0:00:00 > 0:00:04£4,200,000. Sold! Thank you.
0:00:04 > 0:00:06CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:00:06 > 0:00:10In the modern world, few commodities are worth more than art.
0:00:10 > 0:00:16If the artist's name is right, works can fetch sums that make the mind boggle.
0:00:16 > 0:00:1861 million. 62 million.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21But if you want to understand the strange and scandalous affair
0:00:21 > 0:00:28between art and money you have to look back 600 years.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30Last chance. Sold.
0:00:39 > 0:00:46In Renaissance Florence, there was a far more shocking collision of market forces and masterpieces.
0:00:46 > 0:00:53The world's most beautiful art was created in the service of one rich and ruthless family -
0:00:53 > 0:00:55the Medici!
0:01:09 > 0:01:14With their money, the Medici turned Florence into one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17They were the first great modern art collectors.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21But their relationship with art was anything but straightforward.
0:01:21 > 0:01:28All kinds of complicated emotions were involved - guilt, the lust for power, sexual fantasy.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32And in the end, they didn't just collect paintings and sculptures,
0:01:32 > 0:01:39they changed the very nature of art itself and unleashed a monster even they couldn't control.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56In Florence, it's impossible to escape from the Medici.
0:01:56 > 0:02:02Everywhere you look you can see their coat of arms made out of palle, or balls.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06It's as if they've trademarked the city for eternity.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27A lot of balls has been talked about the famous Medici balls.
0:02:27 > 0:02:32There's a modern myth according to which their medicine pills - Medici, medicine. Not true.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37The Medici themselves liked to pretend that they were descended from a valiant knight,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42who performed heroic deeds, and these were the dents on his shield. Not true.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46What they actually symbolise, right from the start, was bezants, coins.
0:02:46 > 0:02:52They're tangible symbols of the fact that these were men who dealt in money.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02The family's extraordinary journey began with Giovanni di Bicci.
0:03:02 > 0:03:09Born into poverty, this hard-nosed merchant had a plan to make his family rich.
0:03:09 > 0:03:17Giovanni set up the first Medici bank in Florence in 1397, which traded on this exact spot.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27Now, there was nothing discrete or well mannered about the world of renaissance banking.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31These were money traders who carried out their work in public, in the market.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35Each one of them would call out his best offer of the day.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38"I've got 50 florins to lend you to be paid back by Saint John's day."
0:03:38 > 0:03:41"I've got 30 florins to be paid back by Christmas."
0:03:41 > 0:03:47And each banker would work from his own table, set up in the aisle of the market.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50"Banko" is Italian for table, hence our word "bank".
0:03:50 > 0:03:54It was a high-risk business, they were going bust all the time, and
0:03:54 > 0:03:58when they did go bust, they had to ceremonially break their table.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02Hence the English word "bankrupt", "banco rotto", "broken table".
0:04:06 > 0:04:11The first Medici bank succeeded because it had rules,
0:04:11 > 0:04:15such as don't lend to royalty - they never paid you back.
0:04:15 > 0:04:22This was the birth of capitalism, and no family prospered more than the Medici.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30BELLS RING
0:04:33 > 0:04:37But the Medici were also men of their time,
0:04:37 > 0:04:41devout Christians bound by Church laws.
0:04:45 > 0:04:50The world of the afterlife, teeming with angels and demons,
0:04:50 > 0:04:55was every bit as real to the Medici imagination as the world in which they traded.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59And that gave them a problem, because according to the Bible,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03usury, money lending, was a mortal sin.
0:05:03 > 0:05:09God had decreed that man might save himself by labour, but there was no sweat on the Medici brow
0:05:09 > 0:05:14because they got their money through interest, by doing nothing at all.
0:05:14 > 0:05:20And as the riches piled up on the credit side of their ledger,
0:05:20 > 0:05:27they were terrified of what lay on the debit side - the threat of eternal damnation.
0:05:28 > 0:05:35The spectre of hell haunted all Florentines, including the celebrated poet Dante.
0:05:35 > 0:05:40In his Inferno, usurers were depicted in the depths of hell.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46Why was usury such
0:05:46 > 0:05:47an evil business to be in?
0:05:47 > 0:05:53The usurer, in the fullest sense of the term, goes to hell.
0:05:53 > 0:06:01He goes to hell because usury offends against the goodness of God.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05Dante says that the usurer sells nothing.
0:06:07 > 0:06:12He lends money and expects to be paid more back than what he loaned.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14But he hasn't given anything
0:06:14 > 0:06:17for this profit. He's selling nothing.
0:06:17 > 0:06:23When Dante describes the punishment of the usurers in hell,
0:06:23 > 0:06:30he says that they sit in the seventh circle and their hands are continually moving.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32They can't keep their hands still.
0:06:32 > 0:06:37And that is because in their lives they did nothing with their hands.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50The church of Santa Maria Novella contains a fresco where
0:06:50 > 0:06:53the Medici's worst nightmares would've been realised.
0:06:58 > 0:07:06This is the Strozzi Chapel, painted in the 1350s by Nardo di Cione,
0:07:06 > 0:07:09to give Florentines a glimpse of the afterlife.
