APPEAL FOR SEVERE THREAT OF DANGER FOR FLORENCE, ITALY, FLYING TO UNESCO IN PARIS

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Registered Letter to:
President Michael D. Higgins
General Director Irina Bokova
C.U.E.N.A.U. Petya Totcharova
Florence 10.03.2015
United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation
7. Place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 SP
FRANCE

Commissione Italiana Unesco Piazza Firenze 27 Roma 00186


We, the undersigned, urgently request that the Historic Town of Florence, Mankind’s Cultural Heritage, may be urgently listed among the sites in IMMEDIATE DANGER.
The main town-planning tool of the Historic Centre of Florence opens with the following quote:
“ The City of Art is extremely fragile. Its extreme fragility, caused by interventions and tampering, may alter extraordinary and delicate balances.”
Nothing could be truer, nothing was more disregarded at the same time.
Our request is motivated by the contents of the plans that the Municipal Administration made public through its Town Planning tools that report the envisioned realization (now underway although in an early, stoppable phase of implementation!) of two infrastructural works that are illustrated in the attached Report, that deny the above mentioned quotation.
The strategy pursued by the Municipal Administration in particular in the Historic Centre, is the trasformation of large stately mansions (Palaces) or entire complexes (former Cloisters), most of them invaluable properties, into Housing units. This is done by changing their destination of use and allotting the premises and selling them, after emptying the internal spaces, to wealthy clients ( See Structural Plan of Florence 2010-2014 V; UTOE 12 (U.T.O.E.= Organic Elementary Territorial Units), from page 153). At least 13 large historic mansions in the Historic Centre of Florence are on sale or were sold.
The former Monastery of SM degli Angeli comprising the Rotonda del Brunelleschi is on sale for euros 16,00,000, including works of art and frescos, regularly accompanied by a Certificate of No Impediment/Nulla osta from the Ministry of Heritage and Cultural Activities (http://cisimmobiliare.org/portale/en/corporate-real.estate-home/287-complesso-immobiliare-ex-convento-santa-maria-degli-angeli-rotonda-brunelleschi-firenze.html-)
The surface subject to transformation amounts to more than 150,000 square meters but could reach as high as 250,000 if we consider the premises destined to commercial use. (V. UTOE 12: transformation potential).
The Municipality of Florence is promoting abroad the sale of 750,000 sm of public and private buildings in the whole urban area, hills included, guaranteeing the changes in the destination of use and the necessary permits for the consequent demolition and reconstruction works.
To these speculative initiatives. approved and promoted by the Municipal Administration, we must add at least 12 underground car parks socalled “pertinenziali” (that is located on public soil but managed by privates), in the Historic Centre underground, nominally for residents but destined to be attached to the extra luxury dwellings; besides, major changes in the road network sought to increase penetration into the Historic Centre”, along with a designed tramway that should cross the Historic Centre (an “underground” version of it), with stations in Piazza dell’Unità, Piazza della Repubblica, Piazza S.Croce, Piazza San Marco, Piazza della Libertà. At archaeological excavation level and in any case dangerous for the integrity of the artistic and monumental heritage. The source is the Town Structure Plan now in force and approved in 2010 and 2014.
We hereby outline the fragility and the physical-mechanical incoherence of the Fiorentine underground along with the importance, in terms of risks of stability for the entire Monumental Centre, of the main aquifer detected at 3-4-5- meters from ground level.
The danger implied in the excavation and tunneling works is however stressed right in the Urban Planning Tool text (see UTOE 10, page 136, 11 page 147, 12 page 157) because, we read, of the “barrier effect” that may alter the aquifer’s balance and hence the stability of the buildings’ foundations in the Centre of Florence, including great monuments like the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore: despite this awareness acknowledged in official documents of the Municipal Administration, this World Heritage Site is handed over to international real estate speculators, while entering into agreements to export and exhibit in China works kept in the Museum of Uffizi. (11/5/2014 press.comune.fi.it>Comunicati Stampa>Sindaco; 11/11/2014 www.lanazione.it/firenze/uffici_cina-1.391171)
In conclusion, we inform you also that Italy is not complying, unlike most European countries (see http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/countries) with the required climate adaptation of the national transport system to the new dramatic climate changes, non-compliance that, in this case of a thirty year old (!) project like the Florentine tramway project, obsolete before it is even implemented, is all the more condemnable.
Our request is that Your Institution may promptly intervene without following the normal scheduling and procedural steps given the urgency of this appeal. We would greatly appreciate if you could inform us on the outcome of our appeal and warning report and we remain at your disposal for any further information/data you may require to examine this urgent case.

