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The men who made Florence
the richest city in Europe,

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the bankers and wool merchants
the pious realists,

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lived in grim defensive houses,

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strong enough to withstand party feuds
and popular riots.

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They don't in any way foreshadow the
extraordinary episode in the history of civilisation

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known as the Renaissance.

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There seems to be no reason why suddenly,
out of the dark streets

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and forbidding stone facades,

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there arose a building as light and delicate
as the Pazzi Chapel.

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By its rhythms and proportions,
and its open, welcoming character,

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it totally contradicts the dark, Gothic style
that preceded it

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and, to some extent, still surrounds it.

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What has happened?

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The answer is contained in one sentence
by the old Greek philosopher Protagoras:

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"Man is the measure of all things."

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The building in front of which l am standing,
the Pazzi Chapel,

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built in about 1430
by the great architect Brunellesco,

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has rightly been described
as the architecture of humanism.

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His friend, and fellow architect
Leon Battista Alberti

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addressed Man in these words:

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"To you is given a body more, graceful
than other animals

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to you power of apt and various movements,

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to you most sharp and delicate senses,

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to you wit, reason, memory,
like an immortal god."

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Well, it's certainly incorrect to say that
we are more graceful than other animals,

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and we don't feel much like immortal gods
at the moment.

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But in 1400, the Florentines did.

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There's no better instance of how a burst
of civilisation depends on confidence

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than the Florentine state of mind
in the early 15th century.

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(MUSIC) Gloria

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Where did it come from
this light, economical style,

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which is unlike anything before or since?

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l think that it really was the invention
of an individual - of Brunellesco.

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But of course, an architectural style can't take
root unless it satisfies some need of the time.

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And Brunellesco's style satisfied the need
of the clear-headed, bright-minded men

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who appeared on the Florentine scene

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at the moment when the discipline
of trade and banking, in its most austere form,

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was beginning to be relaxed,

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and life - the full use of the human faculties -
became more important than making money.

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People sometimes feel disappointed

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the first time they see the famous beginnings
of Renaissance architecture -

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the Pazzi Chapel,
the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo -

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because they seem so small.

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Well, so they are, after the great monuments
of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

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They don't try to impress us or crush us
by size and weight,

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as all God-directed architecture does.

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Everything is adjusted to the scale of
reasonable human necessity.

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They're intended to make each individual
more conscious of his powers,

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as a complete moral and intellectual being.

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"The dignity of man."
Today those words die on our lips.

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But in 15th-century Florence, their meaning
was still fresh and invigorating.

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One of the second generation, of humanists,
named Manetti

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wrote a book entitled
On The Dignity And Excellence Of Man.

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And this is the concept that Brunellesco's friends
were making visible.

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(MUSIC) In Tempore Passionis

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The grandest of all these testimonies
to the dignity of man is by Masaccio

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in the series of frescoes he painted
in the church of the Carmine.

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Two of them represent the apostles
Peter and Paul performing acts of mercy.

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As St Peter moves gravely through t,he streets,
his shadow cures the sick

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including this noble old man,
more like a bishop than a beggar.

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And in the balancing fresco,
Peter and his disciples give alms

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to a poor woman who is
one of the great sculptural creations in painting.

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What characters they are.
Morally and intellectually, men of weight -

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the least frivolous of men -

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infinitely remote from the gay courtiers
of Jean de Berry, who were only 30 years older.

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They have that air
of contained vitality and confidence

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that one often finds in the founding fathers
of a civilisation.

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Those that come first to my mind
are the Egyptians of the first four dynasties.

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The most famous group in the series
represents the story of the Tribute Money,

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and the heads of the apostles seem to reflect
the high seriousness of the Florentine republic.

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It was directed by a group
of the most intelligent individuals

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who have ever been elected to power
by a democratic government.

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The Florentine chancellors were scholars

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believers in the studia humanitatis - in which
learning could be used to achieve a happy life -

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believers in the application
of free intelligence to public affairs,

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believers, above all, in Florence.

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The second and greatest of these
humanist chancellors, Leonardo Bruni

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compared the civic virtues of republican
Florence with those of republican Rome.

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Later, he went even further and compared her

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to Athens in the age of Pericles,
which wasn't far wrong.

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As l have said before
all the great ages of civilisation

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have seen themselves as part of history,
both as heirs and as transmitters.

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And on Bruni's tomb
in the church of Santa Croce

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are inscribed the words:

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"History is in mourning."

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Bruni and his friends had derived these ideals
from the authors of Greece and Rome.

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Now, much as one would like to say
something new about the Renaissance,

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the old belief that it was largely based
on the study of antique literature remains true.

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Of course, the Middle Ages derived much more

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from classical antiquity
than used to be supposed,

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but their sources were limited, their texts corrupt,
and their interpretations often fanciful.

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Almost the first man to read classical authors
with real insight was the poet Petrarch,

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that complex figure of the 14th century,
that false dawn of humanism

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whose love of opposites -

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of fame and solitude, of nature and politics,
of rhetoric and self-revelation -

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makes us think of him as the first modern man
until we begin to read his works.

