1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:06,349 (MUSIC) MONTEVERDI: Introduction to Orfeo 2 00:00:58,429 --> 00:01:01,859 The ancient church of St Mary Major, Santa Maria Maggiore, 3 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:06,069 stands in the centre of modern Rome. 4 00:01:06,150 --> 00:01:08,180 (Hum of traffic) 5 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:15,310 The hellish Roman traffic swirls all round it. 6 00:01:21,069 --> 00:01:24,340 But, if you go inside, 7 00:01:24,430 --> 00:01:27,620 you'll find the original columns of the 5th-century church 8 00:01:27,709 --> 00:01:33,019 built in rivalry with the neighbouring Temple of Juno, the mother goddess. 9 00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:34,950 Since old St Peter's was pulled down, 10 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:40,549 there is nowhere else in Rome where one gets such a powerful impression 11 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:44,909 of the Christian church before the barbarian conquests. 12 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:47,150 This is the grandeur 13 00:01:47,230 --> 00:01:51,459 that the Roman Church had once achieved, and was to achieve again. 14 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:55,670 Above the columns the mosaics of Old Testament stories 15 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:59,670 are almost the earliest illustrations of the Bible that exist - 16 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:02,870 brilliant, fresh colours, like early Matisse. 17 00:02:02,950 --> 00:02:04,900 One sees what was lost 18 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,870 when almost the whole of early Christian art was destroyed. 19 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:12,990 (MUSIC) Mass for Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary 20 00:02:49,188 --> 00:02:51,818 From the roof of Santa Maria Maggiore, 21 00:02:51,908 --> 00:02:57,300 I can see long straight streets stretching for miles up and down, 22 00:02:57,400 --> 00:03:00,270 and each ending in front of a famous church. 23 00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:12,348 Down there is St John Lateran 24 00:03:12,430 --> 00:03:17,740 and in the opposite direction is Santa Trinita dei Monti. 25 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,710 And at each of the piazzas are Egyptian obelisks, 26 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:28,949 symbols of that god-directed state which Rome had superseded. 27 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:44,229 Papal Rome, the Rome of Sixtus V, 28 00:03:44,310 --> 00:03:48,139 is the most grandiose piece of town planning ever attempted. 29 00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:50,990 And it anticipated by 50 years 30 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:53,270 all the great town plans of France and Germany. 31 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:55,188 And the amazing thing is that it was done 32 00:03:55,280 --> 00:04:00,188 only a generation after Rome had been, as it seemed, completely humiliated - 33 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:02,068 almost wiped off the map. 34 00:04:02,150 --> 00:04:03,740 The city had been sacked and burnt, 35 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:06,590 the people of northern Europe were heretics, 36 00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:08,908 the Turks were threatening Vienna. 37 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,508 It could have seemed to a far-sighted intellectual, 38 00:04:13,590 --> 00:04:17,338 that the papacy's only course was to face the facts 39 00:04:17,430 --> 00:04:20,740 accept its dependence on the gold of America, 40 00:04:20,829 --> 00:04:22,620 doled out through Spain. 41 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:25,750 Well, as you can see, this didn't happen. 42 00:04:25,829 --> 00:04:27,778 Rome and the Church of Rome 43 00:04:27,870 --> 00:04:30,500 regained many of the territories it had lost, 44 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,300 and became once more a great spiritual force. 45 00:04:34,389 --> 00:04:38,259 But was it a civilising force? 46 00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:40,389 In England, we tend to answer no. 47 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:45,420 We've been conditioned by generations of liberal Protestant historians 48 00:04:45,509 --> 00:04:50,100 who tell us that no society based on obedience, repression and superstition 49 00:04:50,189 --> 00:04:52,899 can be really civilised. 50 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,939 But no-one with an ounce of historical feeling or philosophic detachment 51 00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:03,430 can be blind to the great ideals, to the passionate belief in sanctity, 52 00:05:03,509 --> 00:05:07,019 to the outpouring of human genius in the service of God 53 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:09,629 which is made triumphantly visible to us, 54 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:12,470 every step we take in Baroque Rome. 55 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:14,509 (MUSIC) GIOVANELLI: Nunc Dimittis 56 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:19,629 (MUSIC) Salutare tuum 57 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:25,310 (MUSIC) Quod parasti ante faciem 58 00:05:25,389 --> 00:05:27,769 (MUSIC) Ante faciem 59 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:41,750 (MUSIC) Omnium populorum 60 00:05:43,509 --> 00:05:48,300 Whatever it is, it isn't barbarian or provincial. 61 00:05:48,389 --> 00:05:51,660 Add to this that the Catholic revival was a popular movement, 62 00:05:51,750 --> 00:05:55,338 that it gave ordinary people a means of satisfying, 63 00:05:55,430 --> 00:05:59,899 through ritual, images, symbols, their deepest impulses, 64 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,709 so that their minds were at peace. 65 00:06:03,750 --> 00:06:07,980 And I think one must agree to put off defining the word civilisation 66 00:06:08,069 --> 00:06:10,139 till we've had a look at the Rome of the Popes. 67 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:17,660 (MUSIC) PALESTRINA: Lamentation 68 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:29,230 The first thing that strikes one 69 00:06:29,310 --> 00:06:34,300 is that those who say the Renaissance had exhausted the Italian genius are wrong. 70 00:06:34,389 --> 00:06:39,660 After 152?r, there was a moment of discouragement, a failure of confidence, 71 00:06:39,750 --> 00:06:41,379 and no wonder. 72 00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:43,389 Historians say the Sack of Rome 73 00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:46,990 was more a symbol than an historically significant event. 74 00:06:47,069 --> 00:06:50,980 Well, symbols sometimes feed the imagination more than facts. 