Dangerous Liaisons Leonardo


Dangerous Liaisons

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The year 1515 was a dangerous one for Leonardo da Vinci.

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Caught up in Vatican intrigue,

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he was betrayed by spies within his own camp

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who denounced him as a sorcerer.

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'He's not only dissecting the bodies of the dead, but even that of a woman with child.

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-'There is no limit to the investigations of the Florentine.'

-Fetch Leonardo da Vinci.

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Not for the first time, Leonardo the rebel and rule breaker,

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was out of step with the times in which he lived.

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This is the story of Leonardo da Vinci,

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the man who set out to learn everything

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and to read the mind of God.

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The painter's mind should be like a mirror, reflecting everything in the natural world around him.

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He must even be a second nature,

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a universal master.

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I will do things no-one in the past has dared to do.

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I will think new thoughts, bring new things into being.

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Even 500 years ago, Leonardo was seen as a miraculous figure.

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His first biographer, Vasari, writes,

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"Occasionally, heaven sends us someone who is not only human, but divine,

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"so that through his mind and the excellence of his intellect, we may reach to heaven."

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People have asked me over and over, is this the greatest genius ever?

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I say, yes, that he is.

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"What about Newton, Einstein?"

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It's easy to point out that Newton's genius lay in one particular area,

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that Einstein's genius was in a particular area.

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But there's nobody like Leonardo.

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Think of every area to which he turned his attention

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and how every one was so beautifully created,

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constructed and conceived of.

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That has to be the furthest reach, I believe,

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that man's mind has ever attained.

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In 1498, Leonardo had completed his monumental painting of the Last Supper.

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But his brilliant career at the Milan court was cut short as the French invaded.

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His patron, the Duke of Milan, was imprisoned

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and Leonardo's most ambitious work, the great clay horse statue,

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was destroyed by the French troops.

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Forced to flee,

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Leonardo now travelled through the war-torn countryside in search of work.

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This is how the wheel of fortune turns. Those briefly at the top are flung again to the bottom.

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The Duke has lost his estates, his fortunes, his freedom.

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But you know what they say - he turns not back who is bound to a star.

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Leonardo needed a safe haven

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and so he travelled eastwards from Milan to the Adriatic coast.

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Throughout his life, Leonardo had been searching for a patron

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who would allow him to develop his extraordinary, even visionary ideas. But he needed money.

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And where better to find money than here - in 1500, one of the richest cities on earth, Venice.

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Its vast wealth was based on commerce.

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It was in a prime position on the trade route importing opulent goods from the Orient.

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So it was a confident city, not easily intimidated.

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But it was also a city in crisis.

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The Turks were in the midst of an epic expansion, and their giant fleet lay in Venice harbour.

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Having already made inroads into Venice's great empire,

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the Turkish warships were now striking at its very heart.

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For Leonardo, this was the perfect opportunity to find a buyer for an unusual secret weapon.

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So he came here to the Council of Venice, not as a painter, but as an inventor.

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The Venetian councillors were the real power behind the ruler, the doge.

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Their authority was absolute. They had the power of life and death.

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Leonardo's scheme must have seemed the most bizarre they'd ever heard.

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You live in a city of water and that water is your greatest asset.

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It is my opinion that the Italians will not defeat the Turks fighting them in a conventional manner,

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but with these designs, you can create a new kind of army - an underwater army.

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Men as agile as fish, with armour adapted to underwater travel

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and with a constant supply of fresh air, such as this.

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These designs allow your army to approach the enemy from underwater

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to drill great holes in the ships, sinking the ships, and thus the battle is won with minimal losses.

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I'm always fearful of describing my methods.

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Men will rush to make the ocean floor yet another field of battle.

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So why go to the Council?

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The Turkish fleet lies just off the Venetian coast.

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What is one to do?

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And will they try so bold a scheme?

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I doubt it. They'll probably think I am quite mad.

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There is no doubt that Leonardo's idea of a crack squad of underwater divers

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was far-fetched and full of practical problems.

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But if had been tried, might it just have worked?

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Could he have mastered underwater diving hundreds of years before anyone else?

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We decided to find out.

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The diving suit is being stitched together using traditional methods and materials.

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Pigskin leather has been treated with fish oil to make it water-resistant.

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The water just beads right off.

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Our suit was designed by Scott Castle, a former counter-terrorist officer,

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and world-record holder for the longest dive.

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It'll be worn by Jackie Cousins, who dives with giant squid for pleasure.

