1 00:01:25,534 --> 00:01:28,075 This American guided missile destroyer 2 00:01:28,088 --> 00:01:30,680 is a perfect example of how we, in the modern world, 3 00:01:30,809 --> 00:01:33,119 take for granted we know where we are going all the time. 4 00:01:33,302 --> 00:01:38,240 In this case, we build a ship with sophisticated electronic warfare technology, 5 00:01:38,432 --> 00:01:41,389 anti submarine attack systems, surface-to-surface 6 00:01:41,431 --> 00:01:45,487 and surface-to-air search-and-destroy capability and awesome firepower. 7 00:01:45,908 --> 00:01:49,297 And none of it could hit a barn door, so to speak, 8 00:01:49,347 --> 00:01:51,606 if the crew did not know, at every moment, 9 00:01:51,729 --> 00:01:55,015 where on the surface of the earth, to within feet, they are. 10 00:01:55,569 --> 00:01:59,265 But they do, thanks to their satellite navigation systems. 11 00:02:01,822 --> 00:02:05,867 This information is passed down to the electronic brain of the ship, 12 00:02:05,909 --> 00:02:10,416 and used there to enable it to do its job with deadly accuracy. 13 00:02:11,905 --> 00:02:16,002 Here is what they do with it. Here, in what is called the Command Information Centre, 14 00:02:16,135 --> 00:02:19,205 the data from the satellite, plus data from one 15 00:02:19,307 --> 00:02:22,120 land-based and one ship-based navigational system, 16 00:02:22,121 --> 00:02:25,086 tell the main computer where it is, every second. 17 00:02:25,158 --> 00:02:28,238 You see the point, if you are moving, and the sea is moving, 18 00:02:28,259 --> 00:02:32,941 and the wind is moving, and the enemy is moving going ‘bang’, successfully, 19 00:02:33,023 --> 00:02:34,850 can be extremely complicated. 20 00:02:37,664 --> 00:02:40,375 But this system will make it a bit easier because it will do 21 00:02:40,376 --> 00:02:42,778 practically everything except say, “hands up”. 22 00:02:44,606 --> 00:02:46,577 This is us, at the centre of the display. 23 00:02:47,163 --> 00:02:49,452 I will ask the system to say something about that subject. 24 00:02:49,791 --> 00:02:52,594 Here is the interrogator. I will lock it on to us. 25 00:02:54,986 --> 00:02:55,797 And, 26 00:02:58,980 --> 00:03:02,943 there, our identity, course and speed and our position 27 00:03:02,944 --> 00:03:05,212 in latitude and longitude, besides. 28 00:03:05,408 --> 00:03:06,794 And it will do that for us 29 00:03:06,886 --> 00:03:10,541 or for any enemy who is foolish enough to be in the area and attract our attention. 30 00:03:10,950 --> 00:03:14,615 Flying, floating or submerged, it will tell us where he is, 31 00:03:14,698 --> 00:03:17,193 what he is, whose side he is on and what he is up to. 32 00:03:17,429 --> 00:03:19,975 And when we deem the moment to be right, 33 00:03:20,067 --> 00:03:22,809 it will go “bang”. 34 00:03:23,178 --> 00:03:24,133 Successfully. 35 00:03:24,390 --> 00:03:26,782 And it will do a lot more besides that they won't tell us about. 36 00:03:27,511 --> 00:03:32,142 This entire room makes the business of hitting landfall or the bull's-eye 37 00:03:32,143 --> 00:03:35,478 a piece of cake, because the system knows where we are. 38 00:03:39,657 --> 00:03:41,433 And curiously enough, 39 00:03:41,434 --> 00:03:44,145 that confident ability of ours in the modern world 40 00:03:44,146 --> 00:03:45,963 to know where we are, where we are going, 41 00:03:46,045 --> 00:03:50,624 so powerfully expressed in this floating crisis management centre, 42 00:03:50,778 --> 00:03:54,146 began over 500 years ago with a fellow who, himself, 43 00:03:54,147 --> 00:03:57,513 could only be called a floating crisis management centre. 44 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:01,384 Only virtually all the navigation aid he had was this. 45 00:04:20,341 --> 00:04:23,380 In the summer of 1394, a small ship headed out 46 00:04:23,381 --> 00:04:26,234 of Constantinople for Italy, on a crisis mission. 47 00:04:26,327 --> 00:04:28,996 The Byzantine Empire was under attack by the Turks. 48 00:04:29,201 --> 00:04:33,287 Without immediate Western military aid, Constantinople might fall. 49 00:04:34,930 --> 00:04:37,795 So, here is the crisis team facing their first crisis: 50 00:04:37,908 --> 00:04:40,146 getting there. Which they wouldn't, 51 00:04:40,187 --> 00:04:42,702 if they ever lost sight of the coastline. 52 00:04:50,373 --> 00:04:54,233 The reason you kept land in sight was because only idiots didn't. 53 00:04:54,357 --> 00:04:58,155 You were the navigator, you got far out to sea, you stayed far out to sea. 54 00:04:58,156 --> 00:05:01,205 I mean, you knew some things. Like the time. 55 00:05:05,034 --> 00:05:08,320 And if you dropped a trawl overboard, as it floated away and 56 00:05:08,321 --> 00:05:11,298 pulled out the line with regularly spaced knots in it, 57 00:05:11,299 --> 00:05:14,409 you could count how many knots you were going out. 58 00:05:17,756 --> 00:05:20,323 And you had a thing called a portolan chart, 59 00:05:20,446 --> 00:05:22,438 showing the headlands along the coast, 60 00:05:22,439 --> 00:05:24,769 if you weren't too far offshore to see them. 61 00:05:25,323 --> 00:05:29,554 On your portolan, you measured distance and bearing to the next headland 62 00:05:29,555 --> 00:05:32,973 and hoped the boat would go on sailing in that direction. 63 00:05:34,666 --> 00:05:36,145 You also had a compass, 64 00:05:36,248 --> 00:05:40,314 but with only a square sail, your boat only went the way the wind blew. 65 00:05:40,345 --> 00:05:43,384 And if that was the wrong way, tough luck. 66 00:05:47,223 --> 00:05:49,851 Why, if they blew out to sea they would blow the mission, 67 00:05:49,852 --> 00:05:53,506 was because any atlas showing further out that inshore, 68 00:05:53,619 --> 00:05:55,221 was total guesswork. 69 00:05:55,488 --> 00:05:57,932 But, by the strangest quirk of fate, 70 00:05:58,137 --> 00:06:01,823 Manual Chrysoloras, who was heading this mission, was to turn out 71 00:06:01,936 --> 00:06:06,464 to be the key to one of the greatest discoveries ever made about what the world looked like, 72 00:06:06,721 --> 00:06:11,105 one that would scrap this old mediaeval view of three continents, 73 00:06:11,106 --> 00:06:13,539 with Jerusalem centre of everything. 74 00:06:14,237 --> 00:06:17,020 You’ll gather that Chrysoloras did reach Italy 75 00:06:17,021 --> 00:06:18,745 and save Greek culture. 76 00:06:18,971 --> 00:06:21,774 Though not the way he expected. 77 00:06:43,665 --> 00:06:46,601 Chrysoloras and the Pope just didn't hit it off, 78 00:06:46,621 --> 00:06:50,636 so, the mission to save the Byzantine Empire, sank without trace 79 00:06:50,856 --> 00:06:53,803 and Chrysoloras found himself out of work, 80 00:06:54,182 --> 00:06:58,340 but not for long. In 1397, here in Florence, 81 00:06:58,514 --> 00:07:03,022 they asked him to start a university course in Greek. With nothing else in the offing, 82 00:07:03,227 --> 00:07:05,507 Chrysoloras jumped at it. 83 00:07:11,288 --> 00:07:15,415 And for the Florentines, Chrysoloras was the answer to a maiden’s prayer. 84 00:07:15,672 --> 00:07:18,116 He had the breeding, they had the money. 85 00:07:21,730 --> 00:07:25,231 And when I say money, I mean the place was loaded. 86 00:07:27,161 --> 00:07:30,364 Florence was a kind of crossroads, bang in the middle of Italy, 87 00:07:30,632 --> 00:07:34,308 the ideal spot for a successful commercial centre. 88 00:07:34,658 --> 00:07:37,307 The wine and grain and leather of northern Europe, 89 00:07:39,134 --> 00:07:43,456 traded for the silks and spices and cottons of the Middle East in Florence. 