75 00:06:51,069 --> 00:06:55,778 Anyway, the Sack was real enough to anyone who'd witnessed it. 76 00:06:55,870 --> 00:06:57,660 Michelangelo's Last Judgement, 77 00:06:57,750 --> 00:07:01,899 which was commissioned by Clement VII as a kind of atonement for the Sack 78 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:05,670 fills the whole end wall of the Sistine Chapel behind me. 79 00:07:08,269 --> 00:07:11,579 It's a disturbing, a crushing work. 80 00:07:12,629 --> 00:07:17,338 Most of the figures are embodiments of fear or despair. 81 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:23,550 (MUSIC) PALESTRINA: Lamentation 82 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:31,870 Look at the damned being ferried across the Styx. 83 00:07:40,509 --> 00:07:46,740 If you compare them with The Creation of Adam, on the ceiling, 84 00:07:46,829 --> 00:07:50,449 you can see that something very drastic has happened 85 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,269 to the foremost imagination of Christendom. 86 00:07:55,870 --> 00:07:59,300 Michelangelo had been reluctant to undertake The Last Judgement. 87 00:07:59,389 --> 00:08:02,579 Under Clement's successor, Paul III Farnese 88 00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:07,509 he was persuaded to continue it, although with rather a different purpose. 89 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:10,629 It ceased to be an act of atonement 90 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:13,278 or an attempt to externalise a bad dream, 91 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:18,149 and became the first and greatest assertion of the Church's power, 92 00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:22,110 and of the fate that would befall heretics and schismatics. 93 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:29,670 (MUSIC) PALESTRINA: Lamentation, Incipit Orario 94 00:09:22,389 --> 00:09:27,058 The Last Judgement belongs to a period of severity, 95 00:09:27,149 --> 00:09:30,139 when the Catholic Church was approaching its problems 96 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:34,070 in rather the same puritanical spirit as the Protestants. 97 00:09:34,149 --> 00:09:37,418 It's curious that this period should be inaugurated by Paul III, 98 00:09:37,509 --> 00:09:41,418 because he was in many ways the last of the humanist popes. 99 00:09:42,750 --> 00:09:44,899 He was cradled in corruption. 100 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:46,548 He was made a cardinal 101 00:09:46,629 --> 00:09:52,418 because his sister, known as La Bella had been the mistress of Alexander Borgia. 102 00:09:52,509 --> 00:09:56,340 At first sight, he looks like a crafty old fox. 103 00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:00,110 But, if you look at Titian's portrait of him in Naples, 104 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:05,428 one of the greatest portraits ever painted, it's a wise old head. 105 00:10:05,509 --> 00:10:09,048 And the longer you look, the more impressive it becomes. 106 00:10:09,149 --> 00:10:11,710 And he took the two decisions 107 00:10:11,788 --> 00:10:14,700 that were successfully to counter the Reformation: 108 00:10:14,788 --> 00:10:21,538 he sanctioned the Jesuit order and he instituted the Council of Trent. 109 00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:24,308 For almost 20 years, 110 00:10:24,389 --> 00:10:28,139 several hundred bishops and cardinals from all over the Catholic world 111 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:32,668 met in the Cathedral of Trent to discuss the future of the Church. 112 00:10:32,750 --> 00:10:36,418 There was a good deal of high politics, as well as theology. 113 00:10:36,509 --> 00:10:41,500 But in the end, the Council did draw up a plan for the Catholic revival 114 00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:46,149 which held good right up to the middle of the 19th century. 115 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:48,798 Michelangelo could refuse him nothing. 116 00:10:48,870 --> 00:10:51,100 He not only finished The Last Judgement, 117 00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:58,990 but in 1546 he accepted from the Pope the post of architect of St Peter's. 118 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:03,230 Thus Michelangelo, by his longevity no less than by his genius, 119 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:05,509 became the visual link 120 00:11:05,600 --> 00:11:08,750 between the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation. 121 00:11:17,028 --> 00:11:20,298 One of the reasons why medieval and Renaissance architecture 122 00:11:20,389 --> 00:11:22,259 is so much better than our own 123 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:27,190 is that the architects were artists individual artists of genius. 124 00:11:27,269 --> 00:11:29,778 The master masons of the Gothic cathedrals 125 00:11:29,870 --> 00:11:32,428 started as carvers, working on the portals. 126 00:11:32,509 --> 00:11:37,370 In the Renaissance, Brunellesco was originally a sculptor, Bramante a painter. 127 00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:40,710 And of the great architects whom we shall see later on in the programme, 128 00:11:40,788 --> 00:11:44,700 Pietro da Cortona was a painter and Bernini was a sculptor. 129 00:11:44,788 --> 00:11:49,058 This has given to their work a power of plastic invention, 130 00:11:49,149 --> 00:11:53,899 a sense of proportion and articulation based on the study of the human figure, 131 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:57,269 which knowledge of the tensile strength of steel 132 00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:01,350 and other prerequisites of modern building doesn't always produce. 133 00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:04,830 Well, of all non-professional architects, 134 00:12:04,908 --> 00:12:07,538 Michelangelo was the most adventurous, 135 00:12:07,629 --> 00:12:12,178 the least constrained either by classicism or functional requirements. 136 00:12:12,269 --> 00:12:16,298 Not that he was unpractical - he did drawings for the fortification of Florence, 137 00:12:16,389 --> 00:12:19,418 which from standards of military necessities are most ingenious, 138 00:12:19,509 --> 00:12:22,778 and are also like the most superb works of abstract art. 139 00:12:26,509 --> 00:12:30,460 For that matter, all his ground plans are thrilling abstract designs. 140 00:12:31,908 --> 00:12:35,528 But he felt himself free to play with the elements of architecture 141 00:12:35,629 --> 00:12:38,190 in such a way as to express his feelings. 142 00:12:38,269 --> 00:12:40,940 And, as so often happens with a great artist, 143 00:12:41,028 --> 00:12:43,940 they were prophetic feelings. 144 00:12:44,028 --> 00:12:48,259 You can see what I mean in the building that stands behind me, 145 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:52,830 the Palazzo dei Conservatori here on the Capitol of Rome. 146 00:12:52,908 --> 00:12:55,620 Grandeur and Obedience. 