Referent in Florence: Giovanna Nicoletta Delbuono Via di Santa Marta 30 50139 Firenze


APPEAL

SUBJECT: STATE OF CONSERVATION OF THE UNESCO PROPERTY “HISTORIC CENTRE OF FLORENCE, ITALY. Appeal for “SEVERE THREAT OF DANGER” - (ref. to Unesco Convention 1972, Application Guidelines 1995, European Convention on Landscape 2000, Italian Cultural and Landscape Heritage Code).
Works are underway in Florence, Italy, that might cause severe damages to this Unesco Heritage site: two distinct infrastructural Projects, the Florence Tramway and the High Speed (AV) Railway (twin single-track tunnel to underpass the urbanized area).
The reasons that led us to report the severe threat to this Unesco property have been wholly taken from the documentation of both projects, leaving aside, in this type of examination, any criticism on the gross errors in urban planning and urban design. (1)
Both projects might have been and should have been coordinated into one project for rail transport also because it was unpostponable and non delayable to find a solution to permanent and severe traffic problems made heavier by the intense COMMUTING and by inappropriate choices in urban planning. An unitary and organic Rail Project on own and mixed transport infrastructures would have provided non-traumatic, less invasive solutions, and created an integrated system of commuter exchange parking areas that so far are only a wish, and would have eliminated the historical barriers formed by the railway track beds outlined in tn XIX century that still hinder a direct, smooth interconnection across town zones.
The Municipality of Florence should have negotiated with R.F.I. (Italian Railway Network) and call for a mandatory reorganization and refunctionalization of the local railway service network coordinated with the tramway urban system.
Viceversa, two distinct high-cost projects are being currently realized that have a very strong impact on the city , when we consider factors so far never taken into consideration: the projects’ reversibility, partial reversibility, or worse, their irreversibility.
The tramway system will be partially reversible but at an extremely high social cost.
The High Speed tunnels will cause an irreversible alteration and permanent damages to underground Florence with presently uncontrollable effects.

TRAMWAY AND THE FORTEZZA DA BASSO (Fortress of Saint John the Baptist)
The impact of Tramway Route 3.1 on the FORTEZZA DA BASSO (2) is immediately perceivable: the monument will be completely surrounded by the railway beds that will run on an artificial slab under which will run the vehicular traffic; the present arrangement of the surrounding area, in any case already subjected to recent interventions, shall be irreversibly altered, isolating even more the Monument from the Town and changing its accessibility, the views; what shall be irreversibly altered is however, the whole underground, with risks for the Monument’s stability. (3)
What is generally not perceived is the hydrogeologic risk of this project that is being developed in an area classified as at HIGH RISK of floods of the Mugnone (a torrent flowing on an artificial bed) and that is being subjected to works that ALTER THE BANKS, banks DEFINED AS BEING in a state of “absolute PROTECTION”
These data are found both in the urban planning tools and in the Final Tramway Project Reports PD 2003;
Techno-geological and geomorphological report (RG1)
Hydrogeological report (RG2)
Techno-geological report (RG3)
Hydrogeologic-hydraulic report (RG4)
In these reports Route 3.1 is said to be totally developing in areas at medium to very high risk; that in the area of the Fortress-Mugnone the project will require further and specific hydrogeologic and geotechnical surveys to integrate the surveys already provided for the Bridge over the Mugnone torrent; that there is a very high risk (R14) in the area north of the Mugnone, particularly focused on the vehicular tunnels, due to “recurrent (yearly) meteorological events during which it is ensivioned to stop the trams and the vehicular traffic by means of specific warning devices (sirens) (!); and that in any case the implementation is planned of a rain water disposal and water collection basin system and hydraulic pumps for the underground roads.
At the moment, it is not known where the water collected in the basins shall be discharged in case the Mugnone torrent should be in flood and the project report does not provide any alternative solution.
Furthermore, in the report we read the following: “ for the vehicular traffic flow relief underneath the tramway track before the Bridge over the Mugnone torrent, intereferences are forseeable with the underground hydraulic circulation; borings W8 and W10 report water levels a few meters (3,30-3,50mt) from ground level (editor’s note: not referable to TAV- High Speed Railway, for which the phreatic aquifer level is reported to be at around 10 meters).