0:07:16 > 0:07:22The reason the chapel was really famous - it was known as "la Capella dell'Inferno" -
0:07:22 > 0:07:29is because it contains this monumental, extraordinary depiction of the terrors of hell.
0:07:29 > 0:07:36In fact, it's the first really epic depiction of hell as Dante had described it.
0:07:42 > 0:07:48But there's one scene in particular that would've struck terror into the heart of the Medici.
0:07:48 > 0:07:55It's the seventh circle of hell, presided over by an evil-looking winged demon called Geryon,
0:07:56 > 0:08:02in which were placed blasphemers, sodomites and money lenders.
0:08:05 > 0:08:11The fresco's much faded now, but peer closely and you can make out
0:08:11 > 0:08:16the desperate hands of the usurers, under a downpour of fire.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36But it wasn't all doom and gloom because this chapel's also a vivid demonstration that
0:08:36 > 0:08:39there was a get-out clause to renaissance money lenders.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44According to Church doctrine, you could buy your way out of hell,
0:08:44 > 0:08:50you could purchase salvation, by sponsoring a great work of art and architecture such as this.
0:08:50 > 0:08:58And it was, indeed, paid for by a moneylender, a man called Strozzi - there he is, with his wife, and the
0:08:58 > 0:09:05artist has been careful to paint him being led by an angel to the congregation of the blessed.
0:09:06 > 0:09:12Food for thought for a Medici - pay for a spectacular work of art and maybe save your soul.
0:09:22 > 0:09:30Bankers were accused of splintering society because they created debt and greed and division.
0:09:30 > 0:09:36All the more reason to give to the Church, the place where people were brought together.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38In Florence there was no more communal building than
0:09:38 > 0:09:45the Baptistry, where every single citizen, rich or poor, was christened.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55In 1401, a great pair of bronze doors was commissioned to the glory of God.
0:09:55 > 0:10:01And Giovanni di Bicci, the head of the Medici family, was on the committee that chose the artist.
0:10:04 > 0:10:10Now, the Medici involvement with art in Florence begins right here on this spot.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13And the artist whom Giovanni di Bicci and his fellow
0:10:13 > 0:10:18committee members chose to create this great work was a man called Lorenzo Ghiberti.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24Ghiberti invented a totally new method of sculpting in bronze.
0:10:24 > 0:10:30Each panel was cast in a single piece, which gives these images a tremendously organic quality.
0:10:30 > 0:10:38Each one's a story distilled to its essentials, a miniature drama from the life of Christ.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42Here's the last supper, apostles hunched round the table.
0:10:42 > 0:10:47Here's Christ on his donkey, entering Jerusalem.
0:10:47 > 0:10:54There's even an image of the traders, moneybags and all, being driven from the temple -
0:10:54 > 0:10:58a little reminder of the ancient Christian distrust of riches.
0:11:00 > 0:11:07Now, it took Ghiberti and his workshop 20 years to complete these great doors.
0:11:07 > 0:11:13They were finished in 1424, just five years before Giovanni di Bicci died, and
0:11:13 > 0:11:18I think that when he looked up at what he and his fellow commissioners
0:11:18 > 0:11:23had been responsible for commissioning, it was so much in excess of
0:11:23 > 0:11:28what anyone could've expected, it really is one of the great masterpieces of renaissance art.
0:11:28 > 0:11:35I think it alerted him and indeed the whole Medici family to the potential of art.
0:11:53 > 0:12:00Giovanni's son, Cosimo Il Vecchio, expanded the Medici bank across Europe.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03< HE SPEAKS ITALIAN
0:12:05 > 0:12:09And with new wealth came new opportunities.
0:12:13 > 0:12:19Cosimo was a political genius, who turned the Medici into the most powerful family in Florence.
0:12:19 > 0:12:25But he also knew that the city was a republic, in name at least, where everybody was supposed to be equal.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29So he dressed in the plainest clothes and even rode a donkey instead of a horse.
0:12:29 > 0:12:36He was determined to do everything he could to wipe the stain of usury from his family's reputation.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42This is the monastery of San Marco.
0:12:45 > 0:12:51In the 1430s, the Pope promised Cosimo redemption if he would pay for its construction,
0:12:51 > 0:12:56a heaven-sent opportunity to launder his piles of dirty money.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02It was fairly standard practice for extremely rich people to endow
0:13:02 > 0:13:06a chapel, to commission a cycle of religious frescoes.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10But here, the Medici had paid for the construction of an entire monastery.
0:13:10 > 0:13:14This was a completely unprecedented act of private patronage.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17It seems that as far as Cosimo Il Vecchio was concerned, when it came
0:13:17 > 0:13:21to the state of his eternal soul money really was no object.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33San Marco was the home of the austere Dominican order.
0:13:33 > 0:13:39Each monk had a tiny cell, containing a single fresco by
0:13:39 > 0:13:43Fra Angelico and his assistants of Christ's passion,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46a focus for their spiritual contemplation.