90 00:07:44,237 --> 00:07:46,752 With the Florentines creaming off the middleman profit. 91 00:07:48,281 --> 00:07:50,900 Which, in turn, they used to set up their own woollen industry 92 00:07:51,054 --> 00:07:52,902 and make even more profit. 93 00:07:55,263 --> 00:08:00,068 And the same year Chrysoloras arrived, the Medici family had started an international bank 94 00:08:00,079 --> 00:08:03,672 to lend all that spare Florentine cash and really rake it in, 95 00:08:03,816 --> 00:08:06,629 thanks to double figure interest rates. 96 00:08:07,594 --> 00:08:10,695 A kind of Florentine Express, with branches all over Europe. 97 00:08:11,259 --> 00:08:13,271 Worked like a charm, thanks to a new 98 00:08:13,477 --> 00:08:16,906 financial secret-weapon nobody outside Florence could get their hands on. 99 00:08:17,358 --> 00:08:18,899 Double entry book-keeping. 100 00:08:19,073 --> 00:08:22,338 The system everybody still uses today to balance their accounts. 101 00:08:25,254 --> 00:08:27,636 So, money ran Florence. 102 00:08:28,437 --> 00:08:32,831 The place was full of accountants, merchants and more than anywhere else in Europe, 103 00:08:33,026 --> 00:08:36,404 beaurocrats. And, in spite of the way it looks, 104 00:08:36,517 --> 00:08:40,542 there was no aristocracy. Anybody with power and position in Florence 105 00:08:40,594 --> 00:08:42,237 had bought it, out of the profits. 106 00:08:42,462 --> 00:08:44,249 They would have hated the description, 107 00:08:44,250 --> 00:08:47,934 but they were what we would call nouveau riche. 108 00:08:48,992 --> 00:08:53,325 This was a dynamic, Republican, capitalist no-holds-barred company town, 109 00:08:53,366 --> 00:08:57,986 where, if you had the wherewithal, there was nowhere money would take you but up. 110 00:08:58,356 --> 00:09:01,673 Trouble was, there comes a time when you run out of up. 111 00:09:04,003 --> 00:09:05,923 And that's where Chrysoloras came in. 112 00:09:06,539 --> 00:09:11,303 His classes in the Greek Classics became a kind of “where the elite meet” thing. 113 00:09:11,447 --> 00:09:13,048 He got all the top people. 114 00:09:13,377 --> 00:09:15,923 You see, his exposition of the glory that was Greece 115 00:09:15,924 --> 00:09:18,839 had tremendous snob-appeal because it was pre-Christian. 116 00:09:19,085 --> 00:09:22,432 So it had none of that “life and the world are worthless, 117 00:09:22,555 --> 00:09:27,206 moneymaking is evil, only the hereafter matters” that the Church was always on about. 118 00:09:27,659 --> 00:09:30,051 Evidently, ancient Rome and Greece had been places 119 00:09:30,153 --> 00:09:34,373 where a fellow with a bit of money who took his public responsibility seriously, 120 00:09:34,712 --> 00:09:35,698 was looked up to. 121 00:09:36,549 --> 00:09:38,726 Which was just what the Florentines wanted: 122 00:09:39,014 --> 00:09:43,100 Decorum, dignity, a touch of class. 123 00:09:43,778 --> 00:09:48,470 So, when Chrysoloras suggested a package tour to Greece, the home of the highfalutin, 124 00:09:49,404 --> 00:09:51,909 well, everybody who was anybody was on the trip. 125 00:09:52,177 --> 00:09:55,082 And, like all package tours, they bought the town. 126 00:09:55,258 --> 00:09:56,921 Anything the locals would sell. 127 00:09:56,922 --> 00:10:01,141 Including a rather curious Atlas by a fellow called Claudius Ptolemy, 128 00:10:01,253 --> 00:10:03,809 the like of which nobody had ever seen before. 129 00:10:04,343 --> 00:10:07,310 With the whole world and gridlines. 130 00:10:08,912 --> 00:10:11,838 The main thing was, they came back with a real thirst for anything that would teach them 131 00:10:11,839 --> 00:10:13,153 to live like heroes. 132 00:10:13,410 --> 00:10:16,172 So they went looking for their own classical past. 133 00:10:25,362 --> 00:10:28,514 Fortunately, lying forgotten round the monasteries of Europe, 134 00:10:28,515 --> 00:10:30,639 was the Latin literature they were looking for. 135 00:10:30,793 --> 00:10:34,304 Kind of Ancient Roman Rotary Club Handbook, stuff. 136 00:10:34,438 --> 00:10:36,759 After-dinner speaking, etiquette, 137 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:39,746 how to be a pillar of the community, and so on. 138 00:10:43,094 --> 00:10:47,232 Of course, all this mania for mouldy manuscripts did us a favour too, 139 00:10:47,273 --> 00:10:51,380 Then they rescued the only surviving copies of great Latin classics from the effects 140 00:10:51,381 --> 00:10:53,701 of the mildew and the rats. 141 00:10:56,555 --> 00:11:00,026 Well, the more they read of these stacks of poetry 142 00:11:00,027 --> 00:11:02,880 and rhetoric and history and civics and good living, 143 00:11:02,881 --> 00:11:07,449 the more it made them feel great, because this stuff, being pre-Christian, 144 00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:11,463 was all about getting your reward on earth, never mind waiting for hereafters. 145 00:11:11,606 --> 00:11:15,795 That humans could live in human ways with or without Heavenly help. 146 00:11:17,089 --> 00:11:20,590 Which gave the bookworm brigade a really terrific idea. 147 00:11:20,703 --> 00:11:24,831 They would call themselves “humanists” which left only one, 148 00:11:24,882 --> 00:11:27,130 rather uncomfortable, problem. 149 00:11:29,256 --> 00:11:32,768 Did any of this lot say how to make your home actually look classical? 150 00:11:32,769 --> 00:11:35,243 In other words, how to turn Florence 151 00:11:35,244 --> 00:11:37,882 into a place that would look like ancient Rome. 152 00:11:38,405 --> 00:11:41,896 Most unfortunately, no. 153 00:11:43,026 --> 00:11:47,040 Well, there was only one place to come to get the real McCoy. 154 00:11:47,615 --> 00:11:50,644 And that was Rome. Where, at the time, 155 00:11:50,645 --> 00:11:54,022 there was also somebody else who was interested in moving upmarket, too. 156 00:11:54,103 --> 00:11:55,048 The Pope. 157 00:11:55,510 --> 00:12:00,510 See, after years of hard times and no money and living in tin pot brick churches 158 00:12:00,583 --> 00:12:03,550 and fighting off the competition from the anti-popes in France, 159 00:12:03,868 --> 00:12:06,137 by 1417, 160 00:12:06,260 --> 00:12:08,560 the Roman papacy was dead keen to use all 161 00:12:08,611 --> 00:12:12,030 that trouble with the Turks back in Constantinople to its own advantage. 162 00:12:12,441 --> 00:12:15,213 The military aid for the Greeks, money even, 163 00:12:15,428 --> 00:12:19,833 in return for recognition that the Pope was in charge of, well, the world. 164 00:12:20,161 --> 00:12:23,590 If they could pull that off, well, for Rome was it going to be like old times: 165 00:12:23,806 --> 00:12:25,942 capital of the universe, all that. 166 00:12:26,404 --> 00:12:30,983 Unfortunately, the local Romans hadn't exactly kept the place in good nick. 167 00:12:31,681 --> 00:12:35,777 The glory that was Rome was, as likely as not, doubling 168 00:12:35,983 --> 00:12:37,954 as a flowerpot stand. 169 00:12:39,125 --> 00:12:42,800 What had once been the envy of the world, the eternal city, 170 00:12:42,892 --> 00:12:45,685 looked like a bomb-site. 171 00:12:46,260 --> 00:12:49,925 Trees and bushes in the forum now used as a city dump. 172 00:12:50,819 --> 00:12:54,772 Marble, long since stripped from the brickwork and burnt for lime. 173 00:12:55,614 --> 00:12:58,448 At night, two things moved, 174 00:12:58,951 --> 00:13:01,230 wolves and muggers. 