Yesterday was a deeply moving day at MUGOT—the Gotica Toscana Museum in Scarperia—when Gabriella Breri, daughter of city officer Erio Breri, donated several items tied to one of the boldest episodes of the Florentine Resistance.
the spool of telephone wire run through the Vasari Corridor, the handset that let the partisans reach the Allies, an aluminum tube for sending messages down, and the fabric tape used to pull it back up.
The Resistance Phone
In the summer of 1944, Erio Breri and his “Giustizia e Libertà” team secretly strung a phone line through the Vasari Corridor—the hidden passage linking Palazzo Pitti to the Uffizi—connecting Allied command to the Resistance inside still-occupied Florence. Their audacity paid off: at 6:30 a.m. on 11 August the operator heard the voice of Lt. McIntosh—code for the uprising. Minutes later the bells of Palazzo Vecchio rang out freedom.
Gabriella Breri and the institutions present at the handover of the materials
“I hope young people will draw inspiration from my father’s story—he risked his life for freedom”,
said Gabriella Breri, visibly moved. With her donation she entrusted Gotica Museum not only with objects but with values—the duty to remember, civic courage, and the responsibility that comes from choosing the right side.
Representatives of Gotica Toscana APS, Scarperia’s deputy mayor Marco Casati, and Filippo Spadi attended the ceremony, thanking the Breri family for making the donation possible. The artifacts will now be displayed permanently in the museum route, adding a vivid, first-hand witness to the story of Florence’s Liberation.
Gotica Museum thus confirms itself not just as a place of preservation but as a living space where memory is passed on—where even a telephone can tell the story of freedom.
Book a visit!
MuGot invites history buffs, scholars, and the simply curious to explore its wartime relics: rotating exhibits, guided tours of nearby battlefields, and cultural programs that keep alive the memory of the events that shaped Tuscany during World War II.
MuGot – Gothic Line Museum
Place: Ponzalla 47, 50038 Scarperia e San Piero (FI)
info@goticatoscana.eu
www.goticatoscana.eu