0:14:01 > 0:14:07And Cosimo, the moneylender, had even made his way inside the temple.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14Now, this is the entrance to Cosimo's own cell, and right over
0:14:14 > 0:14:20the door there's an inscription that makes official the nature of the exchange that's taking place here.
0:14:20 > 0:14:26It says that the Pope, Eugenius IV, promises that Cosimo de Medici
0:14:26 > 0:14:32will be absolved from all his sins in exchange for having built this monastery.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37How typical, somehow, of this money man, this banker,
0:14:37 > 0:14:42to get his own pardon, to get his own salvation in writing.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48At first sight, Cosimo's own cell is pretty much like
0:14:48 > 0:14:52all the others - he, too, gets an image of the crucifixion to contemplate.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56But while it's hardly luxurious - and I should stress that Cosmo came here -
0:14:56 > 0:15:04he fasted, he prayed he did penitence, for the sake of his eternal soul - his chamber is
0:15:04 > 0:15:08more luxurious than the rest because where they are single bedrooms,
0:15:08 > 0:15:14he gave himself the equivalent of a hotel suite. Look, there's a whole other chamber.
0:15:14 > 0:15:20And up here, on the wall of this second space, he's looking at an image
0:15:20 > 0:15:23of the three wise men,
0:15:23 > 0:15:30who come to the infant Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
0:15:34 > 0:15:40Cosimo chose one of Fra Angelico's most gifted pupils, Benozzo Gozzoli,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44to create a painting that would transform the Medici image.
0:15:49 > 0:15:56What Cosimo's done here is asked himself - how can I release us Medici, usurers,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00from the taint of our profession?
0:16:00 > 0:16:04And I think he's combed the Bible
0:16:04 > 0:16:07for an example of rich men,
0:16:07 > 0:16:13who are also good, and more or less the only people to whom that applies are the Magi,
0:16:13 > 0:16:18who are obviously a kind of visual metaphor or
0:16:18 > 0:16:22alter ego for Cosimo and the rest of his family.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24They bring gifts to Jesus.
0:16:24 > 0:16:29What is this monastery if not a splendid gift to Christ?
0:16:48 > 0:16:51The Medici became so obsessed with their new heroes,
0:16:51 > 0:16:56they joined a fraternity celebrating the Three Wise Men.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59They wanted the whole of Florence to share in their devotion.
0:17:08 > 0:17:13Every year on the 6th January, a huge procession would take to the streets of Florence.
0:17:13 > 0:17:19Hundreds of people dressed up in brightly-coloured clothes, and they had with them a menagerie
0:17:19 > 0:17:24of animals - apes, baboons, tigers, cheetahs, re-enacting the journey of the Wise Men.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29And at the centre of it all, wearing gold crowns,
0:17:29 > 0:17:33playing the part of the Magi themselves, were the Medici.
0:17:45 > 0:17:51The parade of the Magi would snake its way past Cosimo's own house, the Palazzo Medici.
0:17:56 > 0:18:02Inside the palazzo, only the most privileged visitors were invited to see a room where, away from the
0:18:02 > 0:18:08prying eyes of the city, Cosimo could indulge his wildest fantasy.
0:18:21 > 0:18:28In Cosimo's private chapel is a spectacular fresco showing the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33Once again, Cosimo turned to the artist Benozzo Gozzoli,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36who'd painted the same subject in San Marco.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40But there's no trace of austerity here.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43It's a blaze of colour, with a cast of hundreds.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47Gozzoli even had the audacity to insert himself,
0:18:47 > 0:18:51and members of the Medici family, into this Biblical scene.
0:18:56 > 0:19:02At its centre we find wily old Cosimo himself,
0:19:02 > 0:19:07dressed in a rather muted black robe. But, of course,
0:19:07 > 0:19:13this is the one moment when Cosimo, cautious Cosimo, is actually indulging himself
0:19:13 > 0:19:20in an orgy of self congratulation - "Look how rich we've become!"
0:19:20 > 0:19:24He looks like he might be counting, and this fresco is
0:19:26 > 0:19:30a pictorial version of counting your money, and the picture's full of gold.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35Above all, on the harnesses of the horses and their bridles,
0:19:35 > 0:19:38there's the shine and shimmer.
0:19:38 > 0:19:40It's still with us today.
0:19:40 > 0:19:45The taste that created this is the taste that created the Gianni Versace handbag.
0:19:45 > 0:19:50There's something fantastically vulgar about this painting.
0:19:50 > 0:19:55You almost wonder if the worship Cosimo did to God in his cell
0:19:55 > 0:20:02at San Marco hasn't been displaced to the world of consumer durables.
0:20:02 > 0:20:09It's an incredible celebration of the sheer naked joy of capitalism.
0:20:31 > 0:20:38And the excitement of making money was seeping into every aspect of Renaissance life.