175 00:13:07,401 --> 00:13:10,738 Still, our social climbers from Florence were not to be put off by 176 00:13:10,739 --> 00:13:14,609 a mere thousand years of neglect and decay lying around in bits. 177 00:13:14,846 --> 00:13:19,558 I mean, this was none of your ordinary rubbish. These were genuine Roman fragments, 178 00:13:19,764 --> 00:13:22,556 to be studied with care and copied back home. 179 00:13:22,946 --> 00:13:27,032 So they descended on the place with measuring rods and bits of string and paper, 180 00:13:27,473 --> 00:13:29,229 and scribbled furiously. 181 00:13:29,896 --> 00:13:31,693 They found what they were looking for alright. 182 00:13:32,392 --> 00:13:35,246 Not much, but what they did 183 00:13:35,625 --> 00:13:37,453 almost made them which they hadn't. 184 00:13:37,781 --> 00:13:38,346 Look at it. 185 00:13:54,166 --> 00:13:56,764 Everywhere they looked, they saw things they couldn't do. 186 00:13:56,826 --> 00:14:01,292 Triumphal arches, pediments, coffered ceilings, barrel vaulting, giant columns. 187 00:14:01,436 --> 00:14:05,070 They were never, ever going to rise to class like this. 188 00:14:32,576 --> 00:14:35,656 The question was, how to get hold of the know-how 189 00:14:35,657 --> 00:14:38,900 that would tell them enough to build like the Romans. 190 00:14:43,798 --> 00:14:47,669 The answer was to come from here, Padua in northern Italy. 191 00:14:47,874 --> 00:14:51,929 Because this sleepy little market town was the MIT of the 15th century. 192 00:14:51,991 --> 00:14:56,242 If you wanted in on the latest scientific breakthrough, this was the place. 193 00:14:56,395 --> 00:15:00,276 There were more researchers per square foot here than anywhere else in Europe 194 00:15:00,512 --> 00:15:04,650 and they worked and taught in little rooms all over town. 195 00:15:10,973 --> 00:15:12,796 Like this one here. 196 00:15:19,855 --> 00:15:22,537 Ironically, this one is now a drawing office. 197 00:15:22,653 --> 00:15:28,441 I say “ironically”, because, back then, the red hot subject was very much all this: 198 00:15:28,442 --> 00:15:33,279 visuals, optics, above all, ‘how do you see what you see?’ 199 00:15:33,574 --> 00:15:36,680 And they used mediaeval high tech to teach it with. 200 00:15:37,104 --> 00:15:41,044 Now, the guru in optics was an Arab called Alhazen 201 00:15:41,107 --> 00:15:44,714 who, back in the 11th century, had taken a look at the subject 202 00:15:44,945 --> 00:15:46,665 and written the definitive textbook. 203 00:15:47,037 --> 00:15:48,821 First he demolished all the old theories, 204 00:15:48,822 --> 00:15:54,405 First that somehow your eyes sent out rays of light to illuminate everything you looked at. 205 00:15:54,789 --> 00:16:00,488 “Garbage” said Alhazen. “If that were true, why would bright light hurt your eyes? 206 00:16:01,181 --> 00:16:07,341 And if you did send out rays, you would had to light up that every time you blinked”. 207 00:16:08,972 --> 00:16:14,375 Another theory that said, “objects gave out colour and that changed the colour of your eye”, 208 00:16:14,606 --> 00:16:18,353 well, why didn't this make my eye multicoloured? 209 00:16:18,725 --> 00:16:23,756 No, the only the theory that was any good for what Alhazen was interested in, 210 00:16:23,975 --> 00:16:28,428 like reflection, refraction, rainbows, 211 00:16:28,492 --> 00:16:33,536 why the Sun got big at sunset, was the theory that said “light did come into your eye 212 00:16:33,574 --> 00:16:36,244 from all the objects around you”. 213 00:16:38,567 --> 00:16:42,250 “True,” said Alhazen, “and the reason it doesn't confuse your eye, 214 00:16:42,251 --> 00:16:46,203 is because the rays act selectively. 215 00:16:46,487 --> 00:16:51,441 Objects do send off rays, but only the ones going 216 00:16:51,555 --> 00:16:56,907 straight into your eyes, the so-called centric rays make you see. 217 00:16:57,639 --> 00:17:01,169 The ones that come in at an angle, 218 00:17:02,003 --> 00:17:05,314 get bent, defracted, so you don't see them. 219 00:17:05,546 --> 00:17:11,694 And, big, near objects make more of those rays than little distant ones. 220 00:17:11,925 --> 00:17:16,276 So, you end up, overall, with a visual pyramid 221 00:17:16,390 --> 00:17:21,383 of rays coming in from everything out-there and, converging on your eye.” 222 00:17:22,718 --> 00:17:27,852 Blindingly obvious to you, knockout theoretical physics to the 15th century students here. 223 00:17:28,032 --> 00:17:33,230 Including one from Florence, a fellow called Paolo Toscanelli, 224 00:17:33,423 --> 00:17:36,965 who thought the sun rose and set on Alhazen. 225 00:17:59,668 --> 00:18:03,223 Some time around 1424, Toscanelli, on the right, 226 00:18:03,224 --> 00:18:07,331 was out to dinner, back in Florence when he met an architect called Brunelleschi, 227 00:18:07,407 --> 00:18:11,065 who was one of those people trying to do bigger and better than the ancient Romans, 228 00:18:11,219 --> 00:18:16,147 so he had a problem. Toscanelli, with his theoretical science background, 229 00:18:16,288 --> 00:18:18,188 was a godsend. 230 00:18:25,734 --> 00:18:30,355 Toscanelli had ideas based on all that optical theory he had learnt in Padua, 231 00:18:30,381 --> 00:18:34,141 that might give architects the help they all needed. 232 00:18:37,979 --> 00:18:41,162 You remember that Ptolemy atlas the Florentines had brought back 233 00:18:41,163 --> 00:18:43,344 from Greece, with grids all over it? 234 00:18:43,409 --> 00:18:48,068 Toscanelli came across things in the Atlas that were right up Brunelleschi’s street. 235 00:18:48,081 --> 00:18:51,995 Like how Ptolemy had used grids as a standard unit of measure, 236 00:18:52,137 --> 00:18:54,703 and how he must have used optical theory 237 00:18:54,704 --> 00:18:59,260 to get the foreshortening effect of the grids that would recreate the effects of the Earth's curving surface. 238 00:19:00,453 --> 00:19:04,149 The same optical theory that Alhazen had developed, you recall, 239 00:19:04,150 --> 00:19:07,268 about the way rays of light came into the eye from outside. 240 00:19:07,511 --> 00:19:12,581 And how the way you saw things was something that could be handled with geometry and maths. 241 00:19:13,055 --> 00:19:16,251 You can guess what must have been going through Brunelleschi’s mind 242 00:19:16,264 --> 00:19:20,820 as he watched Toscanelli. If he could understand enough of this fancy geometry 243 00:19:20,821 --> 00:19:24,439 to produce some kind of blueprint, his troubles might be over, 244 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:28,354 because he could get a proper scientific grip on things he was trying to build. 245 00:19:28,379 --> 00:19:31,100 Including a crazy scheme he had taken on, 246 00:19:31,101 --> 00:19:34,847 to give the Florentines something even bigger than the Romans had managed, 247 00:19:37,569 --> 00:19:43,101 to put the biggest dome ever built on their unfinished cathedral. 248 00:19:43,345 --> 00:19:46,400 He had this imaginative way of doing it. 249 00:19:49,275 --> 00:19:51,110 Toscanelli had the maths to help. 250 00:20:00,722 --> 00:20:04,727 The Florentines got their huge status symbol from Brunelleschi, alright. 251 00:20:04,996 --> 00:20:07,781 But it was what he got up to in 1425, 252 00:20:07,986 --> 00:20:12,157 down at the front door of the same church, that would put Florence on the map. 253 00:20:12,427 --> 00:20:13,492 Literally. 254 00:20:39,379 --> 00:20:44,884 In came out of that dinner table conversation with Toscanelli about how you saw things. 