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Petrarch never learnt Greek
but his younger contemporary Boccaccio did,

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and so there entered into Florentine thought
a new, regenerative force and a new example.

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The first 30 years of the 15th century
was the heroic age of scholarship,

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when unknown works
by the greatest writers of antiquity -

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Tacitus, Plato, Cicero and a dozen others -

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were discovered in monastic libraries

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where they had lain since they were copied
in the Dark Ages.

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And it was to house these precious texts, any
one of which might contain some new revelation,

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that Cosimo de Medici built
the library of San Marco.

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It looks to us peaceful and remote,

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but the first studies that took place there
were not remote from life at all.

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It was the humanist equivalent
of the Cavendish Laboratory.

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The manuscripts unpacked and studied
under these harmonious vaults

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could alter the course of history,
with an explosion not of matter but of mind.

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(MUSIC) Ave Verum Corpus Natum

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Next to the Pazzi Chapel
are the cloisters of Santa Croce

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also built by Brunellesco some years later.

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l said that the Gothic cathedrals
were hymns to divine light.

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These cloisters with their round arches
"running races in their mirth",

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happily celebrate the light of human intelligence.

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And sitting in them,
l found it quite easy to believe in man.

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When l first came here, nearly 50 years ago,

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l felt "this is my true centre".

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Well, twice it seemed that they were lost.

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Once, at the end of the German occupation,

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and once when the floods came

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and there were fishes swimming
where my feet are, in the ambulatory.

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But so far, the forces of destruction
have been defeated.

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Clarity, economy, elegance.

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These are the qualities that give distinction
to a mathematical theorem.

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And no doubt, early Renaissance architecture

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is based on a passion for mathematics,
particularly for geometry.

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Of course, Gothic architects had designed
on a geometrical basis,

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but it had been of immense complexity,

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as elaborate and as logical
as scholastic philosophy.

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Nothing could be more geometrical
than the Florentine Baptistry,

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which is one of the earliest buildings in the city.

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But the Renaissance added to this tradition of
design all sorts of philosophical notions,

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including the idea that these forms
must be applicable to the human body -

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that each, so to say,
guaranteed the perfection of the other.

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There are dozens of drawings and engravings
to demonstrate this proposition,

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of which the most famous
is by Leonardo da Vinci.

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Mathematically, I'm afraid it's really a cheat,

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but aesthetically, it has some meaning,

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because the symmetry of the human body,
and the relation of one part of it to another,

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do influence our sense of normal proportion.

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And philosophically,
it contains the germ of an idea

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which might save us if we could really believe it:

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that through proportion, we can reconcile
the two parts of our being -

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the physical and the intellectual.

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The same approach was applied to painting,
in the system known as perspective,

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by which it was thought
that by mathematical calculation,

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one could render on a flat surface
the precise position of a figure in space.

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And this too seems to have been invented
by Brunellesco.

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But we can see it best in the works
of his two friends Ghiberti and Donatello

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whose low-relief sculpture
is really a kind of painting.

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Ghiberti's Jacob and Esau
on the famous Baptistry doors

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shows perspective used to achieve a spatial
harmony that has almost a musical effect.

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(MUSIC) Music For Maximilian

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Donatello's relief
of St Anthony of Padua curing a boy's leg,

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shows the other use of perspective:

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to heighten emotion
by a more intense awareness of space.

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l don't know why, l always feel there's something
alarming about an empty amphitheatre,

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which suits the drama of this particular subject.

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The Florentines were extremely proud
of this invention

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which they thought, wrongly as it turned out,
was unknown to antiquity.

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But has it anything to do with civilisation?

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Well, when it was first invented, l think it had.

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The belief that one could represent man
in a real setting

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and calculate his position and arrange figures
in a demonstrably harmonious order,

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this belief expressed symbolically a new idea
about man's place in the scheme of things

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and man's control over his own destiny.

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As an aid to realism
perspective is of no importance.

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The realistic painters of Flanders
got on very well without it.

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But as a symbol, it means something,

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and it's as a symbol that it passes
into the decorative arts of the early Renaissance

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and one finds it as the principal theme of those
wooden inlays in panelled rooms or choir stalls,

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which are a repertoire
of Renaissance symbolism.

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Perspective was concerned
with the representation of towns,

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if only because it was by the paved floor
and receding arcade

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that the system could be shown to advantage.

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And in the 15th century,
painters did a number of pictures of ideal towns,

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which are both architectural harmonies
and the perfect setting for social man.

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Alberti describes, in his great book on building,

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the necessity of a public square
where young men may be diverted

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from the mischievousness and folly
natural to their age,

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and, under handsome porticos,
old men may spend the heat of the day

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and be mutually serviceable to one another.

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l think that Piero della Francesca
who derived so much from Alberti

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may well have had this,
and similar passages in mind,

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when he painted this,
the most harmonious of all ideal cities.

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The early Florentine Renaissance was
an urban culture, bourgeois, properly so-called.

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Men spent their time in the streets and squares
and in the shops.

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A good Florentine, says one of their moralists,
"sta sempre a bottega" - is always in the shop.

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And these shops were completely public.

