Uncommon Glimpses of Florence

By CATHY BOOTH

Piazza della Signoria -- one of the most beautiful squares in the world -- is, alas, in a state of upheaval. We know that you will be disappointed and would like to offer you all our apologies.

-- From a series of billboards in Italian, English, French and German hanging on Florence's city hall

Piazza della Signoria is in a state of upheaval these days. The piazza that has been the center of Florentine life since before Medici times, the space chosen by Michelangelo for his exquisite statue David, has been ripped up and fenced in. The current David, a copy, stands forlornly in front of a partially scaffolded Palazzo Vecchio. Cosimo I, the young Medici ruler who sits mid- square atop his bronze horse, gazes down on an ugly, corrugated plastic roof covering a third of the square.

But tourists at ground level who poke their noses through the chain link fencing and peer past the scaffolding and sandbags are rewarded with a wholly different, riveting view of the famous piazza: underground. There, some 30 Italian archaeologists are digging through a cross section of history from the Bronze Age to medieval times. Exposed now is a Roman thermal bath with its frigidarium, or cold room, almost intact. And smack on top of that are the remnants of a tower dating from the 13th century era of the Ghibellines. With 86,000 sq. ft. of past at his feet, archaeologist Giuliano De Marinis, director of the dig, is exultant: "Piazza della Signoria is a unique occasion for reading the story of Florence. It's the first time that anyone has dug a Roman and medieval town in such a big area."

Tourists and Florentines alike often forget their carefully timed itineraries so that they can follow the progress. Dutch traveler David Casale could not understand why the city was so apologetic. "It's absolutely fascinating. I can see you might get upset if this was for an underground car park, but they are discovering something important here." Mary Rau, an American visitor to Florence who lives in London, curtailed time at the Uffizi Gallery to stare at the hole in the ground. "See the archways they are uncovering? And they're bringing up shards of pottery. They're onto something."

The truth is that Florence almost did not let the archaeologists excavate the site. The ruins were discovered in 1974, but the city argued over courses of action for more than a decade. Finally, archaeologists won permission for a three-year dig, funded with some $3 million from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The deadline for completion is November 1989, when the city must repave the square for the onslaught of 1990 World Cup soccer fans. As a result, bits and pieces of Florence's past are visible for a month, or sometimes only weeks, then are re-covered with sand and pebbles to await future digs. "As archaeologists, once we've excavated and documented the find, our work is done," said De Marinis with a sigh, "but from the public's point of view, covering up is the opposite of what's being done in the rest of Europe. The tendency is to leave it open to see." Already, a 5th century Christian church and a Roman fabric-dyeing plant are back under sand.

The ongoing excavation is one of the few tourist sights in Italy with regular hours these days. Five days a week, fair weather or foul, the team is out shoveling and charting its discovery. A miniature Bobcat bulldozer shovels dirt around in one section, while in another, workers gingerly remove dust from rocks with tiny brushes. "Everybody stops to take a look," says De Marinis. "People yell all kinds of questions. Mostly they ask us what's new. But usually it's the foreigners; for Florentines, it's more a pain in the neck."

No signs describe this rich, evanescent display; often the tourists don't know what they're looking at. A tour group of Soviet emigres glanced briefly at an intact medieval basement and walked away, thinking they had come across some urban renewal project. Francesco Nicosia, the feisty archaeological superintendent for Tuscany who battled for permission to dig up the piazza, hopes to mount a midyear show to explain the history unearthed: a medieval city of giant towers sitting atop an important Roman city dating from the 1st century; Greek objects imported as early as the 8th century B.C.; even obsidian tools and pottery fragments probably imported from Sardinia around 3000 B.C. Nicosia says the findings have forced experts to rethink old Florence: "We expected to discover the Roman and the medieval cities, but not to this extent. We also didn't know the city was so old, going as far back as the Bronze Age."

So forget this "alas" stuff, Florence. You don't have to apologize. Tourists have a unique chance this year: to see the splendors of history dug up at their feet.