255 00:20:46,989 --> 00:20:51,173 Brunelleschi set up his equipment exactly 6 feet inside the church door, 256 00:20:51,260 --> 00:20:54,302 opposite the Baptistry building in the square outside. 257 00:20:54,481 --> 00:20:57,433 On one easel, he put a square wooden tablet, 258 00:20:57,434 --> 00:21:00,038 and on the other, a mirror with a handle on it, 259 00:21:00,039 --> 00:21:04,491 set to give him a reflection of the Baptistry as he stood with his back to it, 260 00:21:05,300 --> 00:21:08,547 and then began to outline, on the wooden tablet, 261 00:21:08,548 --> 00:21:12,218 the view of the Baptistry as he saw it in the mirror. 262 00:21:14,079 --> 00:21:18,109 He was using a mirror because it would exaggerate any off-centre positioning, 263 00:21:18,136 --> 00:21:22,114 so Brunelleschi knew he had an absolutely symmetrical view 264 00:21:22,115 --> 00:21:26,786 on which to draw the optical geometry lines that Toscanelli had told him about. 265 00:21:27,107 --> 00:21:29,738 Brunelleschi had planned it all like an architect would. 266 00:21:30,033 --> 00:21:34,821 The Baptistry was exactly as high and as wide as the distance between it 267 00:21:34,872 --> 00:21:40,185 and the spot he was painting it from, so he had a simple spatial relationship to deal with. 268 00:21:43,983 --> 00:21:46,729 Now, you may feel, like this passing churchman, 269 00:21:46,730 --> 00:21:49,348 that what Brunelleschi was upto was no great shakes. 270 00:21:49,553 --> 00:21:52,235 Certainly didn't look like the world's greatest painter. 271 00:21:52,518 --> 00:21:54,392 But, dismiss it as you might, 272 00:21:54,468 --> 00:21:58,473 Brunelleschi’s little effort was a lot more than 15th century painting by numbers. 273 00:21:58,896 --> 00:22:01,027 It was to change everything. 274 00:22:05,686 --> 00:22:09,434 Now, in order to appreciate fully 275 00:22:09,435 --> 00:22:13,246 the totally knock-out effect of what Brunelleschi was about to produce, 276 00:22:13,336 --> 00:22:17,982 permit me a brief interruption to give you a quick bash of Aristotle 277 00:22:18,032 --> 00:22:19,444 and the mediaeval church. 278 00:22:19,624 --> 00:22:22,742 A mixture of which, kind of dictated how people 279 00:22:22,743 --> 00:22:26,683 saw things before Brunelleschi, which was not the way you or I do. 280 00:22:27,376 --> 00:22:30,032 Number 1: The church view. 281 00:22:30,718 --> 00:22:34,864 “All that matters about this life, is getting ready for the next one. 282 00:22:35,031 --> 00:22:40,704 So, the visible world around you isn’t worth bothering about”. 283 00:22:41,179 --> 00:22:44,259 Number 2: Aristotle. 284 00:22:44,862 --> 00:22:49,265 Since the almighty hand-crafted every object in existence Himself, 285 00:22:49,367 --> 00:22:51,472 each object is unique. 286 00:22:51,870 --> 00:22:56,221 The universe is filled with these individual, separate, 287 00:22:56,324 --> 00:22:59,943 unrelated objects. And all that matters about their position, 288 00:23:00,020 --> 00:23:03,652 is where they stand in relation to the centre of the universe. 289 00:23:04,083 --> 00:23:05,541 Weird, no? 290 00:23:05,941 --> 00:23:07,379 However, 291 00:23:07,687 --> 00:23:10,972 when you were using your extremely expensive artist, 292 00:23:11,024 --> 00:23:12,985 say, to paint this wall, 293 00:23:13,098 --> 00:23:15,593 you got things painted from God's point of view. 294 00:23:15,870 --> 00:23:20,686 Big, if they were good and important like those cardinals and bishops up there. 295 00:23:21,610 --> 00:23:25,635 And small, if they were unimportant and bad like those dancers there. 296 00:23:26,754 --> 00:23:31,117 Those were their theological sizes, the only sizes that mattered. 297 00:23:31,426 --> 00:23:36,981 See the church there? It is big, but it is only three times bigger than the bishops and cardinals. 298 00:23:38,161 --> 00:23:40,153 And look at the heavenly gates. 299 00:23:40,297 --> 00:23:43,983 Big angels, welcoming in tiny people into Paradise 300 00:23:44,055 --> 00:23:48,521 where the blessed souls are big, because they are blessed. 301 00:23:48,993 --> 00:23:52,525 And, right at the top, Jesus on his throne is gigantic, 302 00:23:52,813 --> 00:23:54,804 the biggest thing in the picture. 303 00:23:57,145 --> 00:24:02,186 Now, our reaction to that is that it is all very simple and unrealistic and childish, 304 00:24:02,668 --> 00:24:04,640 but that is not because they were stupid, 305 00:24:04,814 --> 00:24:08,336 they just had different priorities when it came to splashing paint around and, 306 00:24:08,500 --> 00:24:11,980 of course, this was done before Brunelleschi did what he did. 307 00:24:12,268 --> 00:24:14,948 Speaking of which, back to the action. 308 00:24:25,607 --> 00:24:27,712 When Brunelleschi had finished his painting, 309 00:24:27,784 --> 00:24:30,987 the first based on the geometry that Toscanelli had studied, 310 00:24:31,151 --> 00:24:34,703 the effect on anybody who saw it, was electrifying. 311 00:24:35,217 --> 00:24:37,147 Nothing like it had ever been done before. 312 00:24:37,353 --> 00:24:39,546 Not only a perfect reproduction of exactly 313 00:24:39,547 --> 00:24:43,284 what you saw when you looked across the square at the Baptistry, 314 00:24:43,785 --> 00:24:45,551 but much more. 315 00:24:51,613 --> 00:24:54,085 When you looked through a hole in the back of the painting, 316 00:24:54,086 --> 00:24:56,813 you saw the real Baptistry until the mirror came up, 317 00:24:56,993 --> 00:24:59,884 when you saw a reflection of the painting of it. 318 00:25:02,939 --> 00:25:06,299 Between the real thing, and the reflection of the painting, 319 00:25:06,405 --> 00:25:08,705 there just wasn't any difference. 320 00:25:11,611 --> 00:25:16,426 When the Florentines got their first sight of the new kind of painting, they couldn't get enough of it. 321 00:25:16,570 --> 00:25:20,338 What they were looking at gave them an entirely new perspective on art, 322 00:25:20,369 --> 00:25:23,233 because it gave them just that, perspective. 323 00:25:23,531 --> 00:25:26,858 And, in keeping with their sense of style and savoir faire, 324 00:25:27,032 --> 00:25:31,827 Brunelleschi’s fellow citizens went, elegantly, bananas. 325 00:25:41,582 --> 00:25:43,933 Well, no wonder they all went wild about it, 326 00:25:44,035 --> 00:25:46,900 Brunelleschi had come up with the way of measuring the whole universe. 327 00:25:47,270 --> 00:25:50,196 You could examine any distant object’s characteristics 328 00:25:50,197 --> 00:25:52,106 without ever having to go near it, 329 00:25:52,107 --> 00:25:54,919 because you knew its relative size and distance from you, 330 00:25:55,113 --> 00:25:58,481 and all other objects, because of perspective geometry. 331 00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:02,814 Well, that knocked Aristotle for six for a start, 332 00:26:03,071 --> 00:26:06,130 or it would have if Brunelleschi had been up to the theoretical maths, 333 00:26:06,346 --> 00:26:07,732 which he wasn't. 334 00:26:07,825 --> 00:26:09,262 Fortunately, 335 00:26:09,550 --> 00:26:14,006 an amateur painter and ex-letter writer for the Pope called Alberti, was. 336 00:26:16,571 --> 00:26:19,254 And he knew all that Alhazen stuff about optics and 337 00:26:19,255 --> 00:26:21,525 Ptolemy’s gridding system because he had been to college. 338 00:26:21,769 --> 00:26:25,555 So he put it all together in a book called ‘How to Paint’. 339 00:26:25,556 --> 00:26:31,125 Two versions, one in Latin for the coffee-table crowd, and one in Italian for the hoi polloi. 