147 00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:57,629 Well, it's grand all right. 148 00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:00,950 And, if man is to take any pride in his history, 149 00:13:01,028 --> 00:13:03,408 the Roman Capitol should be grand. 150 00:13:03,509 --> 00:13:05,259 But the extraordinary thing 151 00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:09,028 is how Michelangelo had expressed in his architecture 152 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:11,788 the principle of subordination. 153 00:13:11,870 --> 00:13:14,019 In an earlier Renaissance building, 154 00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:18,668 the parts maintained their identity with a harmonious independence. 155 00:13:18,750 --> 00:13:21,700 In the Michelangelo façade, everything is subordinate 156 00:13:21,788 --> 00:13:24,538 to powerful rhythms that run right through the building. 157 00:13:24,629 --> 00:13:28,580 He gave his immense authority to the device of a single pilaster 158 00:13:28,668 --> 00:13:30,500 running up through two storeys. 159 00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:33,830 In Renaissance architecture and Roman buildings for that matter, 160 00:13:33,908 --> 00:13:37,580 you had one column per storey, one on top of the other. 161 00:13:37,668 --> 00:13:43,100 In this building, the small columns are pressed into the foot of the giant pilaster. 162 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:49,028 They don't assert themselves; they simply add to its power. 163 00:13:50,269 --> 00:13:55,389 These commanding verticals are met by even more assertive horizontals, 164 00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:58,509 and the inevitable collision of these two directions 165 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:02,070 gives the building an extraordinary feeling of energy. 166 00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:07,190 It seems as dramatically tense as a human situation. 167 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:12,070 Perhaps only Michelangelo had the energy of spirit 168 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:15,658 to pull together the vast, inchoate mass of St Peter's. 169 00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:20,870 Four admirable architects had worked on it before him. 170 00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:25,470 The central piers were already built, and part of the surrounding walls. 171 00:14:25,548 --> 00:14:29,700 But he was able to give it the unifying stamp of his own character. 172 00:14:29,788 --> 00:14:35,740 (MUSIC) MONTEVERDI: Vespers 173 00:14:52,788 --> 00:14:55,700 It's the most sculptural of all his designs - 174 00:14:55,788 --> 00:14:59,700 perhaps the grandest piece of architecture ever built 175 00:14:59,788 --> 00:15:04,580 a vast, simple unit that carries the eye round 176 00:15:04,668 --> 00:15:07,778 as if it were the carving of a torso. 177 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:16,470 (MUSIC) Domine ad adiuvandu me festina 178 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:37,668 (MUSIC) Sicut erat in principio 179 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:09,428 (MUSIC) Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia 180 00:16:09,509 --> 00:16:14,019 (MUSIC) Alleluia 181 00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:23,590 (MUSIC) Alleluia 182 00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:33,308 People don't always appreciate the awe-inspiring grandeur 183 00:16:33,389 --> 00:16:36,100 of the walls and cornices of St Peter's 184 00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,308 but everybody knows the dome. 185 00:16:38,389 --> 00:16:41,019 For centuries Lovers of art have gone into ecstasies 186 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,470 about its noble, energetic arc, 187 00:16:43,548 --> 00:16:47,090 expressive of Michelangelo's spiritual aspirations. 188 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:50,629 It's perhaps the most commanding dome in the world, 189 00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:55,840 easily dominating the other Roman cupolas that one sees as one looks across the city. 190 00:16:55,908 --> 00:16:58,470 However, all the evidence suggests 191 00:16:58,548 --> 00:17:02,220 that it does not represent Michelangelo's final intention. 192 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:08,308 As you can see in this print, he wanted it to be much more spherical, 193 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:10,390 less pointed. 194 00:17:10,480 --> 00:17:15,710 It was in fact designed by an architect called Della Porta, 195 00:17:15,788 --> 00:17:18,380 after Michelangelo's death. 196 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:23,028 Well, we can go on admiring it, and think rather more of Della Porta. 197 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:35,868 The last stone of the dome of St Peter's was put in place in 1590, 198 00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:38,670 a few months before the death of Sixtus V. 199 00:17:38,750 --> 00:17:43,500 The long period of austerity and consolidation was almost over. 200 00:17:43,588 --> 00:17:46,500 The Catholic Church was victorious. 201 00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:56,200 Now, how had that victory been achieved? 202 00:17:56,269 --> 00:17:59,140 In England, most of us were brought up to believe 203 00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:04,068 that it depended on the Index, the Jesuits and the Inquisition. 204 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:08,308 Well, I don't believe that a great outburst of creative energy, 205 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,150 such as took place in Rome between 1620 and 1640 206 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:15,150 can be the result of negative factors. 207 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:18,940 But I do admit that the civilisation of those years 208 00:18:19,028 --> 00:18:21,410 did depend on certain assumptions 209 00:18:21,509 --> 00:18:24,980 that are out of favour in England and America today. 210 00:18:25,068 --> 00:18:29,380 The first of these, of course was the belief in authority, 211 00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,190 the absolute authority of the Roman Church. 212 00:18:32,269 --> 00:18:35,220 And this belief extended to sections of society 213 00:18:35,308 --> 00:18:39,500 which we now assume to be naturally rebellious, like artists. 214 00:18:39,588 --> 00:18:43,058 It comes as something of a shock to find that with a single exception, 215 00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:48,788 the great artists of the time were all sincere, conforming Christians. 216 00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:54,108 Guercino spent much of his mornings in prayer. 