Author & Art Historian Dr Laura Morelli Discusses her Historical Fiction Novel The Last Masterpiece and WWII Looting of Florentine Collections

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To learn more, please visit Laura Morelli's site.
Show Notes:

0:00 Laura Morelli discussing the WWII era art looting

1:15 genesis of writing about the looting of Florentine art collections in The Last Masterpiece

2:45 German Jewish artist Rudolph Levy as guest of German Art History Institute

4:30 Stolperstein for Levy

5:00 perspectives in WWII Italy: museum officials, German expatriates and Allies

8:30 German Eva Brunner and American Josephine Evans - characters in The Last Masterpiece

9:30 decisions on where to begin and end The Last Masterpiece

13:30 decision to use fictional characters versus historical figures in book

14:40 German Art History Institute Director Prof. Friedrich Kriegbaum

16:00 Kriegbaum’s participation in Hitler’s 1938 tour of Florence

18:25 Brunner’s back story

20:10 German photographer Hilde Lotz-Bauer who worked for Prof. Kriegbaum photographing Allied damage to historical monuments in Florence

24:15 Evans based on Women’s Army Corp (WACs)

28:25 women who worked with and supported the Monuments Men

29:00 justice in terms of the individual actions and decisions that enabled the survival of art looted during WWII

31:30 books by Robert Edsel and Ilaria Dagnini Brey

32:15 survival bias

33:30 van Dyck painting

33:40 Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt’s work for Germany to return looted Dutch painting

35:00 impact of propaganda during WWII

38:10 Michelangelo’s Secret Room with 16th C drawings

42:20 2024 release of book related to hiding places in Tuscan countryside in 1943-44

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© Stephanie Drawdy [2024]

Chapters

1. World War II Art Theft Stories (00:00:00)

2. Discovering Historic Photographs in Florence (00:19:11)

3. The Women's Army Corps in WWII (00:24:15)

4. Art, Propaganda, and Hidden Rooms (00:34:57)