Twenty-five years ago Villa I Tatti remembered Hanna Kiel (art historian, translator and editor of the writings of Bernard Berenson) with a memorial concert

Twenty-five years ago, on 5 September 1990, Villa I Tatti remembered Hanna Kiel – distinguished art historian, author, translator and compiler of works by Bernard Berenson, and esteemed friend of Villa I Tatti – with a memorial concert held in the Cathedral of Fiesole, performed by King’s College Choir, directed by Stephen Cleobury.

Hanna Kiel born in Hamburg in 1898. Left an orphan at a very early age in the care of an enlightened guardian, she frequented in her youth the distinguished literary circles of Thomas Mann and his extended family (including the Swiss writer and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, who would become a close friend), and wrote her doctoral dissertation on the works of Ludwig Tiecke (Munich, 1922). She later published three novels (one of which, Uta von Naumburg (Berlin, 1936) became a best-seller), but art and art history would soon occupy her attention: her first published work in this field was a catalogue raisonne of the sculptures of her friend, Renée Sintenis, published in 1935 (a fine self-portrait bronze bust of Sintenis was still in her possession in the 1980’s). With the help of powerful anti-Nazi bureaucrats Hanna Kiel obtained permission to leave Germany in the pre-war years and took up residence in Florence, with a research project dedicated to “L’influenza del Germanesimo sul Rinascimento toscano” (only too redolent of the cultural climate of those years in Germany). Once settled in Florence, and in contact with countless international scholars, she became an active member of the intellectual community. After the first bombing of Florence on 25 September 1943, she worked together with the German Consul and the Director of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence to have the city declared “città aperto”, and soon made public her decision to never return to the country of her birth.

In September 1943 Hanna Kiel took refuge at the Sanctuary of Fontelucente near Fiesole, where, with the assistance of the young Prior Don Giustino Formelli, she hid and assisted many local families.[1] Because of her nationality she was briefly imprisoned at the conclusion of the war in the infamous Florentine prison Le Murate, but was soon released.

In the post-war years Hanna became a regular visitor to Villa I Tatti, and would soon enter into a proficuous relationship with Bernard Berenson as translator and editor of his works (Nicky Marianio remembered Hanna as a gifted German writer whose excellent mind and cultural preparation were highly appreciated by Berenson; he valued above all her brilliant translations of his books into German, which he said were more elegant than his own in English). Hanna’s own publications included a catalogue of the Museo del Bigallo, Florence, and a catalogue of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection of modern paintings (1974). That Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza underwrote the restoration of Beato Angelico’s frescoes in the Convent of San Marco was largely due to her intervention, and to honour her Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza established an I Tatti Fellowship in her name.   A book on the frescoes of San Marco, edited by Daniele Dini, daughter of the restorer Dino Dini, who assisted him with their restoration, was presented at Villa I Tatti in September 1996 in a study morning dedicated to her memory.

Hanna Kiel died in Florence on 1988, and was buried in the cemetery of Fiesole. Our memorial concert for Hanna was – most appropriately - presented by Monsignor Giustino Formelli, Proposto of the Cathedral of Fiesole: the same priest who as a young man had worked with Hanna in 1943-44 to protect the local families. Monsignor Formelli asked us to remember the many lives that Hanna had helped save within the community of Fiesole in those desperate years, while we ourselves remembered Hanna’s deep love of music (she was one of the Founding Members of the Amici della Musica di Firenze). We agreed that a concert by the esteemed King’s College Choir, Cambridge, directed by Stephen Cleobury, with a repertoire of Renassiance and Baroque polyphony, was an entirely fitting tribute to the memory of this extraordinary person.