217 00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:57,588 Bernini frequently went into retreats 218 00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:00,828 and practised the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. 219 00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:05,390 Even Rubens attended mass every morning before beginning work. 220 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:11,068 This conformism wasn't based on fear of the Inquisition, 221 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,460 but on the simple belief 222 00:19:13,548 --> 00:19:17,858 that the faith which had inspired the great saints of the preceding generation, 223 00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:20,259 saints like St Filippo Neri, 224 00:19:20,348 --> 00:19:24,098 was something by which a man should regulate his life. 225 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,308 The mid-16th century was a period of sanctity in the Roman Church, 226 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:30,910 almost equal to the 12th. 227 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:36,670 St John of the Cross the great poet of mysticism; 228 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:40,828 St Ignatius Loyola, 229 00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:44,538 the visionary soldier turned psychologist; 230 00:19:47,548 --> 00:19:50,660 St Teresa of Avila the great headmistress, 231 00:19:50,750 --> 00:19:55,338 with her irresistible combination of mystical experience and common sense; 232 00:19:56,680 --> 00:20:02,028 and St Carlo Borromeo the austere administrator. 233 00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:07,190 One doesn't need to be a practising Catholic to feel immense respect 234 00:20:07,269 --> 00:20:11,180 for a half-century that could produce these great spirits. 235 00:20:12,308 --> 00:20:14,690 However, I'm not trying to pretend 236 00:20:14,788 --> 00:20:17,380 that this episode in the history of civilisation 237 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:22,548 was of value chiefly because of its influence on artists or philosophers. 238 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:27,630 On the contrary, I think that intellectual life developed more fully 239 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:30,390 in the freer atmosphere of the north. 240 00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:32,588 The great achievement of the Catholic Church 241 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:37,868 lay in harmonising, humanising, civilising 242 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:41,788 the deepest impulses of ordinary people. 243 00:20:43,588 --> 00:20:47,130 (MUSIC) GABRIELI: Jubilate Deo 244 00:21:59,348 --> 00:22:01,578 Harmonising, humanising, civilising. 245 00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:04,348 Take the cult of the Virgin. 246 00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:05,990 In the early 12th century, 247 00:22:06,068 --> 00:22:09,380 the Virgin had been the supreme protectress of civilisation. 248 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,670 She'd taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians 249 00:22:13,750 --> 00:22:16,338 the virtues of tenderness and compassion. 250 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:20,990 The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were her dwelling places upon earth. 251 00:22:21,068 --> 00:22:24,420 And then in the Renaissance while remaining the Queen of Heaven, 252 00:22:24,509 --> 00:22:26,858 she became also the human mother 253 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:28,910 in whom everyone could recognise 254 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:32,990 those qualities of warmth and love and approachability. 255 00:22:33,068 --> 00:22:37,778 Now, imagine the feelings of a simple-hearted man or woman - 256 00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,548 a Spanish peasant, an Italian artisan - 257 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:45,150 on hearing that the northern heretics were insulting the Virgin, 258 00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:49,390 desecrating her sanctuaries, pulling down or decapitating her images. 259 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:53,588 He must have felt something deeper than indignation. 260 00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:59,348 He must have felt that some part of his whole emotional life was threatened. 261 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:01,068 And he would have been right. 262 00:23:02,108 --> 00:23:05,180 The stabilising, comprehensive religions of the world, 263 00:23:05,269 --> 00:23:08,700 the religions which penetrate to every part of a man's being, 264 00:23:08,788 --> 00:23:11,858 in Egypt, India, China, 265 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:17,078 gave the female principle of creation almost as much importance as the male 266 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:22,828 and wouldn't have taken seriously a philosophy that failed to include both. 267 00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:24,548 Of course, I'm bound to say, 268 00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:29,150 these were all what HG Wells called "communities of obedience". 269 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:34,390 The aggressive, nomadic societies, what he called "communities of will" - 270 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:37,308 Israel, Islam, the Protestant north - 271 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,470 conceived their gods as male. 272 00:23:40,750 --> 00:23:42,500 Now, it's a curious fact 273 00:23:42,588 --> 00:23:47,220 that the male religions have produced very little religious imagery - 274 00:23:47,308 --> 00:23:50,930 in most cases have positively forbidden it. 275 00:23:51,028 --> 00:23:55,220 The great religious art of the world in every country 276 00:23:55,308 --> 00:23:58,380 is deeply involved with the female principle. 277 00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,630 Of course, the ordinary Catholic who prayed to the Virgin 278 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:03,670 wasn't conscious of any of this, 279 00:24:03,750 --> 00:24:08,500 nor was he or she interested in the really baffling theological problems 280 00:24:08,588 --> 00:24:11,980 presented by the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. 281 00:24:12,068 --> 00:24:16,538 He knew simply that heretics wanted to deprive him 282 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:21,788 of that sweet, compassionate, approachable being, 283 00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:23,430 who would intercede for him 284 00:24:23,509 --> 00:24:28,098 as his mother might have interceded with a hard master. 285 00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,230 Take another human impulse that can be harmonised 286 00:24:31,308 --> 00:24:33,380 but shouldn't be suppressed - 287 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,038 the impulse to confess. 