The area where the Fortress rises is the LOWEST POINT in the historic centre, toward which the Mugnone torrent used to flow and that once was the downtown watershed. The risks obviously extend to the city expansion area found in the Structure Plan by Giuseppe Poggi, protected by a specific Protection Decree, and to the Russian Orthodox Church located in via Leone X that dates back to the XIXth century.
It is once again reported, that the veihicular traffic tunnels will surround and completely isolate the Monument.

HIGH SPEED TRAIN UNDERPASS / FORTEZZA DA BASSO

At the lower levels of the Fortress , the High Speed Rail is planned to run through a twin tube tunnel that will follow a nonlinear route , continuing under the Lavagnini Avenue, crossing Liberty
Square by the Arco Lorenese) to then head toward Campo di Marte with yet another curve: both Lavagnini Avenue and Liberty Square are included within the Historic Centre.
The reason for the tortuosity of the High Speed Route can only be explained by a “centralization” trend already hardly acceptable in the XIXth century (4) and even less so today; especially considering that in order to underpass the Fortezza da Basso the tunnels will have to discend and then ascend again and that the hub “Fortezza da Basso”, an integral part of the historic centre, should bear both the weight of the tramway transit and, at a lower level, the “vehicular traffic discharge” tunnels, as well as the canalizations of the main Sewer designed by Giuseppe Poggi Poggi; all of this occurring in the “low” land area of Florence on a terrain where an abrupt hydraulic jump was detected in the surface aquifers caused by the subsidence of the silty-clayee bottom and recharge of the sandy gravel aquifer of the Mugnone.
Hence, the tunnels will wind into extremely problematic grounds historically filled with water that will have to be heavily consolidated (consequently irreversibly altered) and it is already expected that excavations will produce “some” “aesthetic” (!) damage to the walls and the buildings of the Fortress.
Furthermore, the construction is planned, on the southern side of the Fortress, in the lowest point, of a “dewatering well “ at a level of – 8,6 mt from the rail level, to collect the water percolating through the joints of the final lining and also “accidental spills of noxious liquid substances” from freight trains (!)
The collected water must be uplifted and conveyed into the SEWER PIPE. Once again, no information is provided in the report as to where the remaining (potentially polluted) wastewater shall be conveyed; In the various project reports, no works are planned for the safe disposal of wastewater.

No protection works are planned to secure the course of the Mugnone torrent; instead, works are underway that cause a permanent riverbank alteration, through the construction of a “temporary” bridge (allowed despite the absence of a stream alteration permit!).