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We could make the whole suit out of this if it has good waterproof qualities.

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A reinforced helmet has to be made to prevent the mask squeezing and bruising Jackie's face

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as the water pressure increases the deeper she goes.

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The hood will need glass lenses - a material Leonardo would have had easy access to.

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Venice was the world capital of glass production in 1500.

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Leonardo's plan was to make the long snorkel from hollow pieces of bamboo.

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Above the surface of the water emerges the mouth of a tube

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by which the diver draws breath,

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supported on wine skins or pieces of cork.

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The lengths of bamboo are joined together with a pigskin sheath.

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But had Leonardo considered the effects of water pressure?

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As I inhale, which simulates the outside water pressure...

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It just collapses. I'm going to suffocate. Yeah, well, not me!

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The drawing shows Leonardo knew enough about water pressure

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to put a spring inside the sheath to stop it collapsing.

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But could his grasp of physics in the 1500s enable him to design an underwater breathing apparatus?

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Go ahead and you plug it...

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Right, so it's keeping it open and giving it flexibility as well. Exactly.

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So it didn't fully collapse,

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which means that perhaps Leonardo had more knowledge of water pressure than we thought.

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We decided to try out the suit in the safety of a swimming pool before bringing it to Venice.

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A cork float holds the bamboo snorkel out of the water.

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But a snorkel device such as this

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won't allow Jackie to go very deep before the water pressure makes breathing uncomfortable.

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That was completely amazing!

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I was really enjoying that.

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It was good until you get to a certain level

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and then suddenly it's really hard and you're really struggling.

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The pain in your chest is here.

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It starts to get really hard.

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But just moving up a couple of inches makes all the difference and you breathe really easily.

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But with the diver only able to go down a few feet before breathing became difficult,

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Leonardo's plan to walk along the sea bed would have been impossible.

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Or had he concealed his solution?

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Leonardo's scribbled instructions for all his devices are chaotic and fragmentary.

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Perhaps they are also deliberately misleading.

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In his notebooks, Leonardo writes that it would be dangerous if this design got into the wrong hands.

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Was that level of secrecy something that was familiar at that time?

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There are two ways of looking at the secrecy. One is what we call intellectual property.

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There's not much point

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in selling your services for a lot of money if your secrets leak out.

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And the other is a moral one - do you want everybody to know this device that can cause such havoc?

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I have been asked many times to describe my methods for remaining underwater

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without sustenance.

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But I refuse on account of the evil nature of man who could practise assassination on the sea bottom.

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Scott and Jackie are going to test the diving suit in the Venetian lagoon,

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where Leonardo intended it to be used 500 years ago.

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We know the concept as he sketched it is limited and dangerous.

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So Scott has to work out what Leonardo didn't tell us.

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The cork float is way too complex to just be a cork float.

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There has to be more to it.

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As I looked at the sketch,

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I started to realise that Leonardo put some stuff on the drawing that wasn't correct.

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He was trying to hide something and I'll tell you what I got.

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These holes up on the top,

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I don't think they were up here. I think they were down low.

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If they were low, there'd be a massive air chamber inside.

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The diver still used it as a snorkel,

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but they can also grab it and pull it down.

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Eventually, gas always goes > to the least amount of pressure.

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So it turns into a compressed-air diving system.

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Jackie now feels more confident as she takes the plunge.

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It's very snug round the hips!

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You lifted me right up!

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If Scott is right, this could make it possible for her to walk across the sea bed.

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So all I have to do

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is pull these ropes down to get fresh new air into the hood.

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I was looking through some other pieces of paper here. He had bellows here.

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There's a flexible hose coming off.

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So if we were to use the bellows,

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you're giving compressed air to a diver.

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So Jackie makes the dive into the depths of the Venetian lagoon.

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But can she fulfil Leonardo's dream of walking along the sea bed?

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The diving suit is a triumph.

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Jackie is able to walk along the sea bed, just as Leonardo described.

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An underwater army.

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Men as agile as fish, with armour adapted to underwater travel

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and with a constant supply of fresh air such as this.

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Even today, there's a touch of James Bond about Leonardo's plan.

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So heaven knows what the Venetian worthies would have made of it.

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They must have considered him a little over the top.

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In any case, his revolutionary plans were never needed. Attacked elsewhere in their empire,

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the Turkish fleet turned round and sailed away without a fight.

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And as for Leonardo, the Venetians sent him away without a single ducat for his pains.