288 00:24:36,108 --> 00:24:40,900 A historian can't help observing how the need for confession has returned 289 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:45,230 even, or especially, in the land of the Pilgrim Fathers. 290 00:24:45,308 --> 00:24:47,019 The difference is 291 00:24:47,108 --> 00:24:51,460 that instead of confession being followed by a simple, comforting rubric, 292 00:24:51,548 --> 00:24:54,660 which has behind it the weight of divine authority, 293 00:24:54,750 --> 00:24:59,058 the modern confessor must grope his way into the labyrinth of the psyche, 294 00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,940 with all its false turnings and dissolving perspectives. 295 00:25:04,068 --> 00:25:08,338 A noble aim, but a terrifying responsibility. 296 00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:14,150 No wonder that psychoanalysts have the highest suicide rate of any vocation. 297 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:18,150 Perhaps, after all, the old procedure had something to recommend it, 298 00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:20,068 because, as a rule 299 00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:25,180 it's the act of confession that matters not the attempted cure. 300 00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,348 The leaders of the Catholic restoration had made the inspired decision 301 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:36,230 not to go halfway to meet Protestantism in any of its objections, 302 00:25:36,308 --> 00:25:39,980 but rather to glory in those very doctrines 303 00:25:40,068 --> 00:25:45,980 that the Protestants had most forcibly - sometimes most logically - repudiated. 304 00:25:46,068 --> 00:25:48,578 Luther had repudiated the authority of the Pope. 305 00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:50,828 Very well. No pains must be spared 306 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:55,630 to make a gigantic assertion that St Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, 307 00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,788 had been divinely appointed as Christ's vicar on earth. 308 00:25:59,880 --> 00:26:01,670 Ever since Erasmus 309 00:26:01,750 --> 00:26:04,858 intelligent men in the north had spoken scornfully of relics. 310 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,578 Very well. Their importance must be magnified, 311 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:14,230 so that the four piers of St Peter's itself are gigantic reliquaries. 312 00:26:14,308 --> 00:26:19,430 This one contained parts of the lance that pierced Our Lord's side. 313 00:26:19,509 --> 00:26:23,618 And in front of it stands Longinus, 314 00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:28,430 looking up with a gesture of dazzled enlightenment. 315 00:26:28,509 --> 00:26:32,259 The veneration of relics was connected with the cult of the saints 316 00:26:32,348 --> 00:26:35,460 and this had been equally condemned by the reformers. 317 00:26:35,548 --> 00:26:41,338 Very well. The saints should be made more insistently real to the imagination, 318 00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:46,950 and in particular their sufferings and ecstasies should be vividly recorded. 319 00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,868 In all these ways, 320 00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:56,150 the Church gave imaginative expression to deep-seated human impulses. 321 00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,028 And it had another great strength, 322 00:26:59,108 --> 00:27:02,019 which one may say was part of Mediterranean civilisation, 323 00:27:02,108 --> 00:27:06,058 or at any rate a legacy from the pagan Renaissance: 324 00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,750 it was not afraid of the human body. 325 00:27:09,828 --> 00:27:11,778 Titian's Assumption of the Virgin, 326 00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:17,108 a Baroque picture almost 100 years before its time, 327 00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:22,470 was painted in the same period as his great celebrations of paganism. 328 00:27:22,548 --> 00:27:24,220 Early in the 16th century, 329 00:27:24,308 --> 00:27:30,410 Titian had given his immense authority to this union of dogma and sensuality. 330 00:27:30,509 --> 00:27:35,700 And when the first Puritan influence of the Council of Trent was over 331 00:27:35,788 --> 00:27:37,858 Titian's work was there 332 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,710 to inspire both Rubens, who made superb copies of it... 333 00:27:45,348 --> 00:27:47,578 ..and, I think, Bernini. 334 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:54,420 Protestantism, in its overzealous condemnation of sins of the flesh 335 00:27:54,509 --> 00:27:58,818 had also cut itself off from the kind of comforting physical presence 336 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,230 that one finds in Bernini's Charity. 337 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:13,108 For all these reasons the art we call Baroque was a popular art. 338 00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:17,150 The art of the Renaissance had appealed through intellectual means - 339 00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,670 geometry, perspective, knowledge of antiquity - 340 00:28:20,750 --> 00:28:24,288 to a small group of humanists. 341 00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,858 The Baroque appealed, through the emotions, 342 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:28,750 to the widest possible audience. 343 00:28:29,788 --> 00:28:33,019 Sometimes it does so by dramatic illustration. 344 00:28:33,108 --> 00:28:37,970 This is The Calling of St Matthew, by Caravaggio, who was, on the whole, 345 00:28:38,068 --> 00:28:41,900 the greatest, certainly the most original, painter of the period. 346 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:46,150 And like many other artists of the time, he uses a means of communication 347 00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,190 that reminds one of the films. 348 00:28:48,269 --> 00:28:50,900 Caravaggio experimented, as you can see here, 349 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,750 with violent contrasts of light and shade 350 00:28:54,828 --> 00:28:57,390 that were popular in highbrow films of the '20s. 351 00:29:02,509 --> 00:29:08,538 And later Baroque artists, like Bernini, delighted in the emotive close-up, 352 00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,950 the tears and open lips and restless movement - 353 00:29:13,028 --> 00:29:17,058 all those devices that were to be rediscovered in the movies. 354 00:29:18,348 --> 00:29:20,098 The extraordinary thing is 355 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,588 that Baroque artists did it in bronze and marble, and not on celluloid. 