0:20:38 > 0:20:43Artists were inspired by the mathematics of banking and accountancy
0:20:43 > 0:20:46to create a new language for painting.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53The Medici weren't just great patrons - they created a culture
0:20:53 > 0:20:56that revolutionised the nature of art itself.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59The neat and tidy columns of their bookkeeping
0:20:59 > 0:21:02were reflected everywhere in the art and architecture of Florence.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Theirs was a world where calculation was all,
0:21:05 > 0:21:10where the skills of the mathematician were regarded as one of the essential tools of life,
0:21:10 > 0:21:17so it's no surprise that it was here in Florence that artists took those same mathematical skills
0:21:17 > 0:21:21and used them to develop the first convincing perspective illusions.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25The tools of early capitalism, the principles that had made
0:21:25 > 0:21:30the Medici rich, had worked their way into the very texture of art.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38The Medici sponsored artists like Paolo Uccello,
0:21:38 > 0:21:42who obsessively attempted to create the illusion of space in his work.
0:21:44 > 0:21:49This was a whole new 3D world - art commissioned by merchants
0:21:49 > 0:21:52to appear as real as the world in which they traded.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02And it seems that cautious old Cosimo, having discovered
0:22:02 > 0:22:06the joy of art, became ever more daring in his tastes.
0:22:08 > 0:22:13He fostered the unconventional genius of Donatello,
0:22:13 > 0:22:16who created this statue of David for the Medici palace.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22David was a traditional symbol of Florence,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26but that was just a pretext for a shocking experiment -
0:22:26 > 0:22:29the first freestanding nude since Roman times.
0:22:37 > 0:22:42The statue is now being restored by Dr Ludovica Nicolai.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47She has been lovingly cleaning the figure for 18 months.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53Cosimo was famously prudent, but I think it's pretty clear
0:24:53 > 0:24:58from the art he commissioned there was more to him than met the eye.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02You can also trace the workings of his imagination, sense the appeal
0:25:02 > 0:25:07that decadence had for him, outside the city itself.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14Renaissance Florence was a famously violent and volatile place,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17and no matter how well you SEEMED to be doing,
0:25:17 > 0:25:19you could never be quite sure of your position.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22So the Medici soon realised that they needed a bolt hole -
0:25:22 > 0:25:26a place of refuge away from the city.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40This is the Villa Cafaggiolo,
0:25:42 > 0:25:45a miniature fortress in the Tuscan countryside.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55It was designed to repel outsiders,
0:25:55 > 0:25:59but inside Cafaggiolo, miles from anywhere,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04Cosimo literally developed all kinds of new tastes.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13Chef Michele Bosco is going to show me
0:26:13 > 0:26:17how the Medici even turned food into an art form.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21THEY GREET EACH OTHER IN ITALIAN
0:27:13 > 0:27:16What an extraordinary object!
0:27:16 > 0:27:18Extraordinario!
0:27:18 > 0:27:21THEY SPEAK ITALIAN
0:27:31 > 0:27:33As one course follows another,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36it's like entering one of Cosimo's paintings,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40being on the receiving end of the procession of the wise men,
0:27:40 > 0:27:43being given rich and luxurious gifts.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50But there were also perils to all this excess.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58It's certainly pungent.
0:27:58 > 0:28:04In fact, I think the whole experience of a Medici banquet is just too much.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08And history tells us that it was too much for the Medici themselves,
0:28:08 > 0:28:12because the whole family suffered famously from gout.
0:28:12 > 0:28:18In fact, Cosimo il Vecchio's son was even known as Piero the Gouty,
0:28:18 > 0:28:20and at certain points during his short life
0:28:20 > 0:28:23he was so incapacitated by the disease
0:28:23 > 0:28:27that the only thing he could do, so it is said,
0:28:27 > 0:28:29was waggle his tongue.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31It's a horrible thought!
0:28:31 > 0:28:37I think the Medici were among the first really rich, self-made men
0:28:37 > 0:28:39to live fast and die young.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46Gout carried off Cosimo in the 1460s,
0:28:46 > 0:28:50and his grandson, the next great patron in the family line,
0:28:50 > 0:28:54would banish any trace of Medici guilt forever.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59Lorenzo il Magnifico - Lorenzo the Magnificent -
0:28:59 > 0:29:03was given the best classical education money could buy.
0:29:07 > 0:29:14But Lorenzo, rich beyond belief, didn't use that education for banking...
0:29:14 > 0:29:17but in the pursuit of pleasure.
0:29:18 > 0:29:24I think the key to Lorenzo's character was his flamboyance.
0:29:24 > 0:29:25Whereas Cosimo was very cautious,
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Lorenzo made no bones about being the most powerful man in Florence,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32and he didn't care if everybody knew.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36Whereas Cosimo never took his eye ofF the ball of the Medici bank,
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Lorenzo, frankly, was bored by banking.
0:29:39 > 0:29:44For him, the only, the sole, the main point of life was to commission art,
0:29:44 > 0:29:48and in his vision of Florence, art was absolutely at the centre.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00Lorenzo's great dream was to revive the beauty and myths
0:30:00 > 0:30:03of the ancient classical past.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10And he took practical steps to create a generation of artists
0:30:10 > 0:30:13capable of making his fantasy real.
