Customer Reviews

The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy's Art During World War II

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"The Venus Fixers" tells one of the truly great "untold stories" of World War II. There have been several fine books on Nazi looting, but this one describes the bold young American officers who struggled to save Italy's artistic legacy from destruction. The characters and their stories are extraordinary. (The book opens with a young Harvard grad piloting a Martin B-26 over Florence,ordered to bomb the exquisite city he loved...) The author has done incredible research, in both U.S. and Italian archives, and manages to balance engaging anecdotes with military history. The insert of photographs is exceptional, really brings the people to life. This book changes the way you look at art -- and war.

Anyone who's interested in art history or Italy or the untold stories of World War II will find this book absolutely fascinating. The author's research is very impressive. What I especially enjoyed is the way her deep feeling for the art itself, and the beautiful towns and cities that gave birth to it, shine through in her narrative. I suspect that the "Venus Fixers" themselves must have felt the same way, and Brey makes us feel as if we are witnessing the drama through their eyes. Highly recommended.

When I picked up the book, I initially had the impression that this will develop into a telephone directory type of book: too many names, too many details. But by the time I read the first 100 pages I was hooked.

Why: because it brought into focus, even to one like me, who lived during WWII in Europe, and lived under bombs and survived them, how little we know, how "nothing" really we know about the manner in which so many masterpieces we admire matter-of-factly at the Uffizi, Accademia, the Archaeological Museum in Napoli, the cathedrals which we visit and admire everywhere in Italy, the bridges, the Palazzi, etc., how all these were saved by only a small number of Allied officers and by the work of most of the 50 Italian superintendents who were entrusted with these treasures, alas! too late in some cases, when the Allied forces landing in Italy in 1943.

Much of the book concentrates on Tuscany and on Florence, but there is plenty about the South and the North of Italy.

Personally, I will never look in the same way at Boticelli's Primavera, I will never walk along the Lungarno in Florence without imagining palazzi destroyed, bridges over the Arno annihilated, the Palazzo Pitti serving as shelter for 6000 people while the bridges and palazzi of the Arno were being blasted, 6000 people living in the Pitti in the midst of the art treasures, cooking, sleeping, worrying, waiting the war out. Among them Carlo Levi, and the Guicciardinis of the street with the same name whose palazzo on the Lungarno was mined and blasted, so many others without famous names. How the destruction was observed with great risk to life by Italian art and monuments public officers from the relative shelter of the Corridoio Vasariano, which remained almost undamaged due to Hitler fixation over the Ponte Vecchio, the only Florence bridge not to be blasted by the retreating German army.

There is much about masterpieces gone forever: the bombed Camposanto in Pisa (later partially restored), the 50 or more churches of Genoa, the Ovetari Chapel in Padua and with it the Mantegna frescoes, the Ponte di Mezzo of Verona which was considered the oldest Roman bridge in Italy. So many which we will never see!

This book tells us what was saved, and how, and by whom. And what was lost.

Personally, thanks to this book, I will never again enter any of these museums and admire these monuments thinking that they have been there forever and forever will remain. They are fragile, and I now look at them as a gift from those who braved bombs and politics and conspired and took enormous risks to themselves in order to preserve them for us, and for those after us.

D. Midroni, Moderator, Slow Travel [...]

Very well written history of a few US and British architects, art scholars and museum directors sent to Italy during WWII to both lessen damage done to buildings and art works, and to assist in the restoration of damaged buildings, bridges, towers and art objects. The author provides a detailed study of the tensions between the military and the intellectuals, who were relatively old (40s and 50s) and out-ranked (lieutenants and captains). The story progresses from Sicily to the Alps as we follow the Allied forces marching north, with our heroes, derisively named the Venus Fixers by the military, mopping up behind. The majority of the book centers on Florence, with several narratives interwoven to describe the terrifying months when the city became one of the war's front lines. Wonderfully vivid and alive.

The central point of this book might be summarized as: it is naïve to think a war can be choreographed to avoid damaging culturally important objects, but a few people with some support from leaders can limit looting, educate as to the importance of these objects and help to restore those objects that have been damaged. It is a measure of any nation's humanity that it can appreciate our shared culture, and the importance of the physical objects exemplifying that culture, even during war.

"If you remember, when some of that looting was going on, people were being killed, people were being wounded...It's as much as anything else a matter of priorities." This quote from Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Iraq, on the April 2003 looting of the Baghdad museum is included, without comment, at the start of the last chapter. It makes your heart ache.

I ordered three different books about stolen artwork/jewels from Amazon at one time. I began with the Venus Fixers, moved on to Chasing Aphrodite and ended with Flawless. The Venus Fixers was the least enjoyable of the three.

I am familiar with Italian Rennaisance art, with Florence, Rome and Sienna but still felt bogged down in all the minutae. The book had no central focus to drive the narrative - I understand that there were lots of different players involved who helped save the artwork of Italy... but the book never felt exciting - that we were a first hand witness to critical events - that the Venus Fixers raced to rescue the artistic jewels of Italy.