THE HIGH SPEED RAIL TUNNEL (TAV) AND THE HISTORIC CENTRE

The tunnel will form an underground dam that will interfere with the freatic aquifers of the entire Northern part of the Town: obviously the project has been accompanied by a study on the interferences and risks based on detailed models that are however objectable in two ways:
1) the reliability of the models is uncertain as well their proved capacity to adjust to the specific underground (morphologically very complex and dishmogenous) on which the town of Florence lays;
2) the reliability and completeness of the data included in the models is uncertain, since it is reported in the project study that “overall re-evalutations” are envisioned to take place as the works are underway.
We express our grave concern in particular on the following:
In the hydrogeological and hydrological studies on the Rail Project, mention is made of the presence of a flow of an active aquifer belonging to the Paleo Mugnone torrent. The Mugnone torrent, along with two other waterways, is the main affluent of the river Arno that since the Pre- Pleistocene has determined the structure of the florentine area; subjected to deviations of its course during two thousand years, the torrent remains present and active in the underground, following the ancient course in direction of the historic centre, that was actually detected in a divergent fillet aquifer that, departing from the zone of Piazza delle Cure is again found in Piazza Savonarola and in Piazza Santissima Annunziata.
This aquifer is detected in Piazza Brunelleschi/Via dei Servi in many active wells: one of the underground car parks in the Historic Center is planned to be built inside this aquifer.
In the “Study of Environmental Impact of High Speed Urban Penetration of Florence/ environmental framework , attachment 2 page 56, it is reported that :
“…It is however interesting to observe the divergent fillet aquifer in the area between Piazza Savonarola and Piazza Santissima Annunziata; this morphology of the aquifer surface indicates a feeding zone, most likely at the conoid of the Mugnone torrent. This confirms the historical data…according to which the torrent, before the many artificial deviations to West , used to head toward the historic centre of Florence; the “fan” described by the isoaquifers indicates that the underground hydraulic flow continues following the original direction as the latter has the highest hydraulic transmissivity.
The conoid of the Mugnone that flew into the Arno river without many twists, is nothing but the rise on which the Catrum was founded in the year 59 B.C. and that coincides with Piazza della Repubblica, the centre of Florence: however the Project’s Authors do to mention its importance and do not draw any logical consequence from this datum.
One the reporting authors, Prof. Pranzini , in the Structural Plan of Florence/Geology Hydrology/Integrated Information Planning System Framework/Part II, rightly observes that:
“two paleo-courses of the Mugnone are present that contributed to the formation of the conoid on which Florence was founded: one west of the conoid, one east, that gave rise to the Scheraggio’s Ditch (Proconsolo Street) (Translator’s note: scheraggio means DRAIN).
In addition, in an earlier article, Professors Ghinelli and Vannucchi, in “Stratigraphic conditions and foundations of the absidal zone of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Engineering Bulletin 1-2 1991) account for a drilling south-east of the Abside of the Cathedral of S.Maria del Fiore and confirm the remarks reported in the Construction Yard Journal by in 1357 and that is that under a first sandy, silty layer (mt.4-5) there is “….since ancient times a layer of permeable pebbles of about 20 mt. that constitutes the main aquifer of the City.
From the Construction Yard Journal of Santa Maria del Fiore:
June 19th 1357…” the drilling was begun ….and the foundations of the new pillars of the church….the foundation of the columns from that space downwards, is to be made for VII arms each side, squared, down to the good gravel inside the water.”
Therefore, the foundations of Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore are at mt 7.95 from ground level and laid on the good gravel into the water.
Professors Ghinelli and Vannucchi go on describing the stratigrapy of the centre of Florence, locating at a lower level of the permeable layer of gravel the third horizon , that of the IMPERMEABLE blue clays, for 25 meters , in contact with the rocks of the paleo-lake reservoir .
As a result, it appears rather unlikely that the Arno aquifer may the only one contributor to the main gravel aquifer on which the Town Centre is founded, since the Arno aquifer mught be at a lower level and separated from the impermeable blue clay aquicludes.
According to the above mentioned Study of Environmental Impact, at page 56 , we read that:
“….to the right of the Arno the aquifer’s flow runs from the hills toward the river. However the aquifer feeds the Arno only for a short tract in the plains, almost as far as Bellariva. Beyond, there is an inversion, with the Arno feeding the aquifer depressed from pumping.”
However the above mentione remarks date back to 1970 (Capecchi et al.) and presently the pumping is no longer carried out, especially from the aqueduct. But let’s resume our discussion:
“The axis of the aquifer shifts during the course of the year depending on the variable contribution of the rain and of the Arno river: in winter-spring, the axis shifts toward the Arno because of the rain recharge, while in the summer the axis moves away from the Arno river, as the strip increases that is directly fed by infiltration of river wate. In other words, the feeding supports the aquifer during the dry period. “
Again: these remarks refer to a state of the art that dates back to 30 years ago (4); nevertheless, considered the remarkable alternation of shifts in the flows, it is questionable whether:
placing into the town fabric an “extraneous body” that shall irreversibly and perpetually alter the Town’s underground balances achieved during the course of millennia, even though mitigated by works opportunely planned (in any case consisting of wells having a diameter of 7 meters, from which a “sunburst” departs of radial concrete consolidations, can be considered “an acceptable risk for Florence.
Shall the alteration of the level that the underground waters re-establish seasonally not have repurcussions on the foundations of the Monumental Centre, if one of the balancing factors should be missing? This problem is not addressed at all in the Work Impact Evaluations.
Therefore the question is: are the considered risks acceptable when they are the result of works that do not provide any benefit, dictated as they are by merely political choices? Here’s the proof of this statement:
presently, the trains travel time between Florence and Rome (already regularly transiting) is less than one hour and thirty minutes; between Florence and Milan the travel time is two hours.

- It is demonstrated that with economical, feasible interventions it is possibile to empower the existing network and adjust it to eventual new requirements for high speed trains.

