New Exhibit Draws Parallels Between Providence and Florence

Photography courtesy of David Lees and the Providence Journal

The Italian city of Florence — or a piece of it — is returning to Providence this month, this time with an emphasis on the environment.

In 1999, Joyce Acciaioli Rudge organized the Splendor of Florence Festival in Providence, an event so successful it was then invited to Philadelphia and New York City.

Rudge, a Rhode Island native who divides her time between the Ocean State, London and Florence, had been thinking about a way to bring the event back to Rhode Island. 

Photography courtesy of David Lees and the Providence Journal

Since each city has faced devastating floods in their pasts — Providence during the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954, Florence when the Arno River flooded in 1966 — Rudge decided to focus on flooding and climate change.   

Rudge, seventy-seven, remembers being with her grandparents when Hurricane Carol struck the state in 1954. She was also inspired by a March 2024 cover story in Rhode Island Monthly about flooding titled “Treading Water,” with an illustration of the Independent Man up to his waist in water. 

So “Sott’Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities Under Water” was born. (Sott’Acqua means “underwater” in Italian). Rudge says she was encouraged by Joseph Paolino Jr., CEO of Paolino Properties and former mayor of Providence, who set up a meeting between Rudge and current Mayor Brett Smiley.  

“I thought what she did twenty-five years ago brought great energy to the city,” says Paolino, who is helping to sponsor Sott’Acqua. “It worked once before — let’s do it again.” 

Smiley is also on board, and the city is providing a $10,000 sponsorship for the event. 

The festival will feature a series of free events from Nov. 8–17 in locations throughout downtown Providence, at Brown University and at RISD. (For a full schedule go to splendorofflorence.com.)

The highlights include a photo exhibit at Grace Episcopal Church in downtown Providence featuring David Lee’s famous photos for Life magazine that documented the Florence flood, which damaged countless priceless works of art, along with photos from the Providence Journal’s archives of downtown Providence after Hurricane Carol.

Brown University, in collaboration with the University of Florence, will hold a panel discussion, “Climate Action in the Aftermath of Two Natural Disasters.” 

At the RISD Museum’s Metcalf Auditorium, art conservator Elizabeth Wicks, who worked on important works of art affected by the Florence flood, will discuss the latest technology she used to restore Artemisia Gentileschi’s “The Allegory of Inclination.” 

The international exchange between the two cities will culminate in a concert by the Rhode Island Philharmonic at Grace Church with guest singers from Florence’s Academia Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.