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The Legacy Press

 

 

Books about the Printing, Paper, and Bookbinding Arts

 

Out of print. This title will not be reprinted.

Note: Signed copies may be purchased

from the author’s son, designer Julian Waters.

Email him at waterslettering@yahoo.com

Waters Rising: Letters from Florence

 

Peter Waters and Book Conservation at the

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze after the 1966 Flood

 

Sheila Waters (1929–2022)

1967

2002

In Waters Rising: Letters from Florence, renowned calli-grapher Sheila Waters recounts the story of the role that her husband Peter Waters (1930–2003) played as the person in charge of organizing the monumental efforts to save severely damaged books in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (National Library, Florence) after the devastating flood in 1966 fifty years ago. To give the most complete picture of the events that occurred initially in the recovery mission, Sheila presents nearly 50 of Peter’s letters written between the end of November 1966 and April 1967, in which he describes day-to-day happenings, and her letters back, which kept him informed about things at home and boosted his confidence when problems seemed to be overwhelming.

 In addition to these letters and Sheila’s narrative diary and timeline of events, Randy Silverman, Head of Preservation, University of Utah, has written a thought-provoking introduction that puts those conservation efforts into the context of today’s practices. Also, Valerii P. Leonov has written an appreciation of Peter’s assistance in the aftermath of a fire in 1988 that ravaged the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The accompanying DVD features a digital remastering of Roger Hill’s film Restoration of Books, Florence, 1968.

Waters Rising is dedicated to the people whose names appear herein and to those unnamed Mud Angels who salvaged the books that the flood waters left behind.

In 2016, conservators around the world will be focusing on those events that occurred 50 years ago because in many ways the work that Waters and his colleagues initiated then gave birth to modern book conservation.

496 pages   •   283  color/black & white images   •   hardcover   •   10 x 7 in.   •   DVD   •   2016

 

$45.00   •   ISBN: 9781940965000

Reviews

 

"Sheila Waters and her collaborators [Randy Silverman, Cathleen Baker, and Julian Waters] have produced a profoundly moving epistolary read with a reach far beyond the world of library conservation or even conservation.… It is not surprising that the medium of hand letter writing, by a couple separated over an extended period of time, would naturally lend itself to the reporting and contemplation of daily vicissitudes. But what makes these letters much more than an immediate account of their ups and downs as Peter sought to answer the unprecedented conservation question of Florence, 1966, is that they are consummate love letters between two intensely devoted lovers partnered in marriage, life, and work.… For conservators, always interested in the what as well as the how and why, Waters Rising offers considerably more. There is no other primary source like it covering the post-flood conservation work. There is also no secondary source like it. Waters Rising provides unique information about – and offers an additional perspective on – significant aspects of conservation history and practice.… [The book] is accompanied by another primary source, a bonus DVD of the film The Restoration of Books, Florence, 1968 by Roger Hill.… There is something to learn from nearly every frame in the film. It is a powerful testament to the enduring legacy of those who worked in and later shared their lessons from Florence. The idea to include the DVD with the book was brilliant. They match and enhance each other, much like Peter and Sheila."

                          —Mary Oey

Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 56, nos. 3–4 (August–November 2017): 251–253

 

" 'Waters Rising': A tale of the man who helped save Florence's cultural treasures."

Fifty years ago, on Friday, Nov. 4, 1966, Italy’s Arno River breached its retaining walls and flooded the city of Florence. That day, hundreds of works of art were damaged by a mixture of water, sewage, fuel oil and silt. Cimabue’s panel painting "The Crucifixion" – one of the seminal works of the early Renaissance – was submerged in 13 feet of water inside the church of Santa Croce.

As we learn from "Waters Rising," approximately one-third of the collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze – 1.3 million items – was also submerged that day, including "the exceedingly important Magliabechi and Palatine rare-book collections." Three weeks after­ward, Peter Waters, then only 36 but arguably the most gifted bookbinder of his generation, received a phone call from Howard Nixon of the British Museum. The next day, Nov. 25, Waters – along with fellow binders Anthony Cains and Dorothy Cumpstey – was on a plane to Italy.