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You can see in this engraving, how a
craftsman's workshop was open to the street

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so that passers-by
could see what was being done

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and rival artists make scathing comments.

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The Renaissance historian of art, Vasari

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when he asked himself
why it was in Florence more than elsewhere

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that men became perfect in the arts,
gave as his first answer:

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"The spirit of criticism, the air of Florence
making minds naturally free

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and not content with mediocrity."

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And this harsh, outspoken criticism meant that
there was no gap of incomprehension

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between the intelligent patron and the artist.

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Our contemporary attitude
of pretending to understand works of art

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in order not to appear philistines

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would have seemed absurd to the Florentines.

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They were a tough lot.

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Many people since Bruni in 1428 have
compared them with the Athenians,

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but the Florentines were more realistic.

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Whereas the Athenians loved
philosophical argument,

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the Florentines were chiefly interested
in making money

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and playing appalling practical jokes
on stupid men.

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However, they had a good deal in common
with the Greeks.

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They were curious,
they were extremely intelligent,

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and they had, to a supreme degree,
the power of making their thoughts visible.

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l hesitate to pronounce the much-abused word
"beauty", but l can't think of a substitute.

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Like the Athenians
the Florentines loved beauty.

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This is a constant source of surprise
to anyone who knows them,

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but as Walter Pater said of Michelangelo,

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"Out of the strong, came forth sweetness."

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Donatello paid an even more direct tribute to the
antique concept of beauty in his bronze David.

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The body is almost disturbingly physical

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and the head is derived from that
of the great male beauty of the ancient world:

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the emperor Hadrian's beloved Antinous,

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although with a sharper Florentine accent
that makes it far more attractive.

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Donatello's David stands
in the hall of the Bargello,

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once a court of justice and a prison,
is now a museum

226
00:18:39,269 --> 00:18:43,940
but still quite a good place
to get the flavour of 15th-century Florence

227
00:18:44,028 --> 00:18:48,858
because it not only contains great works
of the Florentine imagination, like the David,

228
00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:52,028
but also the portraits of famous Florentines.

229
00:18:52,108 --> 00:18:56,538
There were a few likenesses of individuals
of the 14th century -

230
00:18:56,640 --> 00:18:59,990
Dante, Petrarch, Charles V of France
Jean de Berry -

231
00:19:00,068 --> 00:19:01,940
but they were exceptional.

232
00:19:02,028 --> 00:19:07,818
As a rule, medieval people were presented to
the eye as figures that symbolised their status.

233
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:11,150
The painter of the Spanish Chapel
in Santa Maria Novella

234
00:19:11,240 --> 00:19:13,950
although he included so much lively detail,

235
00:19:14,028 --> 00:19:17,980
made his popes, kings and bishops
into stereotypes -

236
00:19:18,068 --> 00:19:22,460
their status would have been recognised
all over the Gothic world.

237
00:19:22,548 --> 00:19:25,259
But these proudly individual characters

238
00:19:25,348 --> 00:19:29,220
wished to record for posterity
exactly what they were like.

239
00:19:29,308 --> 00:19:32,740
In fact, many of these busts are done
from actual death masks

240
00:19:32,828 --> 00:19:38,500
which even great artists like Donatello
didn't hesitate to incorporate in their work.

241
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:44,150
Of course, this bronze relief
isn't at all a death mask.

242
00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:49,470
It's the self-portrait of that character
who so often flits in and out of the programme,

243
00:19:49,548 --> 00:19:53,980
the architect and universal man
Leon Battista Alberti.

244
00:19:54,068 --> 00:19:56,058
What a face!.

245
00:19:56,160 --> 00:20:01,588
Proud and alert
like a wilful intelligent racehorse.

246
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,950
Among other things,
Alberti wrote an autobiography,

247
00:20:06,028 --> 00:20:10,140
and as we should expect,
he is not inhibited by false modesty.

248
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:14,108
He tells us how the strongest horses
trembled under him

249
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:19,108
how he could throw further and jump higher
and work harder than any man.

250
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:23,750
He describes how he conquered
every weakness because:

251
00:20:23,828 --> 00:20:27,608
"a man can do all things if he will."

252
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:31,200
It could be the motto of the early Renaissance.

253
00:20:31,269 --> 00:20:33,980
And it's reflected in the heads
of Renaissance heroes

254
00:20:34,068 --> 00:20:36,500
as they have come down to us
in their memorials -

255
00:20:36,588 --> 00:20:39,420
in Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua.

256
00:20:39,509 --> 00:20:46,618
Of course, these heads are so much idealised
as to be, in our sense, scarcely portraits at all.

257
00:20:48,828 --> 00:20:54,740
Realistic portraiture, the use of the accidents
of each individual face to reveal inner life

258
00:20:54,828 --> 00:20:57,900
wasn't a Florentine or even an Italian invention.

259
00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:59,950
It was invented in Flanders

260
00:21:00,028 --> 00:21:04,380
and came to an immediate perfection
in the work of Jan van Eyck.

261
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,348
No-one has looked at a human face
with a more dispassionate eye

262
00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:11,390
and recorded his findings
with a more delicate hand.