A very alarming datum is reported by the ARPAT Agency (Technical Management VIA-VAS environmental and feasibility studies Florence High-Speed Railway Hub Monitoring January 2012- March 2013 Assessment, that reports the following:

- “With regard to the piezometric levels in the town zone of Campo di Marte, significant differences in level were recorded between upstream and downstream gauges. In the light of these results, a report has been sent to the Observatory recommending an overall revaluation of the continuity of the aquifer systems at the southerm entrance”.
This confirms the doubts over the reliability of the “models” and of trustworthiness of data, and the necessity of overall re-evaluations during the works!
Moreover, it should be outlined that to the extent that the contribution of the Paleo Mugnone to the aquifer reaching the Florence historic centre has remained active, it is also extremely likely that the ancient aquifers of San Gervasio and the whole side of Settignano are also still active, even though the surface water has been channeled and deviated and continues to follow the millenia old directions toward the centre and the areas immediately next to it.
All the underground waters from the northern part of Florence shall be subject to interferences of the underpass works, from Castello to Bellariva.
As it clearly emerges from the official reports (Environmental Impact Assessment E.I.A.) op cit. 6.1.5 page 34) the Environmental Impact Assessments have had the primary goal to evaluate the impact that THE ENVIRONMENT SHALL HAVE ON THE WORKS AND NOT THE CONTRARY!!! (the impact that the works shall cause to the the underground environment where the foundations of Florence lay: the only exception is a survey limited to the buildings underpassed by the tunnels and nothing beyond that.
We report the following in full as it is in the text :

“the present study is meant to assess, relatively to the duration of the infrastructure (500 years) the eventual impact that the geological environment may exert on the work, compromising at first the latter’s integrity and then its stability”.
An aberrant logic totally in contrast with Italian Laws and EU Directives; see publications by ISPRA Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) ( http:// www. isprambiente.gov.it) that should provide the authentic interpretation of the “ratio legis” of the Laws in force:
The Strategic Environmental Assessment envisaged at european level by Directive 42/2001 EEC has been transposed at nationatl level into the Legislative Decree 152/06 and regulated by Regional Law Feb/10/2010.
The VAS is a systematic process for evaluating the plans and programmes that may have a significant impact on the environment and the Cultural Heritage Patrimony, performed so that, through environmental assessments, they may contribute to a territory’s sustainable development.
The Environmental Impact Assessment reports that “in itself “ the work is not harmful; yet says nothing on how it relates with the environment, universally acknowledged including the Urban Landscape, that is, the inhabited, built LOCUS containing the Property that Unesco aims at protecting.
In this Warning Report, we have deliberately sticked to the official data , statements and contents reported in the Projects’ Files, except for two documents and a few personal remarks, to prove that the risks are real, as they directly drawn from the Assessments.
Attached, you find the seismical risk maps contained in the High Speed Project.
The Project’s works are in a phase of implementation .

An appeal is hereby made to urgently include the Unesco site “Florence Historic Centre” in the list of World Heritage Sites in Immediate Danger.