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But alongside the diving suit,

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are hundreds of eclectic ideas which seem to stand outside their time - catapults,

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printing presses, spring-driven motors and windmills.

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Artillery designs more 19th-century than 15th.

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His deadly-looking finned missiles look more like the high-explosive shells of modern times.

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They give us a fascinating insight into his daily life and thoughts.

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Alongside the inventions and drawings are shopping lists,

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notes of the costs of his household, detailing his permanent cash-flow problems.

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His need to earn a living meant he often had to keep very strange company indeed.

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Leonardo frequently mentions his horror of war and man's inhumanity to man,

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but his ambition now brought him, in the winter of 1502,

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to the door of one of the most brutal and bloodthirsty tyrants ever known.

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As the rulers of the various Italian states were engaged in a battle for power,

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Cesare Borgia had threatened them all with his growing ambition and military cunning.

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Leonardo was very pragmatic.

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Leonardo wanted to be free to be Leonardo

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and for that he needed money.

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So he took commissions he didn't really want.

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Often, he wouldn't finish them.

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He got involved with some pretty bad people.

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The worst was Cesare Borgia, who was an absolute monster.

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He was the most hated, the most feared and the most envied man of his day.

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Cesare Borgia famously murdered his brother,

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had incest with his sister

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and he'd poison or garrotte his dinner guests.

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Not bad, is it? The perfect place for a cosy dinner party.

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The situation, on paper, looks alarming, I must admit.

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Famously reclusive, Borgia even allowed Leonardo into his rooms

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and the drawings which Leonardo made suggest a close relationship.

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Borgia, I think, is an interesting character, because, I think, he's very much like Leonardo.

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I think that he's a charismatic figure.

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He's very ambitious.

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Leonardo is fascinated by that.

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My men fear me, da Vinci,

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but they also love me.

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And yet how many of them know me...

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..know really what kind of man I am?

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-What do you think?

-He smiles, but I've come to realise that with men like that,

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-it's bad when they're hostile and worse when they're friendly.

-So why do we stay?

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We...we stay because we have to eat. You especially have to eat.

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It was a critical moment in Borgia's brilliant career.

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His land and his life were under threat.

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Del Michelotto is to be despatched to raise 1,000 infantry,

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to take a message to Ugo de Mancardo.

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He was desperate for all the military ingenuity he could buy.

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Characteristically, at exactly the right moment, Leonardo produced a trump card.

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It was probably the most effective weapon any military commander could hope for...

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a map - the first detailed and accurate plan of Immola, Borgia's stronghold.

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'You show any person...'

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in the late 15th century a map - it's a strange, magical object.

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"Look, here is your territory!" That's stunning for people.

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It's remarkable.

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Whoever owns this map owns the city itself.

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It's as if you could fly,

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as if you could fly above the city like a hawk!

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How have you done it?

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I paced out all the greater distances, my lord, precisely, so as to be accurate...

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With none of the instruments to measure this maze of streets,

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it must have been a daunting task.

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He paced every single field, every single street.

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He measured everything and really pushed forward ideas of surveying, how you survey land.

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We never see that level of precision, that level of detail,

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but also that level of beauty in mapmaking for many, many years after that.

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Borgia had appointed Leonardo his chief engineer.

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He gave him a unique level of power and his personal protection.

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Leonardo would now undertake epic projects of civil engineering.

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The draining of huge tracts of land, the fortification of towns.

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He was even planning to reroute the River Arno.

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WOMAN: It gives him a freedom to order people about, to say, "Move that river here!

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"Let's do it this way!" because he's got a single mind to work with.

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We may say Cesare Borgia's was a twisted mind, but, for Leonardo, he was a guy who could get things done.

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But he was still Cesare Borgia.

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What happened next isn't clear.

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Leonardo may have become close friends with one of Borgia's lieutenants Vitellozzo,

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who'd fallen foul of his unpredictable lord.

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Vitellozzo excuses himself. Apparently,

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if I were to agree to see him personally, he could justify himself absolutely

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and make me understand that past actions were not meant to offend me.

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So Vitellozzo was invited to dinner and told he would be made very welcome.

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Leonardo went back to Florence two months later.

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Whether his friend's death had persuaded him to leave Borgia's service we just don't know,

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but it must've seemed an appropriate time to go home.

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As always, he was looking for the big commission that would bring him fame and fortune.

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The monastery of Santa Annunziata had commissioned him to paint a Virgin and child with St Anne.