263
00:21:15,788 --> 00:21:18,980
But in fact, many of his sitters were Italians -

264
00:21:19,068 --> 00:21:23,180
Albergati, the cardinal who employed
Alberti as secretary,

265
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:28,670
and Arnolfini, a member
of the international world of the wool trade

266
00:21:28,750 --> 00:21:30,900
banking, papal diplomacy.

267
00:21:31,588 --> 00:21:33,740
And perhaps it was only in such a society

268
00:21:33,828 --> 00:21:36,740
that these evolved and subtle characters

269
00:21:36,828 --> 00:21:41,220
could have accepted
the revelation of their personalities.

270
00:21:50,269 --> 00:21:54,460
Van Eyck's exploration of personality
extended beyond the face.

271
00:21:54,548 --> 00:21:56,460
He shows people in their setting

272
00:21:56,548 --> 00:22:00,578
and lovingly records the details
of Arnolfini's daily life -

273
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:04,548
his wooden pattens
for walking the muddy streets of Bruges,

274
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:07,990
his little dog of nameless breed,

275
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:13,750
his wife's elaborate sleeve

276
00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:20,019
his own fur-lined cloak and convex mirror

277
00:22:20,108 --> 00:22:24,019
and above all, his splendid brass chandelier.

278
00:22:28,828 --> 00:22:32,858
And by a miracle that defies the laws of artistry,

279
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,788
he was able to show them to us
enveloped in daylight,

280
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:39,420
as real as if it had been observed
by Vermeer of Delft.

281
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:50,068
This sensibility to atmosphere,
the Florentines never attempted.

282
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:52,230
They were a sculpture-minded people.

283
00:22:52,308 --> 00:22:57,980
But in their portrait busts,
they came to achieve an almost Flemish realism.

284
00:22:59,348 --> 00:23:01,298
How like these Florentine worthies are

285
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,828
to the confident faces
that we see in Victorian photographs.

286
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:10,390
This is the professional man, a doctor,
his face lined with the wisdom of experience.

287
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:14,068
In fact, he was Donatello's doctor
and saved his life.

288
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:17,910
And this is a businessman called Pietro Mellini.

289
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:21,028
A character in one of Alberti's dialogues says,

290
00:23:21,108 --> 00:23:25,740
"A man cannot set his hand to more liberal work
than making money,

291
00:23:25,828 --> 00:23:30,180
for what we sell is our labour -
the goods are merely transferred."

292
00:23:35,828 --> 00:23:40,950
Yes, that was really written in 1434, not in 1850.

293
00:23:41,028 --> 00:23:45,660
And, contrariwise, if you dressed Mellini
in 19th-century clothes,

294
00:23:45,750 --> 00:23:47,778
he would look perfectly convincing.

295
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:53,828
But this atmosphere of liberal materialism
is less than half the story.

296
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:59,068
After the middle of the 15th century, the
intellectual life of Florence took a new direction

297
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:03,910
very different from the robust civic humanism
of the 1430s.

298
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,990
Florence had ceased to be a republic
in anything but name,

299
00:24:08,068 --> 00:24:14,140
and for almost 30 years, it was virtually ruled by
that extraordinary character Lorenzo de Medici.

300
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:19,990
His father and grandfather had prepared the
way for him by their activities as bankers.

301
00:24:20,068 --> 00:24:24,019
He himself was no financier -
he lost a great part of the family fortune -

302
00:24:24,108 --> 00:24:26,980
but he was a politician of genius,

303
00:24:27,068 --> 00:24:31,778
who could distinguish between the reality
of power and its outward trappings.

304
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,950
The frontispiece of his book of poems,
shows him in the streets of Florence

305
00:24:36,028 --> 00:24:40,380
dressed as a simple citizen,
surrounded by girls who are singing his ballads.

306
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:46,470
What a contrast is this modest printed page
to the rich manuscripts of the Duke of Berry.

307
00:24:47,308 --> 00:24:51,460
In fact, Lorenzo was a good poet
and a most admirable patron of other poets,

308
00:24:51,548 --> 00:24:53,500
also of scholars and philosophers.

309
00:24:53,588 --> 00:24:56,259
But he wasn't much interested in the visual arts

310
00:24:56,348 --> 00:24:59,058
and the paintings by which his period
is remembered

311
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,390
were commissioned by his cousin Lorenzino.

312
00:25:02,028 --> 00:25:05,778
And it was for Lorenzino
that Botticelli painted the works

313
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:12,108
in which the Florentine sense of beauty
appears in its most evolved and peculiar form -

314
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,548
The Spring and The Birth Of Venus.

315
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,828
In the earlier of them, The Spring,
the subject is derived from Ovid,

316
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:25,858
but this classical inspiration is given a new
complexity by memories of the Middle Ages.

317
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,380
The pagan divinities sway
before a background of leaves,

318
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,430
like a Gothic tapestry.

319
00:25:33,828 --> 00:25:36,180
What a marvellous feat of the imagination.

320
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:42,028
As for the heads, they're a discovery of beauty
that means much more to us

321
00:25:42,108 --> 00:25:44,740
than the full, smooth oval of antiquity.

