Franco Zeffirelli, fresh from his NYC triumph at the Met (with a touch of drama, ie the thankfully aborted protest), has appeared this morning in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio to introduce to the public together with Florence's Mayor Leonardo Domenici (with Zeffirelli in the photo above) a very ambitious project, the "Scuola di alta formazione per le arti e lo spettacolo" -- a new school for the arts -- and to generously donate to this project his entire archive of papers, sketches, costumes, letters, and his famous private library of art books, scores, and ancient volumes.
The city of Florence has now full control of Zeffirelli's archives and renovation work has already begun in the ancient Scuderie in Piazzale delle Cascine. The center will be inaugurated in late summer-early fall 2009.