The book was interesting, just not engrossing. I was hoping that a story of Allied forces saving entire cities and their monuments and artwork from destruction would be thrilling - unfortunately, the Venus Fixers doesn't come close to that. It's more a laundry list of place names, beauracratic names and artwork. Most times when a famous piece of artwork was listed, there was no context for it. I always wanted to ask: why is that piece of art or that monument important?

Read the book for its detail, but don't expect it to be a page-turner.

I was greatly disappointed by this book. The Author failed to deliver a concrete treatment
of the remarkable deeds of Allied Soldiers. Furthermore, the fate of the Italian monuments
was not clearly explained.

Comparing with other books on of European Arts, this one is inferior. I would simply not
recommend this book.

After reading this very important and well researched book I was quite overcome with the passion of those few men,American and English soldiers and Italian art authorities, who saved the art and a great part of the history of Italy while the bombs were still dropping during WWII. I would like this book to be required reading for every humanities student and especially every art history student so that they might be exposed to some very unusual people who knew what they were doing was important,that art is a record of history,that this art in particular was the treasure of the western world and they were willing to put their very lives on the line to save and protect these works. I recently visited one of the churches they saved in Ravenna,Italy and the people of that town smiled when they talked of how the Allies ,when they couldn't save it all helped to reconstruct it. There are photos all over the place and thankful comments to those Americans and English soldiers who helped. This book and "Dark Water" by Robert Clark about the 1966 floods in Florence and the many volunteers who rushed to help save many of the same art works again make one have a bit of faith in humanity in a time rife with hatred and killing.

We became interested in the story of the so called Monuments Men of WWII after having seen the documentary entitled "The Rape of Europa," an excellent film version of a major book on the grand thefts, rescues, and preservation of works of art in the war countries. In fact, when we were in Pisa, we visited the grave of one of those men, Deane Keller, who is buried in the famous Campo Santo. Other books have recently come forth on the subject. Brey's, which deals solely with Italy, is we think the best. The author is an Italian-born American; she was able to access and understand the surviving papers on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a story of personalities--American, Italian, English--caught up in a struggle to save Western cultural heritage. Often these men, mostly middle-aged academics, worked alone in the war zones. They steered destruction away from art treasures, hunted down stolen masterpieces, and began the restoration of damaged art. Brey's writing skill is more than equal to this fascinating piece of history. It is a mature style, treating what is a sensational story with sober clarity. No hyperbole is needed for this study. Brey realizes this, and the realization serves her well. If you care about history, art, Italy, and enjoy the sometimes amazing side of mere truth, this book is for you.

Ilaria Dagnini Brey's "The Venus Fixers" tells the story of two-dozen Allied monuments officers assigned to protect, triage, and restore Italy's significant collections of arts following the invasion of Italy in 1943. It's an astonishing story, considering the richness of the country's artistic patrimony and the vagaries of war that could smash art galleries and churches with equal indifference.

At the center of the story is an American Captain, Fred Hartt, who was assigned to triage Florence after the Germans blew up the city's bridges (all but the Ponte Vecchio) and caused significant damage to the Medieval quarter. His year in the city was instrumental in stabilizing many of Florence's best-known monuments. His efforts were capped by the successful rescue and return of art that the Nazis stole and intended to remove to Austria.

The book focuses on the work of American and British officers, many of them architects, archaeologists, linguists, and art instructors at universities. But it also highlights the key role that the Italian art superintendents played in preserving the art by getting it out of the cities and hiding it in the country. Highlighted is Giovanni Poggi, Florence's superintendent, but there are many other people who worked with equal diligence, including countless Italians who worked to restore the buildings. The Uffizi librarian, Cesare Fasola, single-handedly protected a cache of art that included Botticelli's "Primavera" that was stored in a castle on the front lines between the Germans and Allies. I'm haunted by the thought of these masterpiece potentially falling victim to the war.

This book is neither a military nor artistic history; I would have liked to learn more about how the monuments officers went about their work to requisition supplies and workers, and how they shored up buildings and works of art. But these are minor points. "The Venus Fixers" is well-written and exquisitely researched. I met Brey, who said she did much of her research at the National Archives in Washington, DC and College Park, MD. Anyone who loves art, or who is visiting Italy, should read this book and see just how close the country's artistic patrimony was lost - but how a few diligent people worked so hard to preserve the masterpieces and cities that we can appreciate today.

After reading Monuments Men that covered Europe except for Italy, I purchased this book to get the Italian story. A great story of how saving the treasures of Italy bolstered the Italian people after the devastation of the war. I recommend this book to all readers who are too young to remember WWII. Today's wars seem remote and just something for the evening news and this book protrays the true realities of war. Not about which side wins or loses, rather the losses suffered
by the country and its citizens caught in the battles.