Quickly emerging as the recovery effort’s major strategist and team leader, Waters would doggedly overcome myriad obstacles to set up a systematic program to treat thousands of the library’s most important treasures and, in so doing, establish many of the ground rules of modern book conservation. In 1971, Waters would go on to head the book conservation department of the Library of Congress. He retired in 1995 and in 2003 died of lung cancer [mesothelioma] at age 73.

Up until he received that fateful telephone call, Waters had been chiefly known as one half of the Slade Bindery, established by his former mentor Roger Powell, the man who had rebound Ireland’s greatest bibliophilic treasure, the Book of Kells. At the Slade, the two expert craftsmen usually worked on one rare volume at a time. But now, in a foreign country, the young Englishman was faced with mountains of sodden, dirt-encrusted books. What should be done to save them?

In "Waters Rising" – a marvelous punning title – Sheila Waters relates this critical period in her husband’s life from several perspectives. First, Randy Silverman, who heads the preservation department at the University of Utah, summarizes Peter’s contributions to book and paper conservation. More briefly, Valerii P. Leonov, of the Russian Academy of Sciences Library, contributes a warm, personal tribute, which is followed by a photographic suite of Peter’s early design bindings. Most usefully, Sheila next provides a year-long "narrative diary and timeline" that lays out the day-to-day problems addressed by the ever-changing Florence team, a largely collegial group that came to include some of the most revered figures in book conservation – Christopher Clarkson, Bernard Middleton, Margaret Hey, Sydney Cockerell, Carolyn Horton, Stella Patri, Joe Nkrumah, Philip Smith, Paul Banks and a dozen others.

After this valuable introductory material, one reaches the main event: Peter’s long, detailed letters home from Florence, which reveal how he approached myriad technical and bureaucratic difficulties and dealt with loneliness, an inability to delegate and occasional self-doubt. Wisely, Sheila also includes her own side of the correspondence, in part because she worked as Peter’s representative in England, but also because her letters show us the affectionate and bustling family the young binder had been forced to leave behind.

"Waters Rising" concludes with another suite of pictures – of ruined books with accordioned pages, of the library repair stations in action and, not least, of the many young people, fondly called "Mud Angels," who arrived from all over the world to help in the recovery effort. Each copy of "Waters Rising" also comes with a DVD of Roger Hill’s film, "The Restoration of Books, Florence, 1968."

From the beginning, Peter Waters stressed the necessity of before-and-after photographs of all the volumes to be treated and the value of a system of symbols to quickly describe any book to workers who spoke different languages. Early on, he shut down one well-meaning salvage operation that was causing more harm than good, was soon battling corporations and bureaucrats to acquire the proper sinks and drying racks and, when tempers flared, was regularly reminding himself and others that the "books themselves must always come first before personal feelings."

While her husband obsesses over how to wash, dry and press 200,000 rare books, Sheila’s loving letters talk about their three young sons, household chores and a dying pet dog. They also allude to her own ongoing map and lettering projects. Elected to England’s Society of Scribes and Illuminators when she was just 22, Sheila Waters became one of the world’s greatest calligraphers. My favorite picture in "Waters Rising" shows Peter watching an intensely focused Sheila, who holds her pen with infinite delicacy as she finishes the camera-ready artwork for the printed record and treatment cards. The image strikingly captures the intimate connection of head, heart and hand that is the ideal of the arts-and-crafts movement.

Not surprisingly, [T]he Legacy Press has produced an exceptionally well-made and handsome book, designed by Peter and Sheila’s son Julian Waters, himself a renowned calligrapher and type designer, in conjunction with publisher (and former paper conservator) Cathleen A. Baker. At this point I probably don’t need to add that I knew Peter Waters during his years in Washington. As in Florence, he continued to foster an expectation of excellence and camaraderie in those around him, so that – as he once wrote to Sheila – people simply "got on with the job, each one doing his or her allotted task and not questioning the others’ competence to do the job."

Peter was, in short, that rare thing, a practical visionary. Whether you care about books or their conservation, or would simply like to read about a remarkable couple and their enviable marriage, "Waters Rising" shouldn’t be missed.

                                                                             — Michael Dirda, "Thursdays in Style," The Washington Post, 3 November 2016.