The Tuscan Committee of National Liberation: new directions in research, archives and editions of sources

Extract

Historians agree that the liberation of Florence (11 August 1944) was a key moment in the war in Italy for political, rather than military, reasons. This was the case, above all, because the Allies found for the first time, in a city of great international importance, an administration that at both city and provincial level was an expression of the antifascist forces. The parties as well as the organisations had, it transpired, worked to create the foundations of popular self-government during the struggle against the Germans and the Fascists and, in particular, during the months immediately preceding the Liberation. It was in Florence itself that, confronted with such a demonstration of the maturity and organisation of the Resistance, the Allied forces were compelled to rethink their relationship with the various partisan and antifascist forces. The difference between Florence and Rome was such that the Allies had, at the very least, to acknowledge the institutional and social ambitions of the Resistance movement and the desire of the partisans to change the way the country would be run after the war. These aspirations were a key aspect of the Resistance in Florence and Tuscany and, as the Allies discovered, the partisans in the North shared these same hopes and ambitions.