340 00:26:31,407 --> 00:26:37,093 “Lesson one”, he says “Take a gridded frame and plonk it infront of your scene, 341 00:26:37,324 --> 00:26:38,569 like that”. 342 00:26:39,417 --> 00:26:44,166 The grid of threads on the frame, helps you to get the size of any object in the scene, 343 00:26:44,243 --> 00:26:48,247 relative to all other objects wherever they may be, with great accuracy. 344 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,727 For instance, that church is almost one frame tall. 345 00:26:53,869 --> 00:26:56,974 That clump of trees is just over two. 346 00:26:57,500 --> 00:27:00,991 My hand is bigger than the church, see? 347 00:27:02,672 --> 00:27:06,792 Because it is closer to you than the church is. What you get with this grid, 348 00:27:06,843 --> 00:27:10,771 is the kind of slice through that visual pyramid Alhazen was on about, 349 00:27:10,874 --> 00:27:14,544 of all the light coming from a scene to your eyes. Remember? 350 00:27:26,095 --> 00:27:31,395 So, this was the way of copying a view, square by square with everything in proportion. 351 00:27:31,536 --> 00:27:35,951 Which was okay for copying. What if you wanted to invent the scene for yourself? 352 00:27:36,285 --> 00:27:39,391 Well in Alberti’s book, that was lesson two: 353 00:27:39,673 --> 00:27:43,151 “How to draw a perspective framework”. 354 00:27:44,948 --> 00:27:49,261 At eye level, a horizon line, a centre point and floor lines. 355 00:27:49,338 --> 00:27:53,201 Then, from a point where a viewer of the painting would be standing, 356 00:27:53,245 --> 00:27:59,483 lines from the viewer’s eye to the end of each floor line and, from where they cut the frame, horizontals. 357 00:27:59,637 --> 00:28:04,154 Giving you a chequerboard perspective effect for the painted figures to stand on. 358 00:28:09,506 --> 00:28:12,920 Add roof lines, like floor lines, for everything above head height, 359 00:28:13,113 --> 00:28:16,091 and there's the framework on which you paint your painting. 360 00:28:16,386 --> 00:28:22,200 Which isn't a painting, it's a church, designed by Brunelleschi according to the rules of perspective, 361 00:28:22,277 --> 00:28:26,461 where everything, converges on the centre point, the altar. 362 00:28:33,545 --> 00:28:37,922 Clever, isn't it? Perspective lets you copy reality with 363 00:28:37,973 --> 00:28:43,505 mathematical precision, or build your own, to exact specifications. 364 00:28:45,456 --> 00:28:49,781 So that's what started happening. Architects built stuff that looked like paintings. 365 00:28:49,973 --> 00:28:52,181 Painters painted stuff that looked like buildings. 366 00:28:52,540 --> 00:28:57,263 Like the first one by a young friend of Brunelleschi’s called Masaccio. 367 00:28:57,725 --> 00:29:01,678 In 1326, his Trinitas was so realistic, 368 00:29:01,819 --> 00:29:05,592 it looked like a hole through a wall into a chapel. 369 00:29:06,272 --> 00:29:10,277 Watch how the painting is structured on those perspective lines, 370 00:29:10,278 --> 00:29:12,831 converging at the viewer’s own head height, 371 00:29:12,882 --> 00:29:16,193 forces you to feel you are at the foot of the cross, looking up. 372 00:29:16,578 --> 00:29:20,261 The new perspective framework was copied immediately. 373 00:29:20,557 --> 00:29:22,179 Look how Christ, on the left, 374 00:29:22,282 --> 00:29:26,019 is the centre point for a perspective structure centring on him, 375 00:29:26,092 --> 00:29:30,034 and how your horizon line is at his eye level, too. 376 00:29:31,512 --> 00:29:34,407 As this new, realistic, view of life caught on, 377 00:29:34,448 --> 00:29:36,994 scenes were still taken from the Bible, 378 00:29:37,015 --> 00:29:41,194 but they used subjects whose clothes and faces were taken from individuals 379 00:29:41,195 --> 00:29:42,991 in everyday life. 380 00:29:45,198 --> 00:29:47,149 Of course, it was too good to last. 381 00:29:47,528 --> 00:29:51,738 If perspective gave you the ability to control things from a distance, 382 00:29:51,902 --> 00:29:56,564 you could bet it wouldn't be long before the things being controlled became people. 383 00:29:57,046 --> 00:29:59,366 But in the brief interval before that happened, 384 00:29:59,932 --> 00:30:02,580 in the interval we call the Renaissance, 385 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,215 perspective meant what it said, getting things in proportion, 386 00:30:06,297 --> 00:30:07,673 in every sense. 387 00:30:08,279 --> 00:30:12,123 And nowhere was that more true, in terms of-- 388 00:30:12,508 --> 00:30:14,472 what it did to peoples’ lives, 389 00:30:14,833 --> 00:30:15,827 than here. 390 00:30:16,230 --> 00:30:18,760 A little town in central Italy called 391 00:30:18,850 --> 00:30:20,936 ‘little town’. Urbino. 392 00:30:24,231 --> 00:30:26,448 It is a warm, higgledy-piggledy place 393 00:30:26,481 --> 00:30:29,890 and, in the 15th century, it belonged to a Duke called Federico 394 00:30:30,333 --> 00:30:35,228 whose Ducal palace was a new departure from the usual fortified monstrosities. 395 00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:38,243 It is somebody's home. 396 00:30:38,916 --> 00:30:41,413 Posh, but comfortable. 397 00:30:41,750 --> 00:30:45,151 To be lived in. And with Federico and his home, 398 00:30:45,611 --> 00:30:48,453 you get everything the Renaissance began. 399 00:30:54,383 --> 00:30:56,954 All that confident individualism, 400 00:30:57,150 --> 00:31:02,087 up there on the wall, it says “I am Federico and I built this place”. 401 00:31:03,458 --> 00:31:06,415 Harmony, balance, classical style: 402 00:31:06,580 --> 00:31:09,151 this courtyard is the best example there is. 403 00:31:09,314 --> 00:31:13,717 The three original levels in proportion. Three, to two, to one. 404 00:31:14,473 --> 00:31:17,611 Straight lines, geometrical spacing, 405 00:31:18,547 --> 00:31:19,706 Roman columns. 406 00:31:20,929 --> 00:31:23,196 Just like the paintings the Duke commissioned. 407 00:31:26,950 --> 00:31:30,441 They the show the ideal world the Renaissance man wanted to live in. 408 00:31:32,971 --> 00:31:36,190 The paintings are full of urban views and gracious squares, 409 00:31:36,224 --> 00:31:40,692 and even in the paintings on religious subjects, like the flagellation of Christ, 410 00:31:41,488 --> 00:31:45,143 the painter gives equal attention to the architecture the Duke had. 411 00:31:54,302 --> 00:31:57,891 In the Duke's study, you can see what he was like. He loved novelty. 412 00:31:57,941 --> 00:32:02,497 All this is the latest 3D perspective trick staff, in marketry. 413 00:32:02,675 --> 00:32:07,682 Some of it looking like windows opening on to the newly fashionable, natural landscapes. 414 00:32:09,113 --> 00:32:11,957 Federico had the Classics read to him at dinner. 415 00:32:14,381 --> 00:32:16,053 He played his own music. 416 00:32:18,997 --> 00:32:22,741 Science fascinated him, and he loved books. 417 00:32:22,901 --> 00:32:25,304 His library, here, was said to be better than Oxford’s. 418 00:32:25,655 --> 00:32:29,180 Oh, and the little reading seat, even that was a trick. 419 00:32:30,101 --> 00:32:33,826 And all these illusions worked particularly well for Federico 420 00:32:33,926 --> 00:32:35,528 because he was one-eyed. 421 00:32:36,941 --> 00:32:42,408 He had two organists, a room for keeping snow in Summer and a pet giraffe. 422 00:32:42,819 --> 00:32:47,374 And these were his heroes. Writers, scholars, philosophers. 