0:30:20 > 0:30:25Now, if it wasn't for the Medici, these students might not be doing what they're doing today,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28because the story goes that Lorenzo il Magnifico
0:30:28 > 0:30:32was so concerned that standards were dropping in Renaissance Florentine art
0:30:32 > 0:30:35that he had the idea of founding an academy.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40He gathered together a number of choice works of art from the Medici's own collections,
0:30:40 > 0:30:44he hired a tutor and bang, the modern art school was born.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49Lorenzo set up this academy in his own garden,
0:30:49 > 0:30:54where students would copy from his collection of classical sculptures.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01And Lorenzo's devotion to Pagan rather than religious art
0:31:01 > 0:31:03moulded the minds of his students.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09One of them was the young Michelangelo.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13Lorenzo nurtured his genius when he was just 15 years of age.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Now, if you want visual evidence of the huge impact
0:31:19 > 0:31:22that Lorenzo the Magnificent had on the young Michelangelo,
0:31:22 > 0:31:27it's to be found in this room, because here we've got the only two sculptures
0:31:27 > 0:31:31that he's known to have created while studying in Lorenzo's sculpture garden.
0:31:31 > 0:31:36Here we've got this beautiful low-relief sculpture, a classical technique.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39It's the Madonna of the Stairs, and he was taught this technique
0:31:39 > 0:31:43by the sculptural instructor that Lorenzo had installed in the garden.
0:31:43 > 0:31:47Beautiful piece, but it's still within the religious language.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51If you want to see how Michelangelo's imagination was really opened up
0:31:51 > 0:31:56by the influence of Lorenzo, it's here in this great sculpture
0:31:56 > 0:31:58called the Battle of the Centaurs,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01which is one of the most precious things in the Michelangelo house,
0:32:01 > 0:32:06although they've actually allowed me to open the perspex case
0:32:06 > 0:32:09so we can see the sculpture in its full glory.
0:32:09 > 0:32:10Isn't that fantastic?!
0:32:22 > 0:32:26Here you've got these writhing bodies, not a religious reference,
0:32:26 > 0:32:28not a trace of saintly iconography.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31This is a purely classical work of art.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35And its subject is struggle, and, in a sense, that's very appropriate,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38because what we're seeing here is Michelangelo
0:32:38 > 0:32:41wrestling the forms of sculpture into a new shape.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45This is really the birth of Western European secular art.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09Lorenzo was to make his most ambitious attempts to embrace the joys of antiquity
0:33:09 > 0:33:13not in cramped Florence, but in the Tuscan countryside.
0:33:13 > 0:33:18It wasn't enough for Lorenzo to promote classical styles of art.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23He was fascinated by the whole ancient Roman and Greek way of life.
0:33:23 > 0:33:28And as a result, he was to commission a truly revolutionary piece of architecture.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44This is Poggio a Caiano,
0:33:44 > 0:33:50a building where Lorenzo's most aristocratic ambitions were realised.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55Raised up on a classical arcade
0:33:55 > 0:34:00with this grand entrance plainly modelled on the portico of an ancient temple,
0:34:00 > 0:34:05this is a building that looks straight back to the splendour of ancient architecture.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09It was hugely original and bold, and it's been immensely influential -
0:34:09 > 0:34:14think of the Renaissance villa, think of the English country house with its pillars and pediments.
0:34:14 > 0:34:21Lorenzo had revived single-handedly the idea of the classical retreat from the cares of the city.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42At the heart of the villa is the Great Hall,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46a room that transports you back in time, bringing to life
0:34:46 > 0:34:51the myths of the ancient world in full and vivid colour.
0:35:00 > 0:35:05Now although this great space was created some time after Lorenzo's death,
0:35:05 > 0:35:10I can't help thinking of it as a huge Pandora's box that he opened.
0:35:10 > 0:35:15What Lorenzo gave to the Medici family was a totally free sense
0:35:15 > 0:35:22of the classical world as a kind of space where the imagination could play.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27These frescoes, begun in 1519,
0:35:27 > 0:35:32are wonderfully free interpretations of Roman and Greek stories.
0:35:32 > 0:35:36A classical vision of delight.
0:35:43 > 0:35:48And on the far wall, my favourite fresco in the whole room,
0:35:48 > 0:35:51created by Pontormo, is the pictorial expression
0:35:51 > 0:35:56absolutely of an idea that Lorenzo brought into Medici taste -
0:35:56 > 0:36:00this idea of the countryside
0:36:00 > 0:36:04as free space for retreat
0:36:04 > 0:36:07and for indulgence in pleasure.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10Under the pretext of painting a classical myth,
0:36:10 > 0:36:14the myth of Vertumnus and Pomona - nature god, nature goddess,
0:36:14 > 0:36:20what Pontormo's really painted is a kind of aristocratic idyll.
0:36:20 > 0:36:25These are the well-fed rich, who've come to the countryside to enjoy themselves.
0:36:25 > 0:36:27I think what this picture is also doing
0:36:27 > 0:36:33is it's calling down onto the Medici family the ideal of fertility.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38It's saying, may the Medici always grow
0:36:38 > 0:36:42as lavishly as these branches,
0:36:42 > 0:36:47may their seed always be ripened like the fruit in these festoons.
