Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

by Robert M. Edsel
Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

by Robert M. Edsel

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Overview

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Monuments Men: "An astonishing account of a little-known American effort to save Italy's…art during World War II." —Tom Brokaw

When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire.

On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. With the German army retreating up the Italian peninsula, orders came from the highest levels of the Nazi government to transport truckloads of art north across the border into the Reich. Standing in the way was General Karl Wolff, a top-level Nazi officer. As German forces blew up the magnificent bridges of Florence, General Wolff commandeered the great collections of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, later risking his life to negotiate a secret Nazi surrender with American spymaster Allen Dulles.

Brilliantly researched and vividly written, the New York Times bestselling Saving Italy brings readers from Milan and the near destruction of The Last Supper to the inner sanctum of the Vatican and behind closed doors with the preeminent Allied and Axis leaders: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill; Hitler, Göring, and Himmler.

An unforgettable story of epic thievery and political intrigue, Saving Italy is a testament to heroism on behalf of art, culture, and history.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393240450
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 05/06/2013
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 496
Sales rank: 561,313
File size: 11 MB
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About the Author

Robert M. Edsel is the best-selling author of The Monuments Men and Rescuing da Vinci and co-producer of the award-winning documentary film The Rape of Europa. Edsel is also the founder and president of the Monuments Men Foundation, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and a trustee at the National WWII Museum. After living in Florence for five years, he now resides in Dallas, Texas.

Table of Contents

List of maps xi

Author's Note xiii

A Note on the Text xvii

Main Characters xix

Prelude 1

Section I Inception

1 Changing of the Guard 9

2 A New Type of Soldier 23

3 "Bombs and Words" 31

4 The Experiment Begins 41

5 Growing Pains 51

6 A New Order 59

7 A Troubled Bunch 69

8 Gifts 81

Section II Struggle

9 The First Test 93

10 Close Call 103

11 Refuge 113

12 Life on the Road 123

13 Treasure Hunt 135

14 Surprises 141

15 Guardian Angels 153

16 "Little Saints, Help Us" 165

17 "The Most Beautiful Cemetery in the World" 177

18 Whereabouts Unknown 187

19 Resurrection 201

20 Christmas Wishes 207

Section III Victory

21 Trouble in the Ranks 219

22 Switching Sides 229

23 Operation Sunrise 241

24 Complications 255

25 Surrender 269

26 The Race 281

27 The Big Move 295

Section IV Aftermath

28 Perspective 309

29 The Heroes and Their Legacy 321

Acknowledgments 341

Have You Seen These Works of Art? 347

Monuments Men and Women Serving in the Mediterranean Theater 351

Notes 353

Bibliography 425

Index 441

What People are Saying About This

Tom Brokaw

Saving Italy is an astonishing account of a little known American effort to save Italy’s vast store of priceless monuments and art during World War II. While American warriors were fighting the length of the country, other Americans were courageously working alongside to preserve the irreplaceable best of Italy’s culture. Read it and be proud of those who were on their own front lines of a cruel war.

Susan Eisenhower

Robert Edsel has written a captivating, and at times hair-raising, book on the audacious Allied effort during World War II to save the priceless art treasurers in Italy. It is impossible to imagine what Western civilization would be today without these cultural masterpieces. Edsel has written a gripping, heroic story of the Monuments Men who saved them from certain destruction.

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