423 00:32:47,674 --> 00:32:50,608 And when he added his portrait to theirs, 424 00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:55,935 it showed him in armour, but reading. 425 00:32:58,458 --> 00:33:02,693 And from his new palace, Federico looked out on a world 426 00:33:02,864 --> 00:33:06,909 that people like him felt they could now explain rationally, for the first time. 427 00:33:08,872 --> 00:33:12,497 Man had become the measurer of all. 428 00:33:18,795 --> 00:33:20,487 In the nicest possible way, 429 00:33:20,577 --> 00:33:24,473 the mathematical view the Florentines had always had, because of their trade, 430 00:33:24,512 --> 00:33:27,396 moved out and took over the world they had lived in. 431 00:33:27,566 --> 00:33:30,590 Delicate, beautiful, regimented. 432 00:33:30,761 --> 00:33:34,676 You get a feel for how the Florentine state really operated. 433 00:33:34,876 --> 00:33:37,710 The iron hand in the velvet glove. 434 00:33:55,231 --> 00:33:59,092 Now, it is not fashionable to say this about the Florentine love affair 435 00:33:59,093 --> 00:34:01,215 with balance and symmetry and such, 436 00:34:01,230 --> 00:34:04,443 but I wonder what it was like to live with the rules 437 00:34:04,444 --> 00:34:07,527 of proportion shoved down your throat every way you looked. 438 00:34:07,528 --> 00:34:10,554 Like the Florentine Church of Santa Maria Novella? 439 00:34:12,117 --> 00:34:15,121 The whole facade is an exercise in ratios. 440 00:34:15,283 --> 00:34:19,989 This lot, all 2:1 to each other and the rest in a 3:1 ratio. 441 00:34:20,439 --> 00:34:23,894 And there's only one way that kind of obsession leads you. 442 00:34:27,869 --> 00:34:31,894 You start, like they did, to design groups of buildings by numbers, 443 00:34:32,004 --> 00:34:37,421 and then streets, and, finally, whole geometrically-balanced, ideal cities. 444 00:34:47,357 --> 00:34:49,536 They actually built some of those ideal cities. 445 00:34:49,648 --> 00:34:52,332 This is one, called Palmanova. 446 00:34:52,426 --> 00:34:54,643 A garrison town, near Venice. 447 00:34:54,835 --> 00:34:58,984 And, in Palmanova, you see where, ultimately, mathematics can lead you. 448 00:34:59,273 --> 00:35:02,141 Because you can now plan and build 449 00:35:02,142 --> 00:35:04,312 an entire city to fit one purpose. 450 00:35:04,336 --> 00:35:07,212 In this case, defence against artillery. 451 00:35:07,612 --> 00:35:11,473 And everything inside the walls is subordinate to that purpose. 452 00:35:11,858 --> 00:35:15,693 Including, of course, the now strictly planned life of the citizen. 453 00:35:16,203 --> 00:35:17,895 Have a look at how they did it. 454 00:35:18,086 --> 00:35:21,771 The central square is really a command and control post. 455 00:35:23,763 --> 00:35:26,587 Six main streets radiate out from the central square 456 00:35:26,588 --> 00:35:28,680 to the gun emplacements on the walls. 457 00:35:28,710 --> 00:35:33,316 Streets built for only one purpose: to move men and ammunition. 458 00:35:33,656 --> 00:35:36,590 And see how everything is in straight lines or circles? 459 00:35:36,740 --> 00:35:40,715 Life, designed for maximum efficiency. Souless. 460 00:35:40,956 --> 00:35:44,411 The beginnings of town-planning and the social manipulation it offers. 461 00:35:44,802 --> 00:35:48,417 Wide streets for parades. Narrow streets to bottle up the mob. 462 00:35:48,586 --> 00:35:53,618 You know exactly where you are, and you can pinpoint where everybody else is. 463 00:35:54,343 --> 00:35:58,874 The whole town is a set of control coordinates. 464 00:36:10,076 --> 00:36:13,030 Meanwhile, as the paramilitary potential of perspective 465 00:36:13,031 --> 00:36:16,096 was gladdening the hearts of repressive governments everywhere, 466 00:36:16,308 --> 00:36:20,927 it was about to have exactly the opposite effect, because of what “knowing where you were” 467 00:36:21,015 --> 00:36:24,532 meant to a lot of seafaring gents here, at Sagres, 468 00:36:24,582 --> 00:36:27,135 a small community stuck out at the end of Europe. 469 00:36:27,173 --> 00:36:29,513 Literally, on Cape St. Vincent, 470 00:36:29,514 --> 00:36:33,568 the headland down at the bottom left hand corner of Portugal. 471 00:36:36,310 --> 00:36:42,020 From 1419, this had been the site of a navigation school set up by Prince Henry of Portugal, 472 00:36:42,378 --> 00:36:47,744 well-known exploration freak. Now, as ruler of a particularly penniless part of Europe, 473 00:36:47,870 --> 00:36:51,859 Henry had two things in mind: Money and money. 474 00:36:52,156 --> 00:36:54,816 The first, to be gained by going down the coast of Africa 475 00:36:54,817 --> 00:36:59,400 to get at the gold and slaves and such he had heard they practically gave away. 476 00:37:00,605 --> 00:37:04,297 The other, from going on down the coast of Africa and round the bottom 477 00:37:04,469 --> 00:37:07,145 to get to the Far East, thus avoiding the Turks, 478 00:37:07,176 --> 00:37:09,617 who were charging an arm and a leg for the Red Sea route. 479 00:37:09,836 --> 00:37:12,120 To get at the license to print money, 480 00:37:12,277 --> 00:37:17,502 pepper, the new, rave, gourmet delight and, apparently, falling off the trees out East. 481 00:37:17,815 --> 00:37:23,698 Now to be fair to Henry, he did also plan to hand out Christianity with the beads. 482 00:37:35,291 --> 00:37:37,919 Well, he had one minor problem. 483 00:37:38,186 --> 00:37:41,440 Nobody had the faintest idea how to go down the coast of Africa. 484 00:37:41,534 --> 00:37:44,209 Of course, you had compasses and hour glasses 485 00:37:44,210 --> 00:37:47,792 and maps with oodles of coastline detail for the stuff you knew. 486 00:37:47,975 --> 00:37:50,068 Like Spain, on this portolan chart, 487 00:37:50,205 --> 00:37:54,272 with lines of bearing and direction that you measured with your, err, measurers. 488 00:37:54,565 --> 00:37:58,438 Down here beyond the Church’s domain inland, it was anybody's guess. 489 00:37:59,063 --> 00:38:02,779 Looking at this map, as you are, you will have already seen Henry's little problem, 490 00:38:03,014 --> 00:38:07,199 even after 10 years of sending brave lads down here to explore, 491 00:38:07,336 --> 00:38:10,661 it was always brick-wall time at this bit, 492 00:38:10,876 --> 00:38:15,179 Cape Bojador. Let me explain. 493 00:38:15,805 --> 00:38:20,694 In those days, if you came across a place that had fog, vicious currents, 494 00:38:20,793 --> 00:38:25,838 shifting sands, lousy weather, and, above all, a wind blowing strongly 495 00:38:25,839 --> 00:38:29,084 the wrong way for a fellow who wanted to get home, 496 00:38:29,085 --> 00:38:32,859 well, such a spot was a complication devoutly to be missed. 497 00:38:33,055 --> 00:38:35,460 And Bojador was that in spades. 498 00:38:35,674 --> 00:38:40,466 Beyond it, the Arabs said, “darkness and death”. Aristotle said “regions of fire”. 499 00:38:40,817 --> 00:38:45,178 Henry said “money”, so they kept at it. In 1434, 500 00:38:45,179 --> 00:38:50,322 some daredevil called Eanes went and did it, and limped home saying “Ah, gee, fellas, it was nothing”, 501 00:38:50,323 --> 00:38:52,884 and gave Henry a real problem. 502 00:38:53,079 --> 00:38:54,292 How do you sail 503 00:38:54,526 --> 00:38:59,768 what the philosophical and the theological authorities call, ‘off the edge’? 504 00:39:17,565 --> 00:39:20,616 Fortunately for Henry, they had recently taken advice 505 00:39:20,617 --> 00:39:23,784 from the Florentine expert on long range problems. 