356 00:29:27,028 --> 00:29:29,380 Of course, in a way, it's a frivolous comparison, 357 00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,108 because however much one admires the films 358 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:36,990 one must admit that they are often vulgar, always ephemeral, 359 00:29:37,068 --> 00:29:41,660 whereas the work of Bernini is ideal and eternal. 360 00:29:41,750 --> 00:29:43,940 He was a very great artist. 361 00:29:44,028 --> 00:29:45,700 And although his work may seem 362 00:29:45,788 --> 00:29:50,500 to lack the awe-inspiring seriousness and concentration of Michelangelo, 363 00:29:50,588 --> 00:29:55,019 it was in its century even more pervasive and influential. 364 00:29:55,108 --> 00:29:58,700 He not only gave Baroque Rome its character, 365 00:29:58,788 --> 00:30:01,618 but he was the chief source of an international style 366 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:03,588 that spread all over Europe, 367 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,588 as Gothic had done and as the Renaissance style never did. 368 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:10,308 He was dazzlingly precocious. 369 00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,750 At the age of 16, one of his carvings was bought by the Borghese family, 370 00:30:14,828 --> 00:30:17,180 and by the time he was 20, he was already commissioned 371 00:30:17,269 --> 00:30:20,618 to do a portrait of the Borghese pope, Paul V. 372 00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,990 In the next three years he became more skillful in the carving of marble 373 00:30:25,068 --> 00:30:28,298 than any sculptor has ever been, before or since. 374 00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:33,519 His David, in contrast with the static David of Michelangelo, 375 00:30:33,588 --> 00:30:36,538 catches the sudden twist of action. 376 00:30:38,788 --> 00:30:43,538 And the vehement expression of the head is almost overdone. 377 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,390 Actually, it's a self-portrait of the young Bernini, 378 00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:48,750 who made a face into a mirror - 379 00:30:48,828 --> 00:30:52,858 said to have been held for him by his patron, the cardinal Scipione Borghese. 380 00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,548 The Apollo and Daphne is an even more extraordinary example 381 00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:02,230 of how marble can be made into something fluid and fleeting, 382 00:31:02,308 --> 00:31:04,259 because it represents the moment 383 00:31:04,348 --> 00:31:10,900 when Daphne, crying for help to her father, is changed into a laurel tree. 384 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,509 Her fingers are becoming leaves already. 385 00:31:14,588 --> 00:31:18,538 It's just beginning to dawn on Apollo that he's lost her. 386 00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,108 And if he could look down, he would see 387 00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:27,509 that her beautiful legs are already turning into a tree trunk... 388 00:31:33,269 --> 00:31:39,740 ..and her toes are becoming roots and tendrils. 389 00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:51,150 All these brilliant works were done for the Borghese family. 390 00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,150 It was very bright of them to commission so young a man, 391 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:57,068 But by the 1620s, the rich Roman families, 392 00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,538 who were in fact the families of successive popes, 393 00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,308 had begun to compete as patrons and collectors, 394 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,230 often in a somewhat piratical manner. 395 00:32:05,308 --> 00:32:06,980 One's reminded of the competition 396 00:32:07,068 --> 00:32:11,700 between monster American collectors of 60 years ago - Mr Frick, Mr Morgan - 397 00:32:11,788 --> 00:32:17,220 with the difference that Roman patrons competed for the works of living artists, 398 00:32:17,308 --> 00:32:20,660 not simply for certified "Old Masters". 399 00:32:20,750 --> 00:32:22,380 The leading Roman families 400 00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,348 put painters under contract, like television stars. 401 00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,750 And the painters really got paid, which they never did in the Renaissance. 402 00:32:28,828 --> 00:32:30,618 As often happens, I believe, 403 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,828 a sudden relaxation and affluence after a period of austerity 404 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,710 produced an outburst of creative energy. 405 00:32:37,788 --> 00:32:40,420 The 1620s were relaxed all right, 406 00:32:40,509 --> 00:32:44,180 as one can see from Bernini's portrait of that most affluent cardinal 407 00:32:44,269 --> 00:32:47,298 Scipione Borghese. 408 00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:52,828 Of all these papal families, one easily outshone the rest: the Barberini. 409 00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,670 This was due to the pontificate of Matteo Barberini 410 00:32:55,750 --> 00:33:00,578 who, in 1623, became Pope Urban VIII. 411 00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,670 He survived as Pope for 20 years. 412 00:33:03,750 --> 00:33:07,778 But, as he himself foresaw, he survives in history 413 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,470 very largely because he was the patron of Bernini. 414 00:33:11,548 --> 00:33:15,700 At the time of Urban's accession Bernini was only 25, 415 00:33:15,788 --> 00:33:19,538 and the very next year he was made architect of St Peter's 416 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:24,348 a project that was to occupy him for more than 40 years. 417 00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,588 At the end of that time, he had made visible 418 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:29,630 the victory of the Catholic Church. 419 00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:34,788 The pilgrim approaching St Peter's before Bernini 420 00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,910 would have found himself in a venerable and picturesque quarter of the city, 421 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,028 with a few large buildings, 422 00:33:41,108 --> 00:33:44,180 isolated from one another by trees and meadows; 423 00:33:44,269 --> 00:33:50,818 individually grand, but not making the impact of a complete architectural idea. 424 00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:56,548 Now imagine his experiences after Bernini had done his work. 425 00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,910 He would cross the Ponte St Angelo, 426 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,390 with its marble angels from Bernini's workshop, 427 00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:08,110 and from the other side make his way to Bernini's piazza. 