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His original drawing, or cartoon, for the painting is now lost,

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but this version of it, done a year or so later, gives an idea of its strength and beauty.

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The cartoon was even put on public display and drew large crowds to view it.

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It was said, "as if to a sacred festival."

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Leonardo's private obsessions and researches go on.

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His biographer, Vasari, describes one of his habits.

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Another bird. The stallholder will think you're mad.

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Oh, no, no. He's been paid what he asked for the birds.

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A bird should be able to do what its nature dictates...

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which is to fly.

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So should a man if he has a mind to take wing.

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Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the world with your eyes turned skyward.

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For there you have been and there you will always long to return.

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The feeling is all that Leonardo ever imagined.

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But could he possibly have achieved it with any of his designs?

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There are pages packed with research and ideas.

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This must have been his most absorbing passion.

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-Did he believe it was possible?

-He was of a generation of artists who were interested in fame

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and he said, "This will bring fame to the nest from which it was born."

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And the age-old human quest to get ourselves up there is just amazing.

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If he could have achieved that - he has no worries about fame now! -

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then his fame would have been assured.

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Leonardo envisaged a number of designs for flight

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including an ornithopter - a machine powered by man flapping great wings like a bird.

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This, as a flapping mechanism, is simply not going to work

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and Leonardo began to realise the power-to-weight ratio... You couldn't get up by doing that.

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Another of Leonardo's concepts is said to have inspired Sikorsky

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to lead the world in helicopter design

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and it seems Leonardo did have a fantasy of one day trying out these machines for himself.

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But perhaps the most achievable at the time was this intriguing design

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for what is apparently the world's first controlled glider.

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This is unusual in that it's a kind of abstract design.

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Now you have to ask where this came from.

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I think he'd looked at leaves and the sort of seeds that are aerodynamic.

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And at one point there's a sheet in which he looks at a rectangular piece of paper descending like this.

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He realised that these shapes themselves had certain qualities.

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We found two brave experts willing to build and try out the design.

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-Is there still risk in man-powered flight?

-There is phenomenal risk.

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Medieval flying machines - it's got to be dangerous.

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We'll be careful!

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Most of the pioneers of flight injured or killed themselves

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-because it is so dangerous.

-Well, good luck!

-Thank you very much!

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But even Leonardo was well aware his inventions could be lethal.

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Note. Make trial of action machine over water, so if you fall, you do not do any harm.

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Simon begins by constructing a model based on Leonardo's plans.

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The man places his feet at "M" and chest at "B".

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The wind, blowing along line "H",

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may lift "H" more than is deemed convenient.

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In this case, the man should pull string "S".

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Simon's wondering just how good was Leonardo's understanding of aerodynamics.

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The first step is to test the model in a wind tunnel.

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We're looking for evidence of lift as the oncoming air collides with the glider.

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It looks encouraging as a vortex spirals upwards from the wings - a phenomenon Leonardo was aware of.

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The bird will rise on high by means of a circular movement in the shape of a screw.

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By now, Simon was convinced the glider had a chance.

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So he went on to build a full-size version.

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He's making the framework out of bamboo, which he steams into shape.

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For the sail, he's chosen a man-made cloth.

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This is less likely to be ripped during testing than the silk or linen Leonardo might have used.

0:29:460:29:52

The big day has arrived.

0:29:520:29:55

It couldn't be more perfect - warm Tuscan sunshine and a light wind.

0:29:550:30:00

The mood is buoyant as I join the team.

0:30:000:30:03

-Are the teeth chattering?!

-No, I'm not really nervous. I'm hopeful rather than nervous.

0:30:030:30:10

I'd like it to fly and I'd like to...well, at least live MY dream,

0:30:100:30:16

which is to fly a machine that was designed 500 years ago.

0:30:160:30:20

1, 2, 3...

0:30:200:30:22

It's a dangerous business testing flying machines.

0:30:220:30:27

If he crashes from 10 metres above ground, he risks serious injury.

0:30:270:30:31

It's known in the trade as the Dead Man's Curve.

0:30:310:30:35

-It wasn't much of a flight!

-No.

0:30:350:30:38

-Oh, dear!

-Fortunately, nothing broken. We can try again!

0:30:380:30:42

Bugger!

0:30:550:30:56

I crashed it again!

0:30:560:30:59

The glider was definitely unstable, so we went back to Leonardo's notes for inspiration.

0:30:590:31:05

Look at how birds fly...

0:31:050:31:08

..how they use both their wings and their tail

0:31:100:31:15

to stop them falling.