322
00:25:46,828 --> 00:25:48,778
(MUSIC) Ecca La Primavera

323
00:26:49,788 --> 00:26:53,660
The subject of Botticelli's other great allegory,
The Birth Of Venus

324
00:26:53,750 --> 00:26:56,700
is taken from a contemporary poet, Poliziano.

325
00:26:57,509 --> 00:26:59,460
(MUSIC) Tres Douce Regard

326
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,750
Poliziano was part of a group
of subtle Florentines

327
00:27:14,828 --> 00:27:18,980
who were inspired by the late Greek
philosophers known as neo-Platonists.

328
00:27:19,068 --> 00:27:23,818
It was their hope they might reconcile these
pagan philosophers with Christianity.

329
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:26,950
And so, Botticelli's Venus

330
00:27:27,028 --> 00:27:30,180
not at all the amorous strumpet of paganism,

331
00:27:30,788 --> 00:27:32,740
is pale and withdrawn,

332
00:27:32,828 --> 00:27:35,858
and dissolves into his image of the Virgin Mary.

333
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:52,588
The discovery of the individual was made
in early 15th-century Florence.

334
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:54,630
Nothing call alter that fact.

335
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,390
But in the last quarter of the century,
the Renaissance owed quite as much

336
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:03,788
to the small courts of northern Italy -
Ferrara, Mantua, and above all Urbino -

337
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:08,150
this small and rather remote town
on the eastern perimeter of the Apennines.

338
00:28:09,348 --> 00:28:12,019
It could be argued that life in the court of Urbino

339
00:28:12,108 --> 00:28:16,259
was one of the high watermarks
of Western civilisation.

340
00:28:16,348 --> 00:28:21,900
The reason is that this court and its dominions
were protected from the surrounding ruffians

341
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,868
by Frederigo Montefeltro,
the first Duke of Urbino

342
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:27,910
the greatest general of his day,

343
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,269
who was also a humane and intelligent man.

344
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,420
And the town itself, with its soft pink bricks,

345
00:28:36,509 --> 00:28:39,538
so different from the harsh stones of Florence

346
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,068
seems to reflect the same feeling of humanity.

347
00:28:45,108 --> 00:28:48,730
It's small enough for a good ruler
to know all the inhabitants

348
00:28:48,828 --> 00:28:50,778
and listen to their troubles.

349
00:28:53,750 --> 00:28:56,740
Which, in fact
is exactly what Duke Frederigo did.

350
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,509
His palace began as a fortress,

351
00:29:03,588 --> 00:29:05,538
built on an impregnable rock.

352
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,068
And only when he'd fought his way to security

353
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,308
could he afford to give it
the sweet and delicate details

354
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,630
which make it one of the most beautiful pieces
of architecture in the world.

355
00:29:51,750 --> 00:29:54,740
The Palace of Urbino has a style of its own.

356
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,900
The arcaded courtyard,
where I'm standing now,

357
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,470
isn't speedy and springy
like Brunellesco's cloister

358
00:30:01,548 --> 00:30:04,298
but calm and timeless.

359
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,750
And the rooms are light and airy.

360
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:12,150
And so perfectly-proportioned
that it exhilarates one to walk through them.

361
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,778
In fact, l think the interior
is the most beautiful in the world

362
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:21,740
and the only palace that l can go round
without feeling oppressed and exhausted.

363
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:36,950
(MUSIC) Se Me Grato

364
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:46,470
Curiously enough,

365
00:30:46,548 --> 00:30:51,098
we don't know the name of the architect
who was responsible for this masterpiece.

366
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:55,630
A famous fortress builder named Laurana
did the substructure

367
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,750
but he left Urbino long before
the lived-in part of the palace was begun.

368
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,788
But the painter Piero della Francesca was there

369
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,509
at exactly the date when it was being decorated.

370
00:31:06,588 --> 00:31:10,259
And, personally, l believe
that he was responsible for its style.

371
00:31:11,348 --> 00:31:14,890
The architecture in this picture by Piero,
which is in Urbino

372
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,538
shows exactly the same kind of delicate detail

373
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,710
one finds round the doors and windows
of the palace,

374
00:31:21,788 --> 00:31:24,220
and it was painted ten years earlier.

375
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:35,509
However, l think that the noble proportions
and the whole sense of space

376
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,028
must reflect the character of the Duke himself.

377
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,200
His biographer, named Vespasiano da Bisticci

378
00:31:44,269 --> 00:31:46,828
refers again and again to the Duke's humanity.

379
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:50,190
He asked the Duke
"What is necessary in ruling a kingdom?"

380
00:31:50,269 --> 00:31:52,220
The Duke replied, "Essere umano."

381
00:31:52,308 --> 00:31:54,259
"To be human."

382
00:31:54,348 --> 00:31:59,019
Whoever invented the style, this is the spirit
that permeates the Palace of Urbino.

383
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:26,108
As a part of civilisation,

384
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,670
the Palace of Urbino extended
beyond the 15th century.