506 00:39:24,051 --> 00:39:29,057 Yes, you have recognised him, Toscanelli. Busy chatting up the Portugese Prince Pedro, 507 00:39:29,058 --> 00:39:33,923 in Florence to see the latest in mapping techniques. Something else you will recognise, 508 00:39:33,939 --> 00:39:37,881 the Ptolemy atlas with its grid. But more to the point, 509 00:39:38,023 --> 00:39:42,294 what it said about where the Portuguese were trying to find a route down Africa 510 00:39:42,356 --> 00:39:48,348 to the Far East. And, then, it was the only remotely accurate map of the world. 511 00:39:48,426 --> 00:39:53,104 You could see Ptolemy was trustworthy when he dealt with the real ‘far away’ stuff, 512 00:39:53,245 --> 00:39:56,421 by checking the way he had used his cartographic techniques 513 00:39:56,422 --> 00:40:00,567 to draw maps of parts of the world a good deal closer to home. 514 00:40:00,927 --> 00:40:05,683 His charts of the countries, say, in the Northern Mediterranean were terrific. 515 00:40:06,386 --> 00:40:09,312 Toscanelli told Pedro enough to send him back to Portugal, 516 00:40:09,313 --> 00:40:11,064 convinced they were doing the right thing: 517 00:40:11,065 --> 00:40:13,818 A) because Toscanelli had realised 518 00:40:13,927 --> 00:40:16,963 that the Ptolemy was using perspective geometry to get an 519 00:40:16,964 --> 00:40:18,777 extremely exact view of the world, 520 00:40:18,872 --> 00:40:21,719 because of the way it could reproduce the shape of a sphere 521 00:40:21,798 --> 00:40:23,049 on a flat surface, 522 00:40:23,159 --> 00:40:27,352 and B) because of these magic words: 523 00:40:27,743 --> 00:40:29,308 terra incognita. 524 00:40:29,309 --> 00:40:30,465 Unknown territory. 525 00:40:30,779 --> 00:40:34,127 Ptolemy was not saying, like everybody else, that there was nothing south of the Equator, 526 00:40:34,221 --> 00:40:37,225 he was saying that there might be something. 527 00:40:39,682 --> 00:40:42,217 Well, there was only one way to find out. 528 00:40:50,205 --> 00:40:53,860 Encouraged by Toscanelli’s say so, by 1455, 529 00:40:53,861 --> 00:40:57,878 the Portuguese were getting their first glimpse of the native cultures of West Africa. 530 00:40:58,104 --> 00:41:02,447 Setting up their trading posts, making their own coastline maps as they went along, 531 00:41:02,472 --> 00:41:04,938 getting closer and closer to the Equator. 532 00:41:05,225 --> 00:41:08,730 And getting more and more worried, the closer they got. 533 00:41:12,134 --> 00:41:13,435 Because now, 534 00:41:13,598 --> 00:41:16,302 it really did begin to look as if they were going to sail off the edge, 535 00:41:16,489 --> 00:41:18,329 in navigational terms, anyway. 536 00:41:18,742 --> 00:41:20,044 Look what they were doing: 537 00:41:21,121 --> 00:41:24,550 Here they go, with their portolan charts, further and further south, 538 00:41:24,750 --> 00:41:26,302 mapping as they go, 539 00:41:26,540 --> 00:41:30,057 until they get to where I am, here, Sierra Leone, 540 00:41:30,332 --> 00:41:32,385 which, incidentally, they name. 541 00:41:33,849 --> 00:41:37,166 And what is dreadfully wrong with this lovely spot ? 542 00:41:37,429 --> 00:41:38,493 I will tell you. 543 00:41:39,655 --> 00:41:40,526 See this? 544 00:41:41,057 --> 00:41:44,471 Portuguese quadrant, 15th century high tech. 545 00:41:44,682 --> 00:41:47,155 Tells you the position, in the night sky, 546 00:41:47,156 --> 00:41:49,999 of the Pole Star which you navigate by, because 547 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,482 while you may move, it never does. 548 00:41:52,483 --> 00:41:53,964 Portuguese idea, that. 549 00:41:54,175 --> 00:41:57,128 Anyway, you line up the sights on the star, 550 00:41:57,589 --> 00:42:00,963 and read off how high up it is, so many degrees, 551 00:42:01,434 --> 00:42:02,435 there. 552 00:42:04,808 --> 00:42:05,819 Now, 553 00:42:07,050 --> 00:42:08,412 here is the Earth, 554 00:42:09,013 --> 00:42:10,094 Pole Star, 555 00:42:10,695 --> 00:42:11,516 you. 556 00:42:12,067 --> 00:42:14,570 As you head north up the Atlantic heading for home, 557 00:42:14,660 --> 00:42:17,163 that angle get bigger and bigger. 558 00:42:17,373 --> 00:42:20,588 And when it gets to 39°, you turn east 559 00:42:20,718 --> 00:42:24,352 and sooner or later, you will hit Lisbon, because 39° 560 00:42:24,523 --> 00:42:26,105 is Lisbon's angle of latitude. 561 00:42:26,956 --> 00:42:30,531 Going south, of course, the angle gets smaller and smaller. 562 00:42:32,683 --> 00:42:34,636 And here, in Sierra Leone, 563 00:42:34,637 --> 00:42:38,321 the Pole Star is only 8° above the northern horizon. 564 00:42:39,803 --> 00:42:40,564 There. 565 00:42:42,267 --> 00:42:44,289 So, you see why they were getting worried? 566 00:42:44,470 --> 00:42:46,893 A few miles further south, over the Equator, 567 00:42:47,043 --> 00:42:49,747 and the Pole Star would not be there. 568 00:42:49,967 --> 00:42:51,619 And then, how do you get home? 569 00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,805 And the worst thing was, this place was really starting to look up. 570 00:43:06,822 --> 00:43:09,393 The people were friendly and so generous. 571 00:43:09,478 --> 00:43:13,275 You gave them a few pots and pans and, in their marketplaces, 572 00:43:13,276 --> 00:43:15,526 they would hand over all the slaves you wanted, 573 00:43:15,527 --> 00:43:17,312 silver, ivory, copper, 574 00:43:17,425 --> 00:43:20,237 and a knockout substitute for pepper called 575 00:43:20,325 --> 00:43:22,560 “Angel Dust”, that would blow your head off. 576 00:43:22,969 --> 00:43:25,348 But, above all, they had a casual 577 00:43:25,453 --> 00:43:28,961 “help yourself” attitude to the gold they seemed to have too much of. 578 00:43:29,322 --> 00:43:32,502 All in all, West Africa was money for old rope. 579 00:43:35,490 --> 00:43:38,109 So, the Portuguese weren’t about to quit. 580 00:43:38,301 --> 00:43:41,793 Besides, they still had to get to the Far East for the spices, remember? 581 00:43:41,994 --> 00:43:45,230 So, they set up a troubleshooting committee back in Lisbon. 582 00:43:45,430 --> 00:43:49,564 And its chairman, a fellow called Martines, got in touch with Toscanelli. 583 00:43:51,687 --> 00:43:53,785 Now, our Italian friend 584 00:43:54,090 --> 00:43:55,796 had recently sat-in 585 00:43:55,949 --> 00:43:59,746 on an Ecumenical council in Florence, attended by big-wigs from everywhere. 586 00:43:59,891 --> 00:44:02,542 And he had picked their brains about what it was like 587 00:44:02,702 --> 00:44:04,104 back home where they came from. 588 00:44:04,432 --> 00:44:06,418 And then, he put it all together. 589 00:44:08,349 --> 00:44:10,367 Europe, he knew about, 590 00:44:10,720 --> 00:44:13,371 and this much of Africa, 591 00:44:14,004 --> 00:44:16,583 and the Chinese Ambassador told him about this bit, 592 00:44:17,462 --> 00:44:19,297 and this bit. 593 00:44:20,037 --> 00:44:23,391 And a really weird Italian called Conti who had travelled for 594 00:44:23,392 --> 00:44:26,505 25 years in places where no European had ever been before 595 00:44:26,665 --> 00:44:27,957 filled in the rest: 596 00:44:29,419 --> 00:44:31,782 India, Sri Lanka, 597 00:44:31,882 --> 00:44:35,376 Siam, Malaysian, Sumatra, 598 00:44:36,858 --> 00:44:39,191 Cippangu: Japan. 599 00:44:39,930 --> 00:44:45,061 Names, distances, and above all, where the money was to be had. 600 00:44:45,851 --> 00:44:50,907 Well, all this was good stuff, but the Portuguese still didn't know how to get there. 