medici classical collection in the Uffizi, and a library of Renaissance painters starting with Botticelli and Michaelangelo and Titian, removed to Fascist hands in the north of Italy, closer to the German border.  Confronting the sinister Pavolini (who was also in Tuscany to organize murder teams of snipers who would continue to kill Italians long after the Allies had freed the valleys) was the hero of the city's art, Superintendant Giovanni Poggi.  Poggi invoked an 18th Century scheme by the remnant of the degenerate Medici clan called the "Family Pact."   Cooked up by the aged Anna Maria Luisa, she closed the deal with her successor, the Grand Dukes of Lorraine.  The pact declared that the Medici collections (just about everything) "could not be taken away from the city of Florence, nor out of the borders of the old Medici Duchy, so that the Florentines would never be deprived."   Poggi played his card, and Pavolini, overwhelmed by pending disasters, went along.  And so began the evacuation and securing of the treasures of the city to various castles, palazzos and other holding areas around the city.  The Allied Dream Team of art historians, architects, archivists, amateur treasure hunters and just plain good souls arrived around August 1 and had to wait until the retreating Germans blew the bridges and bugged out to begin the task of restoring the city.  Gripping detail, thrilling teamwork, uplifiting conclusion.  To fight an artillery and infantry battle in the midst of an open air museum of the Renaissance and the Roman empire.  What madness lived in Western Europe, once upon a time.  Below Titian's Danae, one that got away to Germany and had to be rescued by another team of the heroes, called the Monuments Men.