385
00:32:30,509 --> 00:32:33,578
The great architect of the High Renaissance,
Bramante

386
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:35,630
was a native of Urbino.

387
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:39,338
He may even have worked on the palace
when it was being completed.

388
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,390
The court painter was a silly old, creature
named Giovanni Santi

389
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:47,098
the sort of obliging mediocrity
who's always welcome in courts -

390
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,150
even in the court of Urbino.

391
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,108
No doubt the ladies, when they were
in need of a design for embroidery,

392
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,740
used to say, "Let's send for dear old Mr Santi."

393
00:32:56,828 --> 00:32:58,778
And when he came

394
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,750
he brought with him his beautiful little son...

395
00:33:01,828 --> 00:33:03,778
Raffaello.

396
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:05,828
And so, Raphael,

397
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,150
one of the civilising forces
of the Western imagination,

398
00:33:10,028 --> 00:33:15,298
found his earliest impressions of harmony
and proportion and good manners

399
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,390
in the court of Urbino.

400
00:33:19,269 --> 00:33:21,220
Good manners.

401
00:33:21,308 --> 00:33:23,259
That was another product of Urbino.

402
00:33:23,348 --> 00:33:26,578
In common with other Italian courts
Ferrara and Mantua

403
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,108
young men went there to finish their education.

404
00:33:31,108 --> 00:33:34,140
They learnt to read the classics,
to walk gracefully,

405
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:35,990
speak quietly,

406
00:33:36,068 --> 00:33:39,380
play games without cheating
or kicking each other on the shins -

407
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,038
in short, to behave like gentlemen.

408
00:33:48,068 --> 00:33:51,420
Under Frederigo's son and successor,
Guidobaldo

409
00:33:51,509 --> 00:33:57,298
the notion of a gentleman was given classic
expression in a book called Il Cortigiano -

410
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,548
The Courtier - by Baldassare Castiglione.

411
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:03,588
It had an immense influence.

412
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:08,230
The Emperor Charles V had only three books
beside his bed

413
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,268
the Bible, Machiavelli's Prince

414
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:13,869
and Castiglione's Courtier.

415
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,789
For over a hundred years,
it formed everybody's notion of good manners.

416
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,590
Actually, it's very much more
than a handbook of polite behaviour,

417
00:34:23,670 --> 00:34:29,820
because Castiglione's ideal of a gentleman
is based on real human values.

418
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:32,869
He mustn't hurt people's feelings,

419
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,230
or make them feel inferior by showing off.

420
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,829
He must be easy and natural.

421
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:43,150
Just as Castiglione himself appears to be
in his portrait by Raphael.

422
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,389
And he mustn't be a mere worldling.

423
00:34:48,190 --> 00:34:52,940
Il Cortigiano ends with a moving discourse
on the subject of love.

424
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:59,869
Just as Botticelli's Spring unites
the tapestry world of the Middle Ages

425
00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:01,909
with pagan mythology,

426
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,989
so Castiglione's Courtier unites
the medieval concept of chivalry

427
00:35:07,070 --> 00:35:10,018
with the ideal love of Plato.

428
00:35:11,110 --> 00:35:13,059
(MUSIC) L'amor Donna

429
00:36:11,230 --> 00:36:15,619
There's no doubt that the court of Urbino
under both Frederigo and Guidobaldo,

430
00:36:15,710 --> 00:36:18,739
was a high point in the history of civilisation.

431
00:36:19,630 --> 00:36:23,099
And the same is true, in a lesser degree,
of the court of Mantua.

432
00:36:24,710 --> 00:36:30,179
The palace of Mantua lacks the exhilarating
lightness and lucidity of the palace of Urbino.

433
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,579
But it contains one room

434
00:36:32,670 --> 00:36:35,018
in which more than anywhere else, perhaps,

435
00:36:35,110 --> 00:36:39,260
one can get an idea of civilised life
in an Italian court.

436
00:36:40,070 --> 00:36:43,539
It's the room decorated by the court painter
Andrea Mantegna.

437
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,670
Birds and cherubs...and people

438
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,110
look down from an imaginary hole in the roof.

439
00:36:57,190 --> 00:36:59,139
A new use of perspective.

440
00:36:59,230 --> 00:37:01,179
(MUSIC) Suite No1 pavane

441
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,110
Then come painted busts of Roman emperors.

442
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:21,829
But the scene below isn't at all archaeological.

443
00:37:25,230 --> 00:37:28,579
It shows the Gonzaga family as large as life.

444
00:37:36,150 --> 00:37:37,579
Also their dogs...

445
00:37:46,710 --> 00:37:48,659
..their courtiers...

446
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,710
their old retainers...

447
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,230
and one of their celebrated dwarves.

448
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,150
In spite of the formidable frontality
of the Marchioness

449
00:38:12,230 --> 00:38:15,059
the spirit of the whole group is extremely natural.

450
00:38:15,150 --> 00:38:17,500
The little girl asks if she may eat an apple,

451
00:38:17,590 --> 00:38:19,860
but her mother's interested to know what news

452
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,630
the Marquess has just received
from his secretary.