601 00:44:51,608 --> 00:44:55,789 This place, Africa, was great. But press on regardless as they might, 602 00:44:55,790 --> 00:44:58,366 nobody was getting any farther East going down here. 603 00:44:59,205 --> 00:45:01,032 Toscanelli took another look at his map. 604 00:45:01,658 --> 00:45:02,409 First, 605 00:45:03,071 --> 00:45:05,224 he laid a Ptolemy grid on it. 606 00:45:05,337 --> 00:45:08,053 Each square 5° or 250 miles. 607 00:45:08,353 --> 00:45:13,109 This grid gave you the first ever mapping coordinates. 608 00:45:13,110 --> 00:45:17,569 Even for places you had never been to, and it was a scale you could use to measure distances 609 00:45:17,725 --> 00:45:20,338 from anywhere to anywhere else. 610 00:45:20,589 --> 00:45:22,983 But how was that going to help the Portuguese? 611 00:45:23,436 --> 00:45:25,580 And then it hit him like a ton of bricks. 612 00:45:25,775 --> 00:45:29,968 Conti had said that out here, beyond Japan, there was a great ocean. 613 00:45:30,343 --> 00:45:34,874 Well, because Toscanelli had got Asia 5000 miles longer than it really was, 614 00:45:35,374 --> 00:45:37,376 he reckoned this ocean couldn't be that big. 615 00:45:38,065 --> 00:45:41,144 And, he must have reckoned he knew what ocean it was. 616 00:45:44,386 --> 00:45:47,114 On the 24th of June, 1474, 617 00:45:47,264 --> 00:45:50,243 Toscanelli sent one of those letters that changes history, 618 00:45:50,380 --> 00:45:53,434 to Martines about his map. 619 00:45:53,672 --> 00:45:56,063 “Dear Sir”, it said, 620 00:45:56,175 --> 00:45:58,979 “Here is my chart, gridded to make navigation easier. 621 00:45:59,079 --> 00:46:01,157 Count the squares and you get the distances. 622 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,625 This is you. This is Japan. A long haul. 623 00:46:06,164 --> 00:46:09,130 Unless, of course, you go this way.” 624 00:46:14,174 --> 00:46:17,191 Stupified Portuguese amazement? Uh uh. 625 00:46:17,241 --> 00:46:19,781 They hummed and hawed, they argued about the mileage 626 00:46:19,831 --> 00:46:25,063 and then, one of their lads got round the tip of Africa and it was “thanks, but no thanks”. 627 00:46:25,664 --> 00:46:27,254 Which is exactly what they said 628 00:46:27,255 --> 00:46:31,422 to an ex-pirate, ex-bookseller with white hair and a smooth line in talk, 629 00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:36,073 who, some years later had picked up Toscanelli’s map and made it an even better sell, 630 00:46:36,074 --> 00:46:38,915 by cutting the circumference of the Earth by 25%. 631 00:46:39,115 --> 00:46:41,030 The figure was anybody's guess in those days. 632 00:46:41,193 --> 00:46:44,635 Thus, making the Atlantic route to Japan, 633 00:46:44,797 --> 00:46:47,401 a very attractive 2400 miles. 634 00:46:47,402 --> 00:46:50,755 “A mere bagatelle”, he said, “for a fellow who has already been to Iceland. 635 00:46:51,230 --> 00:46:52,895 Think about it.” 636 00:46:56,612 --> 00:47:01,218 Well, as I said, this sales pitch went over with the Portuguese like a lead balloon. 637 00:47:01,430 --> 00:47:04,697 And when he tried it on the Spanish, all he got was “manana”. 638 00:47:05,260 --> 00:47:08,540 Still, that did leave the French. So, he was on his way, 639 00:47:08,602 --> 00:47:10,755 here, at the lonely and 640 00:47:10,756 --> 00:47:15,386 otherwise unimportant little monastery of La Rabida on the south western coast of Spain, 641 00:47:15,611 --> 00:47:20,542 also visiting his son in the school here, and winding up his spiel for Paris, 642 00:47:20,944 --> 00:47:23,484 when the Spanish backers changed their minds. 643 00:47:23,835 --> 00:47:26,951 And suddenly, the trip was on. 644 00:47:32,545 --> 00:47:36,650 They gave him two ships, and he borrowed from the locals here to charter a third. 645 00:47:36,855 --> 00:47:39,969 And at 5:15 AM on a Friday, 646 00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:44,546 August 3rd, it was, they upped anchor at the port of Palos, upstream from here 647 00:47:44,646 --> 00:47:48,491 and floated down the river, kneeling bareheaded on the deck 648 00:47:48,681 --> 00:47:50,544 as they passed the monastery out there. 649 00:47:50,803 --> 00:47:54,498 And, in the captain's book, he had stuck Toscanelli’s chart 650 00:47:54,499 --> 00:47:57,903 and the letter containing that extraordinary phrase, 651 00:47:58,213 --> 00:48:00,706 “Go East by going West”. 652 00:48:03,991 --> 00:48:07,986 By eight o'clock they had crossed the bar into the Gulf of Cadiz, here, 653 00:48:08,467 --> 00:48:12,031 and headed out across open sea, bound, at last, for Japan. 654 00:48:12,503 --> 00:48:17,199 They never made it. Almost exactly where he had predicted Japan would be, 655 00:48:17,679 --> 00:48:21,164 Columbus found America. 656 00:48:26,941 --> 00:48:31,136 Columbus went into the unknown with the new, boundless, confidence of the time. 657 00:48:31,296 --> 00:48:35,422 Of men who, thanks to perspective, could measure and predict that unknown. 658 00:48:35,642 --> 00:48:37,594 Men for whom, nothing was impossible. 659 00:48:37,754 --> 00:48:40,628 Unhindered by superstition and ignorance. 660 00:48:41,219 --> 00:48:44,313 Free, rational individuals. 661 00:48:44,443 --> 00:48:47,958 Typical of the modern Americans who make the return journey today from a land 662 00:48:48,248 --> 00:48:52,214 where that individualism is more strongly expressed than anywhere else in the world. 663 00:48:52,484 --> 00:48:54,246 A land prepared, if need be, 664 00:48:54,276 --> 00:48:56,619 to fight for the freedom of the individual. 665 00:49:06,831 --> 00:49:09,164 But it is one of history’s great ironies 666 00:49:09,165 --> 00:49:13,029 that the power Alhazen, Toscanelli and Ptolemy gave us to 667 00:49:13,030 --> 00:49:15,952 grid the world and to go anywhere our ships can sail, 668 00:49:15,953 --> 00:49:18,456 should, in the long run, turn back on us. 669 00:49:18,756 --> 00:49:23,893 This ship can go anywhere and, thanks to the other ships, the ones we send into space, 670 00:49:24,103 --> 00:49:25,485 she can never get lost. 671 00:49:25,965 --> 00:49:28,378 She knows her position, just like Columbus did, 672 00:49:28,428 --> 00:49:31,202 by knowing where a star should be at a certain time. 673 00:49:31,302 --> 00:49:34,937 But her satellite star is man-made. 674 00:49:36,148 --> 00:49:39,433 But the other side of the coin, is this. 675 00:49:39,434 --> 00:49:43,779 Look, here is southern Spain from space, the Straits of Gibraltar, 676 00:49:44,139 --> 00:49:47,664 La Rabida, the US naval base at Rota. 677 00:49:48,175 --> 00:49:50,898 And here, is a better shot of the base 678 00:49:51,098 --> 00:49:53,842 from 300 miles up in space. 679 00:50:01,772 --> 00:50:05,767 And when they slip anchor and head out into the anonymity of the trackless ocean, 680 00:50:05,768 --> 00:50:07,149 like Columbus did, 681 00:50:07,559 --> 00:50:10,203 that is what they looked like, from another satellite. 682 00:50:10,523 --> 00:50:14,368 Ships’ wakes from 400 miles up, at night. 683 00:50:15,090 --> 00:50:16,472 That's the irony. 684 00:50:16,682 --> 00:50:19,957 The very ability to measure and control the universe at a distance, 685 00:50:19,958 --> 00:50:24,312 means that we, too, can be measured and controlled in the same way. 686 00:50:24,552 --> 00:50:27,896 In gridding the world, we have gridded ourselves. 687 00:50:28,297 --> 00:50:30,569 There is nowhere to go and hide, any more. 688 00:50:31,220 --> 00:50:35,125 But then, today, who would want to?