0:36:47 > 0:36:49Such a transition has taken place.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53It's almost like a pagan prayer, that we will do well.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56It's on the point of saying...
0:36:58 > 0:37:00..that we don't need God any more -
0:37:00 > 0:37:03we've got our own gods, and they're the gods of art.
0:37:21 > 0:37:26Poggio a Caiano is much more than just a pleasure palace.
0:37:26 > 0:37:33It's a wonderfully eloquent statement of Lorenzo's ambition to be much more than just a merchant.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37He wants to enter the world of the landed aristocracy, to be a prince even.
0:37:37 > 0:37:41Just think how far the Medici had come in less than 100 years.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44But I think the pattern of their meteoric rise
0:37:44 > 0:37:49can be compared, aptly enough, to the fluctuations of any market.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52For every boom, there had to be a bust.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Lorenzo had wanted to revive ancient Rome,
0:38:04 > 0:38:08but this was still Christian Florence.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11He died in 1492, and with his death
0:38:11 > 0:38:15the spectres of heaven and hell returned with a vengeance.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22The backlash arrived in the shape of a fanatical monk
0:38:22 > 0:38:25called Girolamo Savonarola.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32This parade is held every year
0:38:32 > 0:38:36in celebration of the memory of Girolamo Savonarola,
0:38:36 > 0:38:43and it's a symbol of Florence's deeply ambivalent attitude towards its own past.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46Because while still they cherish the memory of the Medici in this city,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49in celebrating Savonarola's memory,
0:38:49 > 0:38:52they are also celebrating a man who did his best
0:38:52 > 0:38:54to tear down and destroy
0:38:54 > 0:38:59everything that the Medici had spent so long attempting to create.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08Savonarola ordered a purge of the pagan art the Medici had revived.
0:39:08 > 0:39:14Nymphs, naked gods and goddesses, it all had to go.
0:39:14 > 0:39:18The flowers mark the spot where he'd organised
0:39:18 > 0:39:22these immense, almost frenzied religious festivals,
0:39:22 > 0:39:25known as the bonfires of the vanities,
0:39:25 > 0:39:27where all the people of Florence would be encouraged
0:39:27 > 0:39:30to bring their most valuable possessions,
0:39:30 > 0:39:32including works of art, paintings and sculptures,
0:39:32 > 0:39:36and to pile them into great bonfires and burn them all for the glory of God.
0:39:36 > 0:39:41In many ways, Savonarola was the Medicis' worst nightmare come to life.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50The bonfire is one of the most infamous events of the Renaissance.
0:39:50 > 0:39:57But Padre Tomasso, from Savonarola's own order, believes he should be remembered as a saint.
0:40:51 > 0:40:55Savonarola preached that the end of the world was nigh.
0:40:56 > 0:41:03A mood of apocalyptic terror gripped Florence, as the people turned against the Medici.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10In 1494, just two years after Lorenzo's death,
0:41:10 > 0:41:15his eldest son Piero realised the family was in mortal danger.
0:41:15 > 0:41:20The Medici were forced to flee the city in fear of their very lives.
0:41:20 > 0:41:24Piero, the head of the family, got his wife and children together
0:41:24 > 0:41:27and they escaped under cover of darkness on horseback.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31The family's possessions and palaces were ransacked,
0:41:31 > 0:41:35their works of art were either seized or destroyed.
0:41:41 > 0:41:49And Michelangelo, by now Italy's greatest artist, was swept along by the new republican fervour.
0:41:49 > 0:41:54The city commissioned him to create a Christian symbol of Florentine strength.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59His heroic David, ready to vanquish Goliath,
0:41:59 > 0:42:04stood against all those who would corrupt this sacred republic,
0:42:04 > 0:42:06including the Medici.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15The family would remain in exile from Florence for nearly two decades.
0:42:27 > 0:42:33The Medici redirected their energies, building up their power within the Church.
0:42:33 > 0:42:39Another of Lorenzo's sons, Giovanni, even became the first Medici Pope.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50So in 1512, the family could draw on papal military muscle
0:42:50 > 0:42:54to return to power in Florence.
0:42:54 > 0:43:01The years of exile had bred a new, brutal generation of Medici.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05When the Medici came back to Florence,
0:43:05 > 0:43:09they were determined to destroy the old dream of the Florentine republic.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11They didn't just want to be rulers.
0:43:11 > 0:43:13They wanted to be absolute dictators.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17And as always, art was central to the plan.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21This time, they'd use it as a tyrant's weapon.
0:43:28 > 0:43:33In 1519, the Medici attempted to construct a great statement
0:43:33 > 0:43:38of their authority and control in the church of San Lorenzo.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44They returned to the genius they had fostered -
0:43:44 > 0:43:46Michelangelo.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52In many ways, Michelangelo had a love-hate relationship with the Medici.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54He owed them so much when he was a child,
0:43:54 > 0:43:58and yet when they were in exile, he worked against them and for the republic.