428 00:34:08,190 --> 00:34:13,699 (MUSIC) GABRIELI: Canzon Primi Toni 429 00:34:43,230 --> 00:34:46,219 Bernini is perhaps the only artist in history 430 00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:52,420 who's been able to carry through such a vast design over so long a period. 431 00:34:52,510 --> 00:34:56,659 And the result is a unity of impression 432 00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,070 that exists nowhere else on so grand a scale. 433 00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:28,789 Then, when our pilgrim passes through the enormous façade, 434 00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:32,150 the feeling of complete unity of style is maintained. 435 00:35:32,230 --> 00:35:34,900 You get a better impression of the interior of St Peter's 436 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,559 from this painting than from a photograph. 437 00:35:37,630 --> 00:35:41,539 It was painted 200 years ago, but in fact very little has changed. 438 00:35:51,070 --> 00:35:56,900 Not only is the decoration basically all conceived by Bernini in a uniform style, 439 00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,349 but the eye passes without a break 440 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:03,869 through the Baldacchino and up to that astonishing construction, 441 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,389 the throne of St Peter. 442 00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,309 But perhaps what would have impressed our pilgrim most of all 443 00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,190 would have been the bronze Baldacchino. 444 00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:20,550 Bernini started work on it in the year he became architect of St Peter's, and it's incredible. 445 00:36:20,630 --> 00:36:24,739 Yes, if one knows anything about bronze casting, it really is incredible. 446 00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,989 It involved every sort of engineering difficulty. 447 00:36:29,070 --> 00:36:33,900 And then there's the amazing richness and audacity of Bernini's invention, 448 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:38,989 and the perfection of craftsmanship, which extends to every detail. 449 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:52,590 More extraordinary still, 450 00:36:52,670 --> 00:36:56,139 Bernini seems already to have foreseen in his imagination 451 00:36:56,230 --> 00:36:59,300 what the whole development of St Peter's would be like 452 00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,110 because this work which is the first thing he designed, 453 00:37:02,190 --> 00:37:06,659 is completely in harmony with the great progression of works 454 00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,909 executed over the whole span of 40 years. 455 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,070 I believe that anyone who uses his eyes without prejudice 456 00:37:16,150 --> 00:37:19,690 will find his emotions stirred and enlarged 457 00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,510 by these marvellous experiences. 458 00:37:22,590 --> 00:37:26,659 As we enter this world of light and movement, 459 00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:31,230 of weightless angels and billowing bishops and tumbling cherubs, 460 00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:36,510 we are ourselves no longer weighed down by earthly things. 461 00:37:36,590 --> 00:37:40,619 We participate imaginatively, as we do in a ballet 462 00:37:40,710 --> 00:37:44,489 in the ecstatic repudiation of the forces of gravity. 463 00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:53,268 But the word "ballet" suddenly puts me on my guard. 464 00:38:07,230 --> 00:38:12,579 It was no accident that Bernini was the greatest scene designer of his age. 465 00:38:12,670 --> 00:38:16,579 John Evelyn, the diarist, records how in 1644 466 00:38:16,670 --> 00:38:18,460 he went to the opera in Rome, 467 00:38:18,550 --> 00:38:21,300 where Bernini painted the scenes, cut the statues 468 00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:23,349 invented the engines, composed the music, 469 00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,869 wrote the comedy and built the theatre. 470 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,230 And we're told that at Bernini's productions, 471 00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,590 people in the front row ran out of the theatre, 472 00:38:31,670 --> 00:38:35,260 fearing they would be drenched by water or burnt by fire, 473 00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:39,110 so powerful was the illusion that he created. 474 00:38:39,190 --> 00:38:42,018 Of course, these stage sets have all vanished. 475 00:38:42,110 --> 00:38:44,260 But we have some evidence of what they were like 476 00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:49,429 in the fountain that Bernini designed for the Piazza Navona, here behind me. 477 00:38:49,510 --> 00:38:52,018 It's an astonishing performance. 478 00:38:52,110 --> 00:38:55,340 A sizeable Egyptian obelisk is lifted up on a hollow rock, 479 00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,429 as if it weighed no more than a ballerina. 480 00:39:02,030 --> 00:39:05,139 And round the rock are four gigantic figures, 481 00:39:05,230 --> 00:39:08,539 symbolising the four great rivers of the world. 482 00:39:08,630 --> 00:39:10,500 First of all the Danube 483 00:39:10,590 --> 00:39:14,780 with its symbolic animal, the horse, emerging from a grotto - 484 00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,268 said to be the only part of the monument carved by Bernini himself. 485 00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,429 Incidentally, it's the portrait of a real horse, called Monte d'Oro. 486 00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,030 And then the Nile 487 00:39:27,110 --> 00:39:31,018 with a rather... rather ridiculous lion. 488 00:39:31,110 --> 00:39:34,889 And then the Ganges, shrouded from the sun. 489 00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,550 And finally the river Plate, 490 00:39:38,630 --> 00:39:44,139 symbolised by heaven knows what sort of fabulous crocodile. 491 00:39:52,630 --> 00:39:56,329 The Plate seems to be reeling back in horror. 492 00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,429 The people of Rome used to maintain that he was showing his alarm 493 00:40:00,510 --> 00:40:02,619 at the sight of the church façade, 494 00:40:02,710 --> 00:40:07,699 by Bernini's only serious rival, the architect Borromini. 