453
00:38:22,710 --> 00:38:25,940
In fact it is good news.
Their son has been made a cardinal.

454
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,949
And in another scene, the Marquess
goes to greet him accompanied by his dogs

455
00:38:36,030 --> 00:38:37,980
and his younger sons.

456
00:38:46,150 --> 00:38:49,099
What an agreeably informal reception.

457
00:38:49,190 --> 00:38:51,539
One of the younger children holds his hand,

458
00:38:51,630 --> 00:38:54,579
and the little boy takes the hand
of his elder brother.

459
00:38:54,670 --> 00:38:59,820
It's still without the odious pomposity that was
to grow up in Europe during the next century

460
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:02,070
and reach its zenith at Versailles.

461
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:05,829
I'm bound to say that even Mantegna

462
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:11,710
has not been able to make the newly-created
Cardinal look like a very spiritual type.

463
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:14,869
Which reminds one of the obvious fact

464
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,268
that this kind of social organisation
depended entirely

465
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,789
on the individual characters of the rulers.

466
00:39:21,670 --> 00:39:25,210
In one state is Sigismondo Malatesta,
the Wolf of Rimini

467
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,018
who did things that
even the most advanced theatrical producer

468
00:39:29,110 --> 00:39:31,179
would hesitate to put on the stage.

469
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:35,030
In a neighbouring state, Frederigo Montefeltro,

470
00:39:35,110 --> 00:39:37,179
the God-fearing father of his people.

471
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,840
And yet both of them employed Alberti

472
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,949
and both were painted by Piero della Francesca.

473
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:46,789
Frederigo was a lover of books,

474
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,829
who made the palace of Urbino
into one of the finest libraries in Italy.

475
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,110
But when he read them

476
00:39:53,190 --> 00:39:54,940
he left his armour on.

477
00:39:55,030 --> 00:39:56,860
And he needed to.

478
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:00,389
This was one of the weaknesses
of Renaissance civilisation.

479
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:03,150
And the other, no less obviously,

480
00:40:04,030 --> 00:40:06,619
was that it depended on a very small minority.

481
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:11,869
Even in republican Florence,
the Renaissance touched relatively few people.

482
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,510
And in places like Urbino and Mantua,

483
00:40:15,590 --> 00:40:18,460
it was practically confined to the court.

484
00:40:19,230 --> 00:40:23,010
This is contrary to our modern sense of equality.

485
00:40:24,110 --> 00:40:28,780
But one can't help wondering
how far civilisation would have evolved

486
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:32,710
if it had been entirely dependent
on the popular will.

487
00:40:34,230 --> 00:40:39,940
WB Yeats actually used the example of Urbino
when he addressed a poem

488
00:40:40,030 --> 00:40:44,699
"to a wealthy man who promised
a subscription to the Dublin gallery

489
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:48,070
if it were proved
that the people wanted pictures."

490
00:40:49,150 --> 00:40:51,099
He said

491
00:40:51,190 --> 00:40:56,500
"And Guidobaldo, when he made
that mirror school of courtesy

492
00:40:56,590 --> 00:40:59,820
Where wit and beauty learnt their trade

493
00:40:59,920 --> 00:41:01,869
Upon Urbino's windy hill,

494
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,789
Had sent no runners to and fro

495
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,150
That he might learn the shepherds' will."

496
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,389
One may not like courts -
l don't much like them myself-

497
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,750
but at a certain stage, it's only in a court

498
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:19,030
that a man may do something, extravagant
for its own sake

499
00:41:19,110 --> 00:41:21,940
because he wants to
because it seems worth doing -

500
00:41:22,030 --> 00:41:25,900
something like the extraordinary wooden inlays
in this study.

501
00:41:27,110 --> 00:41:31,900
And it's sometimes through such wilful,
superfluous actions

502
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,949
that men discover their powers.

503
00:41:58,630 --> 00:42:02,659
All the same, as one walks through
these splendidly extravagant rooms,

504
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,989
one can't help thinking,
"What about the people in the fields?"

505
00:42:06,070 --> 00:42:10,619
All those shepherds who Mr Yeats rightly
supposed that Guidobaldo did not consult

506
00:42:10,710 --> 00:42:12,739
on matters of taste and good manners.

507
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,110
Could they not have had
a kind of civilisation of their own?

508
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,949
Well, there is such a thing
as a civilised countryside.

509
00:42:22,030 --> 00:42:26,699
Looking at the Umbrian landscape
with its terraces of vines and olives

510
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,429
and the dark vertical accents of the cypresses,

511
00:42:29,510 --> 00:42:32,179
one has the impression of timeless order.

512
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,710
There must have been a time
when it was all forest and swamp.

513
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:38,750
Shapeless, formless.

514
00:42:39,630 --> 00:42:43,980
And to bring order out of chaos
is a process of civilisation.

515
00:42:44,710 --> 00:42:51,420
But of this timeless rustic civilisation we have
no record beyond the farmhouses themselves,

516
00:42:51,510 --> 00:42:55,460
whose noble proportions seem to be
the basis of Italian architecture.