0:43:58 > 0:44:03But despite all that, when they came back to the city and took over the reins of power once again,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07they invited him here to their church, San Lorenzo,
0:44:07 > 0:44:11where Cosimo il Vecchio himself is buried just in front of the high altar.
0:44:11 > 0:44:17And they wanted him to create for them a great memorial chapel,
0:44:17 > 0:44:23a tomb or a set of tombs that would make the family name live forever.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25And Michelangelo was certainly the man for the job.
0:44:25 > 0:44:31But what he created was something they could never have expected.
0:44:48 > 0:44:53The Medici used the death of two minor family members
0:44:53 > 0:44:59as an excuse for commissioning a thumping symbol of their dominance over Florence.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02But Michelangelo had his own ideas.
0:45:06 > 0:45:12He transformed the dead Medici into abstract and rather chilling images of rule.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15He wasn't interested in them as individuals.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20He even sneered that it didn't matter what they'd looked like
0:45:20 > 0:45:23because no-one would even know who they were in a thousand years.
0:45:30 > 0:45:35Beneath the figures of the heroes enthroned,
0:45:35 > 0:45:41crouched or reclining on their sarcophagi,
0:45:41 > 0:45:43he's created these four figures.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52And what they symbolise is the passing of time.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10Because these figures are so immense...
0:46:10 > 0:46:13Look at that figure of Day.
0:46:13 > 0:46:18He's absolutely enormous, muscular, vast.
0:46:18 > 0:46:20He's a giant, an ancient titan.
0:46:20 > 0:46:27But he represents the passage of time, the force of time,
0:46:27 > 0:46:31the power of mortality, the strength of death.
0:46:31 > 0:46:33That's what this chapel's about -
0:46:33 > 0:46:38it's death, death, death, you're all going to die, and in a sense,
0:46:38 > 0:46:41you're not just going to die, but you're going to be forgotten.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43So, he's raised the Medici up,
0:46:43 > 0:46:47only, almost with the same gesture,
0:46:47 > 0:46:52to throw all of their pretensions of immortality
0:46:52 > 0:46:57into the larger perspective of time destroys everything,
0:46:57 > 0:47:01time devours all, lays all to waste.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06Even the achievements of the Medici.
0:47:08 > 0:47:15Michelangelo's mocking masks say that the world's no more than a piece of empty theatre.
0:47:15 > 0:47:22He'd put his own genius before the wishes of the patron - a revolutionary idea.
0:47:22 > 0:47:27Unwittingly, the Medici had helped create the first artist as rebel.
0:47:29 > 0:47:32But Michelangelo had to leave Florence,
0:47:32 > 0:47:37because the next Medici ruler had no time for unruly geniuses.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47In the 1530s, the brutal Alessandro came to power.
0:47:48 > 0:47:54He was only interested in art that would strike terror into the hearts of the Florentine people.
0:47:56 > 0:48:03He commissioned the architect Antonio da Sangallo to build the Fortezza da Basso.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06The result - the art of dictatorship.
0:48:08 > 0:48:12Alessandro Medici was a philistine and a thug,
0:48:12 > 0:48:15and certainly no great patron of the arts,
0:48:15 > 0:48:16but he did order the construction
0:48:16 > 0:48:19of this intimidatingly impressive fortress.
0:48:19 > 0:48:26Now, the point is that this huge building faces towards the city of Florence.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30It was designed not to protect the people but to subdue them.
0:48:44 > 0:48:46But the most expressive aspect of the building
0:48:46 > 0:48:50is the sinister metamorphoses of the Medici palle,
0:48:50 > 0:48:53the Medici balls, because if you look below me,
0:48:53 > 0:48:54you'll see that they've multiplied
0:48:54 > 0:48:58so much so that they stud the walls of the fortress,
0:48:58 > 0:49:03each one like a cannonball trained on the city of Florence.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15And Alessandro even used one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance,
0:49:15 > 0:49:21Benvenuto Cellini, to create a coin stamped with his imperial image.
0:49:21 > 0:49:27It's a secret treasure of the Renaissance, with a dark message.
0:49:27 > 0:49:32Now, to us, it might seem like nothing much - just a coin.
0:49:32 > 0:49:35But to a 16th-Century Florentine with republican sympathies,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38this would've been an object of disgust,
0:49:38 > 0:49:39it would have been an outrage,
0:49:39 > 0:49:43because it broke with the centuries' long tradition in Florence
0:49:43 > 0:49:48that the coinage should never have the portrait of an individual on it.
0:49:48 > 0:49:53To have a Medici on the coinage was an incredibly strong symbol,
0:49:53 > 0:49:57it said that the Medici now are, in Florence, the equivalent of kings,
0:49:57 > 0:50:01the money men, the men who came from money
0:50:01 > 0:50:06and who used their money to achieve power and status,
0:50:06 > 0:50:10are now on the money of Florence itself.
0:50:21 > 0:50:26In 1532, Alessandro became the first ever Duke of Florence.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30The republic was dead.
0:50:30 > 0:50:36And the Medici used Florence's main square to declare their new status as nobility.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44They even had the nerve to take over the city's town hall,
0:50:44 > 0:50:49the Palazzo Signoria, transforming it into a princely palace.