495 00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,030 Of this theatrical element in Bernini 496 00:40:15,110 --> 00:40:20,099 a sublime example is the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria. 497 00:40:20,190 --> 00:40:24,059 To begin with, Bernini has represented the members of the Cornaro family 498 00:40:24,150 --> 00:40:25,940 on either side of the chapel, 499 00:40:26,030 --> 00:40:30,219 looking as if they were in boxes, waiting for the curtain to go up. 500 00:40:31,670 --> 00:40:33,619 Then, when we come to the drama itself 501 00:40:33,710 --> 00:40:37,900 it's presented exactly as if it were on a small stage, 502 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,829 with a spotlight falling on the protagonists. 503 00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:46,510 But at this point, the theatrical parallel must be dropped, 504 00:40:46,590 --> 00:40:48,380 because what we see 505 00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:50,469 The Ecstasy of Santa Teresa, 506 00:40:50,550 --> 00:40:54,820 is one of the most deeply moving works in European art. 507 00:40:54,920 --> 00:41:00,869 Bernini's gift of sympathetic imagination, of entering into the emotions of others, 508 00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:06,110 a gift no doubt enhanced by his practice of St Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises, 509 00:41:06,190 --> 00:41:12,579 is used to convey the rarest and most precious of all emotional states, 510 00:41:12,670 --> 00:41:14,380 that of religious ecstasy. 511 00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:19,550 He's illustrated exactly the passage of the saint's autobiography 512 00:41:19,630 --> 00:41:23,500 in which she describes the supreme moment of her life, 513 00:41:23,590 --> 00:41:28,420 how an angel with a flaming golden arrow pierced her heart repeatedly. 514 00:41:28,510 --> 00:41:31,780 "The pain was so great that I screamed aloud, 515 00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,630 but simultaneously felt such infinite sweetness 516 00:41:35,710 --> 00:41:39,059 that I wished the pain to last eternally." 517 00:41:39,150 --> 00:41:43,099 "It was the sweetest caressing of the soul by God." 518 00:41:43,190 --> 00:41:46,579 (MUSIC) MONTEVERDI: Vespers 519 00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:00,429 I don't think that anyone can accuse me 520 00:43:00,510 --> 00:43:03,659 of underestimating the Catholic restoration, 521 00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,030 or its greatest image-maker Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 522 00:43:07,110 --> 00:43:09,059 So may I end by saying 523 00:43:09,150 --> 00:43:14,739 that this episode in the history of civilisation arouses in me certain misgivings, 524 00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,539 and they may be summed up in the words illusion and exploitation. 525 00:43:19,670 --> 00:43:22,179 Of course, all art is to some extent an illusion. 526 00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:26,150 It transforms experience in order to satisfy some need of the imagination. 527 00:43:26,230 --> 00:43:28,260 But there are degrees of illusion, 528 00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:32,670 depending on how far from direct experience the artist is prepared to go. 529 00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:34,550 Bernini went very far - 530 00:43:34,630 --> 00:43:37,980 just how far, one realises when one remembers 531 00:43:38,070 --> 00:43:40,500 the historical Santa Teresa 532 00:43:40,590 --> 00:43:44,940 with her plain, dauntless, sensible face. 533 00:43:45,030 --> 00:43:49,659 The contrast with the swooning, sensuous beauty of the Cornaro Chapel 534 00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:51,670 is almost shocking. 535 00:43:53,630 --> 00:43:57,219 One can't help feeling that affluent Baroque, 536 00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:02,070 in its escape from the severities of the earlier fight against Protestantism, 537 00:44:02,150 --> 00:44:06,420 ended by escaping from reality into a world of illusion. 538 00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:11,018 Art creates its own momentum and once set on this course 539 00:44:11,110 --> 00:44:15,460 there was nothing it could do except become more and more sensational. 540 00:44:15,550 --> 00:44:17,739 And this is what happens. 541 00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,909 In the breathtaking performances that take place over our heads, 542 00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:26,469 in the Gesu, and St Ignazio, and the Palazzo Barberini 543 00:44:26,550 --> 00:44:29,260 we feel that the stopper is out. 544 00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:33,349 Imaginative energy is fizzing away, up into the clouds, 545 00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,869 and will soon evaporate. 546 00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:38,909 (MUSIC) MONTEVERDI: Vespers 547 00:45:33,190 --> 00:45:36,500 As for my other misgivings, 548 00:45:36,590 --> 00:45:39,900 of course there was exploitation before the 16th century, 549 00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,300 but never on so vast a scale. 550 00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,110 In the Middle Ages, 551 00:45:44,190 --> 00:45:47,219 it was usually accompanied by real popular participation. 552 00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:48,909 Even in the Renaissance 553 00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:54,309 palaces were to some extent seats of government and objects of local pride. 554 00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,429 But the colossal palaces of the Pope's relatives 555 00:45:57,510 --> 00:46:01,289 were simply expressions of private greed and vanity. 556 00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:05,179 Farnese, Borghese, Barberini, Loduvisi - 557 00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:09,059 these rapacious parvenus spent their short years of power 558 00:46:09,150 --> 00:46:14,300 competing as to who should build the largest and most ornate saloons. 559 00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:18,989 In doing so, they commissioned some great works of art, 560 00:46:19,070 --> 00:46:22,739 and one can't help admiring their shameless courage. 561 00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:27,829 At least they weren't mean and furtive, like some modern millionaires. 562 00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:29,750 But their contribution to civilisation 563 00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:32,949 was limited to this kind of visual exuberance. 564 00:46:34,030 --> 00:46:37,570 The sense of grandeur is no doubt a human instinct; 565 00:46:37,670 --> 00:46:39,739 but carried too far, it becomes inhuman. 566 00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:45,659 I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human spirit 567 00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:51,590 has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous room. 568 00:46:52,630 --> 00:46:56,619 (MUSIC) MONTEVERDI: Vespers Dixit Dominus