by Redazione 03/11/2026

Sixty years after the 1966 flood, the Opera di Santa Croce conducted a routine test of the counterweight system that, in an emergency, raises Vasari’s *The Last Supper*—which was submerged in water and mud at the time—in eleven seconds. The commemoration will take place on November 4.

The time it would take to move Giorgio Vasari’s*The Last Supper* (Arezzo, 1511 – Florence, 1574) to safety if the Arno River were to flood the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence again, as it did on November 4, 1966, is just eleven seconds. In recent days, according tothe Opera di Santa Croce, the large painting underwent one of the periodic lifting tests used to verify the system’s functionality: a manual counterweight mechanism that, in the event of an emergency, allows the painting to be quickly raised and placed in complete safety, away from the mud and water of a potential new flood.

The test comes at a symbolic moment: tomorrow marks the 60th anniversary of the 1966 flood, which severely damaged the Santa Croce complex and its cultural heritage. It was precisely Cimabue’s Crucifix and Vasari’s Last Supper that became the symbols of the disaster at the time, and later of the long rebirth that followed.

A painting submerged in mud

The Last Supper is a work from 1546 that the Arezzo-born painter created on commission for the Convent of the Murate in Florence. It did not arrive at Santa Croce until later, after the suppression of religious orders during the Napoleonic era. It is an imposing painting, nearly six meters wide and weighing about six hundred kilograms. In 1966, it was submerged in water and mud, and to repair the damage, a lengthy and extremely complex restoration was necessary, whichthe Opificio delle Pietre Dure completed in 2016, returning the work to the basilica.

Precisely to prevent that incident from happening again, the Opera di Santa Croce equipped the painting with a protection system unveiled in 2018, when it was activated for the first time during a drill involving about forty volunteers with specialized skills, ready to intervene in case of an emergency.

The principle is simple and, above all, does not rely on electricity. The painting glides along two tracks, pulled by a system of counterweights and pulleys mounted on the building’s exterior wall, and within seconds reaches a safe height, about six meters above the ground. The decision to avoid electrically powered devices was deliberate: during a disaster, power outages are a real risk, and an electrical system could stop working precisely when it’s needed most. The mechanism was designed by Sertec sas and the technical department of the Opera di Santa Croce, in collaboration with GeoApp, a spin-off of the University of Florence.

Anniversary Celebrations

To mark the anniversary, on November 4 the basilica will host a concelebrated Mass presided over by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, who as a young man was one of the “angels of the mud”—the volunteers who rushed to Florence during the flood. Cardinal Giuseppe Betori—who, as a very young man at the time, traveled from Rome, where he was studying, to join the rescue efforts—and the Archbishop of Florence, Gherardo Gambelli, will participate. The victims will be remembered, along with those who lived through those days and all those who worked on the rescue and reconstruction efforts. A procession will then depart from the basilica and head to Ponte alle Grazie, where a wreath is scheduled to be placed in the Arno River at 10:30 a.m.

The events continue with a series of special guided tours organized by the Opera di Santa Croce on the theme “Tragedy and Rebirth: the Arno and Santa Croce,” scheduled for Saturday, November 14, and Saturday, November 21.

Eleven Seconds to Save Vasari’s “The Last Supper”: The Flood Drill at Santa Croce

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