0:51:05 > 0:51:10What's amazing about this place is that not only did the Medici
0:51:10 > 0:51:13come to live in the Palazzo Signoria,
0:51:13 > 0:51:16the heart of republican Florence as it had been,
0:51:16 > 0:51:21but they covered its walls with celebrations of the Medici dynasty.
0:51:29 > 0:51:32But what you get is a wonderful contrast of past and present,
0:51:32 > 0:51:36because nowadays, these are offices, once again Italy is a democracy,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39and they still run Florence from this building.
0:51:39 > 0:51:41This is the office of the mayor
0:51:41 > 0:51:46where they deal with all the day-to-day business of the city,
0:51:46 > 0:51:51but they do it still under the eyes of the Medici tyrants that once were.
0:52:07 > 0:52:12These frescoes, painted by Giorgio Vasari and his army of assistants,
0:52:12 > 0:52:17show the Medici not as a family of merchants, but as an aristocratic dynasty.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28At last, they'd well and truly made it,
0:52:28 > 0:52:32but they were to give one final twist to the story of art.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43The solitary and anaemic Francesco de'Medici,
0:52:43 > 0:52:48ruler of Florence in the 1570s, was certainly no warrior.
0:52:49 > 0:52:57He spent his life amassing strange and exotic objects, to show his mastery of art and nature.
0:52:58 > 0:53:04He even created a miniature museum for his eyes only -
0:53:04 > 0:53:05the Studiolo.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27Each side of the room is governed by one of the four elements -
0:53:27 > 0:53:29earth,
0:53:29 > 0:53:31air,
0:53:31 > 0:53:32fire
0:53:32 > 0:53:34and water.
0:53:36 > 0:53:44Under each element are a series of fantastical paintings, so on the wall of water are images of the sea.
0:53:51 > 0:53:56These paintings at this level are also cupboards.
0:53:56 > 0:54:00Because this is the wall of water,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03it's thought that Francesco de'Medici
0:54:03 > 0:54:06would've kept objects from his collection associated with water -
0:54:06 > 0:54:12for example, there might have been a statue of Venus, borne from water.
0:54:12 > 0:54:18But there would also have been objects from nature - pieces of precious coral,
0:54:18 > 0:54:20wonderful shells, perhaps, from the Indies.
0:54:20 > 0:54:25These things were regarded by Renaissance princes as exceptionally precious.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29The whole space was really a kind of microcosm
0:54:29 > 0:54:33of the prince's knowledge of all things.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52I don't want to make the project sound too rational,
0:54:52 > 0:54:56because there's some pretty weird stuff going on in here too.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00For example, here you've got a weird hallucinogenic dream scene,
0:55:00 > 0:55:02full of half-naked women,
0:55:02 > 0:55:07and it's thought that Francesco de'Medici was addicted to opium,
0:55:07 > 0:55:12like many a Renaissance prince, and maybe he actually kept his stash behind this paining.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21I think what we've got here is a new sense of art,
0:55:21 > 0:55:24of the experience of art, of the work of art,
0:55:24 > 0:55:28as a kind of narcotic.
0:55:28 > 0:55:34Art has become totally untethered from any notion of shared value.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36It's untethered from notions of religion,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39it's untethered from notions of politics,
0:55:39 > 0:55:42it's really an experience in and of and for itself.
0:55:42 > 0:55:43And the thing about this space
0:55:43 > 0:55:47is that no matter how many art historians has studied it,
0:55:47 > 0:55:49no-one has managed to fully decode its secrets.
0:55:49 > 0:55:52Art has become a kind of private obsession.
0:55:52 > 0:55:58I think it's fascinating that there's one image of Francesco de'Medici on these walls,
0:55:58 > 0:56:01and what he is, he's the alchemist.
0:56:01 > 0:56:06I think that's what this space represents - the Medici,
0:56:06 > 0:56:10through their relationship with art, have alchemically transformed it,
0:56:10 > 0:56:13they've turned it into something else,
0:56:13 > 0:56:18it's no longer what it was when Ghiberti those doors for Giovanni di Bicci,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21it's no longer a work of religious significance,
0:56:21 > 0:56:26it can be anything, anything at all - art has been liberated.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41Florence had been the laboratory for a great experiment
0:56:41 > 0:56:44where art became more precious than gold.
0:56:47 > 0:56:54The Medicis' power and desires were the catalyst for new forms of artistic expression.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58And they made capitalism respectable.
0:56:58 > 0:57:00Greed is good, they said.
0:57:00 > 0:57:04But greed for art is best of all.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07And that's why people pay fortunes for it today.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22The Medici turned Florence into their own personal work of art.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25But their story is far bigger than the tale of one city.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28Because what they did reaches into the modern world.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31They transformed art and changed the course of civilisation.
0:57:31 > 0:57:37And the biggest irony of all is that they did it all to get away from their dirty roots in money.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41But what they did was create the biggest, baddest,
0:57:41 > 0:57:45hardest currency of all - the currency of art.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd