| Biography | It raises funds to restore and conserve works of art and architecture in Venice, and to investigate ways to protect them against future risks, particularly rising sea levels. The Fund is also committed to ensuring the sustainability of Venice, acting as a lobby and working to find answers to some of the critical ecological, demographic and socio-economic issues that the city is facing. Its chairman is Jonathan Keates, an author and teacher at the City of London School.
The Venice in Peril Fund was created after the great floods in Florence and Venice in 1966. The disaster led to dozens of private citizens donating large sums of money and Sir Ashley Clarke, former British Ambassador to Rome and chairman of the British Italian Society at that time, was asked to chair a committee to raise further funds to help rescue the two cities. This committee was constituted as the Art & Archives Rescue Fund (IAARF) in 1967 and Sir Ashley was supported in his fundraising efforts by Carla Thorneycroft (Italian-born wife of Conservative MP Peter Thorneycroft, later Lord Thorneycroft), and Mrs Humphrey Brooke, wife of the Secretary to the Royal Academy. |