I’ve mentioned Franco Zeffirelli’s foundation and museum in Florence in my post at https://longoio3.com/2018/05/06/an-invitation-from-franco-zeffirelli/

Last October we made a return visit to Florence as we hadn’t yet seen the museum.

Where to start with Franco’s achievements? In operatic scenography (Callas in ‘Tosca’)? In theatrical productions (‘Taming of the Shrew’ with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton)? In films (‘Tea with Mussolini’ with Judi Dench)?

I have my favourites (‘Jesus of Nazareth’, whose film sets we stumbled upon during our Tunisian honeymoon forty years ago),

‘Filumena Marturano’, a West End production with Joan Plowright, Larry Olivier’s widow, and the rehearsals of which we witnessed personally at the Italian Institute with the master himself, my father-in-law’s (the institute’s secretary-general from its inception) good friend, and, particularly, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, which had me transfixed as a teenager.

There’s an excellent web site for Franco’s museum at

https://www.fondazionefrancozeffirelli.com/en/the-museum/

The immense achievement in theatre, opera and cinema of this genius, who was born in Vinci and is a direct descendant of Leonardo himself, is fully displayed in the fascinating museum which occupies the San Firenze baroque complex formerly occupied by the city’s tribunal. Here is a selection of costumes, photographs and posters showing the breadth of the master’s achievements.

The palazzo’s setting is spectacular and there is a very convivial bar and a cortile to relax in after your visit.

For me the most fascinating section was that dealing with the unfinished 1972 project  of making a film of Dante’s ‘Inferno’. Sandra was involved in typing the scripts and the maestro’s scenic directions. But why was the project abandoned? Zeffirelli needed special effects which, although, today, are common place in any US type blockbuster, were then not yet available. The digital revolution was in its infancy and the master’s imagination could then not be realised in cinematographic form.

These are the preparatory sketches for the imagined masterpiece.

There are so many artists in history whose vision is far ahead of any technology that could achieve it. Zeffirelli is one of them. And this is the astounding re-creation of these sketches in the film which climaxes this very special museum. Of course, you have to see it in its full size in the splendid room which displays it, to fully appreciate the unrealised masterpiece.