Notes

(1) According to the recent White Book by Eurispes on the transportation of goods and people among
the Italian large metropolitan areas, Florence and Rome have the highest motorization index: more than 700 cars every 1000 inhabitants.
The Florence Tramway shall be constituted by 3 lines that converge into a hub, rather than a recognizable network of routes and nets. Besides, the only existing hub, that is the station of Santa Maria Novella is destined to be dismantled as soon as the HS station will be realized in the former Slaughter House (Macelli) area. The tramway continues not to serve Florence, in that it does not cross the town from east to west and it does not actually reach the Historic Centre.
In addition, there is no effective interconnection between tramways and railways. For example, line 3 does not pass by the Rifredi Station (the fourth station in Tuscany per passenger number). Line 2 should have adequately served the area of the Palace of Justice/University Hub/ the Administrative Offices of the Region Tuscany/ the Garden of Saint Donato, while it does so only marginally.
Originally belonging to the State Property filed at the Superintendency of Finance with index card num. 54. registered under the following definition “deemed of outstanding artistic and historical value according to Law 1089/1939 with Decree of February 27th 1984.” The Decree lists the cadastral units to which the legal protection was extended (Sheet 155): from 6 to 77 included; num 93, 94, 95, 102; from 112 to 118; in the text we read: begun in 1533 by Duke Alexander de Medici, based on a drawing by Antonio da Sangallo The Young and realized by Francesco da Viterbo and Alessandro Vitelli; it comprises military buildings datable to the XVIth to the XIX century.
The Fortress da Basso is included as an integral part of the town’s walls in the Cadastral Map that identifies the Florence Historic Centre.
Read the manuscript by Giuseppe Poggi, the greatest Florentine Architect and Engineer in modern times, to whom we owe the Town Enlargement Plan entitled “On the Work for the Enlargement of Florence 1864-1877) Giunti Publishers; see his drawings (Poggi’s Papers) at the Florence State Archive and Historical Archive of the Commune of Florence). It is useful to report some excerpts from the Report, op. cit. page 121:
“In complying with this provision, I destined the terrains adhering to that Fort to the use of parterres, providing them with plane shifts, arrangements and plantations so as to form healthy and pleasant leisure places, embellished with perpetual water fountains and pools…however this
“fencing” of the Fortress realized by encircling it with large avenues, implied a few problems among which there emerged:
the remarkable plane differences that I had to apply to the two avenue sections in front of the curtains …differences that obliged me to keep different plane gradients in the other sections of avenues around the Fort…the lack of available space to form the avenue between the Railway and the Fortress….The need to provide a comfortable and safe accessway to the new Bridge of the Romito recently built over the Mugnone…
Other difficulties were: the general filling of deep ditches around the Fortress da Basso and all of the water connections of the whole surface area, including that inside The Fortress , since it was not possibile to convey all the ditch channels into the Effluent (main Sewer: Editor’s Note) but it was obligatory to use the Ditch called “the Fortress Ditch”, rearranging and enlarging it….”
First level Executive Project for High Speed Urban Penetration/Natural Galleries/ General technical-descriptive report, pag 18. “In the case of the Fortezza da Basso the risk analysis shows an extremely low damage probability for the bastions’ walls and in any case only of an aesthetic type; however, due to the historic-artistic importance of the monument and in agreement with the Superintendency of the Cultural and Historic Heritage BCA of Florence, a protection intervention was envisaged. In this case, the protection works are meant as mere prevention against eventual and remote aesthetic after effects in case of malfunction of the tunnel boring machine.”
It is not clear what is the meaning that the Authors of the above mentioned document attribute to, quote “damages exclusively related to aesthetic aspects” when referring to a Monument, or “unlikely aesthetic after-effects” on the wall structures in case of malfunction of the tunnel boring machine: in the report these damages are never attributable to foundation subsidence, an event most likely to occur and that is the cause of not only aesthetic damages (Editor’s Note).
In his “Reports on the Work for the Enlargement of Florence” Giuseppe Poggi already expressed his opinion that it was appropriate not to place the new Railway Station at Santa Maria novella to replace the old Maria Antonia Station; as an altenative, he proposed today’s Piazza della Vittoria or the final choice for Campo di Marte where in any case he located a secondary station. His opinion clashed with the political decision to converge the travellers into the town centre.
The choice of serving the station of Santa Maria novella was determined by the fear of the local Authorities that the town stop for the High Speed Rail may be overpassed by other stops along the Milan-Naples railway. The issue was raised especially with the realization of the high speed Railway so called Direttissima (“most direct”) Florence-Rome. The Regione Toscana would have wanted a “Long Underpass” that starting from Figline would reach Castello from the south, crossing the Arno and serving, underground, the station of Santa Maria Novella that at that point would become a “transit” station. Instead, Ferrovie dello Stato (State Railways) pushed toward a “temporary”, more economic, connection between the Direttissima and the existing line, using the Gallery San Donato and locating the High Speed Railway at Campo di Marte. At the beginning of the 90’s in the adopted Plan by Vittorini, the station was at Campo di Marte and the High Speed Railway was planned to enter into one of the two northern valleys (Mugnone and Terzolle) without touching the Historic Centre. The twisty, current solution appeared in the middle of the 90’s, but the station was on the Belfiore site, stll integrable with S.M. Novella by means of a people mover.
With the final localization of the High Speed station on the site of the former Macelli (Slaughter House) without people movers, any connection with the SM Novella Station was broken and the debate on regional traffic exchange definitely dropped. To find a remedy, an attempt was made at
creating connections between the regional trains and the High Speed Railway at the Surface Station “Circondaria” (in correspondence of the underground stop) but also this solution was set aside.

Giovanna Nicoletta Delbuono, Arch.
Paolo Visonà Professor at the Dept. of Art Kentucky University
Ugo Barlozzetti Art Critic, member of the Association Friends of the Stibbert Museum
Teresa Crespellani, Dept. of Earth Sciences

Lucia Lepore, Archeologist
Deanna Sardi, Historian University of Florence
Roberto Budini-Gattai Comitato Piazza Brunelleschi
Vincenzo di Serio, Prof. Diritto Comitato Primo Popolo di Florentia
Franco Cardini, Historian University of Florence