517
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,469
When Renaissance artists
looked at the countryside,

518
00:43:00,550 --> 00:43:02,980
it was not as a place of ploughing and digging

519
00:43:03,070 --> 00:43:05,820
but as a kind of earthly paradise.

520
00:43:12,550 --> 00:43:17,739
This is how it appears in the first evolved
landscape in European painting,

521
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,110
the background of van Eyck's
Adoration Of The Lamb.

522
00:43:22,150 --> 00:43:25,690
The foreground is painted with
a medieval sharpness of detail,

523
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:30,710
but our eye, passing over the towers
and dense greenery of laurels and palms

524
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:33,429
floats into a gleaming distance.

525
00:43:33,510 --> 00:43:35,460
(MUSIC) La Deploration De Johan Okeghem

526
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:08,230
Already, awareness of nature is associated
with the desire to escape

527
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:10,268
and the hope of a better life.

528
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:16,110
And such it remained in the work of Giovanni
Bellini, the founder of Venetian painting,

529
00:44:16,190 --> 00:44:18,860
who first used his backgrounds
to create a mood

530
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:23,710
in which the action or story of the picture
can be more vividly felt.

531
00:44:34,630 --> 00:44:36,579
Bellini was a religious painter.

532
00:44:36,670 --> 00:44:40,699
His landscapes intensify
the traditional subjects of Christianity.

533
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:46,550
His pupil, Giorgione, was to extend the
humanisation of landscape to contemporary life.

534
00:44:46,630 --> 00:44:48,579
And in this picture,

535
00:44:48,670 --> 00:44:52,099
he has discovered
or l suppose one should say rediscovered,

536
00:44:52,190 --> 00:44:56,860
one of the comforting illusions of civilised man -
the myth of Arcadia.

537
00:44:57,710 --> 00:44:59,659
Of course, it is only a myth.

538
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,909
Our country life isn't at all like this.

539
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:06,469
Even on a picnic, ants attack the sandwiches
and wasps buzz round the wineglass.

540
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:11,590
But Giorgione has shown us
how fundamentally pagan it is.

541
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:14,860
This Arcadia is as much a tribute to antiquity

542
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:18,659
as were the republican virtues
of the Florentine humanists.

543
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,030
And as much part of the rediscovery of man.

544
00:45:23,510 --> 00:45:26,860
But in his sensual
rather than his intellectual nature.

545
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:32,110
With Giorgione's picnic, the balance
and enjoyment of our human faculties

546
00:45:32,190 --> 00:45:34,139
seems to achieve perfection.

547
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:39,030
But in history, all points of supposed perfection
have a hint of menace

548
00:45:39,110 --> 00:45:45,659
and Giorgione himself discovers it in that
mysterious picture known as the Tempesta.

549
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:07,349
What on earth is going on?

550
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:11,789
What is the meaning of this half-naked woman
suckling a baby,

551
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:13,510
this flash of lightning,

552
00:46:13,590 --> 00:46:15,539
this broken column?

553
00:46:15,630 --> 00:46:17,659
Nobody knows. Nobody has ever known.

554
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,510
It was described in Giorgione's own time
as "a soldier and a gypsy".

555
00:46:22,590 --> 00:46:24,539
Well, whatever it means

556
00:46:24,630 --> 00:46:28,980
it certainly doesn't show any confidence
in the light of human reason.

557
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,909
"A man can do all things if he will."

558
00:46:34,710 --> 00:46:37,619
How naïve Alberti's statement seems

559
00:46:37,710 --> 00:46:40,860
when one thinks of that great bundle
offears and memories

560
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,590
that every individual carries around with him,

561
00:46:43,670 --> 00:46:47,900
to say nothing of the external forces
which are totally beyond his control.

562
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,510
Giorgione, the passionate lover
of physical beauty,

563
00:46:52,590 --> 00:46:58,018
painted this picture of an old woman
and inscribed it "col tempo" -"with time".

564
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,550
One can see that she must once
have been a beauty.

565
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,429
It's one of the first masterpieces
of a new pessimism -

566
00:47:05,510 --> 00:47:10,739
new, because without the comfort of religion
that was to be given final expression by Hamlet.

567
00:47:24,710 --> 00:47:26,659
The truth is, l suppose,

568
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:31,110
that the civilisation of the early Renaissance
was not broadly enough based.

569
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,070
The few had gone too far away from the many,

570
00:47:34,150 --> 00:47:37,980
not only in knowledge and intelligence -
this they always do -

571
00:47:38,070 --> 00:47:40,018
but in basic assumptions.

572
00:47:41,110 --> 00:47:44,139
When the first two generations of humanists
were dead

573
00:47:44,230 --> 00:47:47,460
their movement had no real weight behind it.

574
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,980
And there was a reaction away
from this human scale of values.

575
00:47:52,670 --> 00:47:57,099
Fortunately, they left
in sculpture, painting and architecture

576
00:47:57,190 --> 00:48:04,018
their message to every generation that values
reason, clarity and harmonious proportion,

577
00:48:04,110 --> 00:48:06,260
and believes in the individual.

578
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:08,309
(MUSIC) La Deploration De Johan Okeghem