Umberto Baldini, one of Italy’s most influential art restorers who led the efforts to restore Florence’s treasures after the 1966 flood and wrote numerous books on restoration, died Tuesday in Tuscany. He was 84.

Baldini in 1970 was named director of the prestigious Opificio delle Pietre in Florence, one of Italy’s two main schools of restoration, and in 1983 was placed in charge of Italy’s Central Institute for Restoration in Rome. He retired in 1987, but wrote on restoration for the next generation.

Baldini was head of the department of restoration in Florence during the 1966 flood, which he said was so devastating in part because people had forgotten the flood dangers posed by the Arno River.

“On average we have had a bad flood in Florence once every hundred years, even though a large area of the city was also flooded in the second half of the 19th century. The most serious floods took place in 1333 and the mid 16th century, but the one in 1966 was the worst of all,” Baldini told the online magazine Florence Art News.

“When Florence was flooded, it was a catastrophe because we were completely unprepared. We had forgotten.”

After the flood, most important works of art were put out of reach of eventual floodwaters, but he noted in the interview that flood risks remained high, largely due to the disappearance of forests nearby to absorb rising waters.