0:31:150:31:18

'If Leonardo had got as far...'

0:31:180:31:21

as testing this and found that it was unstable,

0:31:210:31:25

it would be natural for him to say, "Let's have a tail on it."

0:31:250:31:29

Would the tail make the crucial difference?

0:31:290:31:32

It was now all or bust. Robbie's raised the stakes. He's going to fly off a much steeper hill.

0:31:320:31:39

It'll give him more chance of getting airborne,

0:31:390:31:43

but if he crashes, the consequences will be grave.

0:31:430:31:47

..2, 3!

0:31:480:31:50

CHEERING

0:31:530:31:56

Well done, Simon!

0:32:180:32:21

Well done, Robbie!

0:32:210:32:23

'It's the first time a Leonardo flying machine has successfully taken to the air - a triumph!'

0:32:270:32:33

Well done, guys. That was amazing!

0:32:330:32:36

His return to Florence in the early 1500s wasn't the overwhelming triumph he'd hoped for,

0:32:420:32:48

although his famed cartoon of the Virgin and child with St Anne would turn into a beautiful painting,

0:32:480:32:56

a dreamlike image of maternal love.

0:32:560:32:59

And in 1503, he began work on a portrait that would one day become the world's most famous painting,

0:33:050:33:13

the Mona Lisa.

0:33:130:33:15

He would rework it obsessively for the rest of his life, taking it with him wherever he went.

0:33:150:33:21

Now, as he began to re-establish himself, a new talent appeared on the scene.

0:33:230:33:30

In 1499, a marvellous sculpture by an up-and-coming young artist had been unveiled in Rome.

0:33:300:33:36

The Pieta was immediately hailed as a work of genius.

0:33:360:33:41

Its maker would become Leonardo's lifelong rival.

0:33:410:33:45

He was 24 years of age

0:33:450:33:48

and his name was Michelangelo Buonarotti.

0:33:480:33:52

There was rivalry and enmity.

0:33:520:33:56

They could not have been more different.

0:33:560:33:59

I look around the painter's studio. I speak of the very best painters, of course.

0:33:590:34:05

His home is clean and filled with works of art.

0:34:050:34:09

There is no noise, no hammering, only the most pleasurable of pursuits and agreeable of friends.

0:34:090:34:15

Leonardo was elegant, well-behaved, a courtly man.

0:34:150:34:20

Interested in everything, with a shrug of the shoulders at failures.

0:34:200:34:25

Michelangelo - this extraordinary zealot in both religion and art.

0:34:250:34:31

A deeply-troubled, deeply-driven figure.

0:34:310:34:34

The sculptor, on the other hand, hacks away at his marble like a mechanic, with brute force,

0:34:340:34:41

his face plastered with filth.

0:34:410:34:44

RONA GOFFEN: Michelangelo was a slob.

0:34:440:34:47

He bathed infrequently, had terrible manners, was cantankerous and grouchy and nasty and sarcastic.

0:34:470:34:54

He's also known to have worn these dogskin leggings,

0:34:560:35:01

which he never removed. And at the end of each winter,

0:35:010:35:04

he'd peel them away, taking his flesh with them, because they'd grown into his skin.

0:35:040:35:10

The sweat mingles with the dust. It all turns to mud. He has a very filthy house because of that.

0:35:100:35:17

He looks like a baker at work!

0:35:170:35:20

No real painter thinks of sculpture as anything less than painting. They're from the same source!

0:35:220:35:29

They're both divinely inspired!

0:35:290:35:32

But even if Leonardo thought sculpture the lesser art,

0:35:320:35:36

he wasn't going to turn down the biggest commission of the times - a statue of David, the giant slayer.

0:35:360:35:42

The city of Florence had got hold of a vast slab of marble

0:35:450:35:50

and Leonardo waited patiently to be awarded the commission.

0:35:500:35:54

But Michelangelo had got there first.

0:35:540:35:57

There are two artists who could design a monument good enough to honour this proud city.

0:35:570:36:03

At least, two artists who could start the work. But only one has proved he can finish it.

0:36:030:36:09

So you must ask yourself - do you want the monument finished

0:36:090:36:14

or are you prepared to let the marble lie undisturbed for the next ten years?

0:36:140:36:20

Michelangelo won the commission and laboured at it for three years.

0:36:200:36:25

It was a triumph.

0:36:260:36:28

So, round one to Michelangelo, but then Leonardo makes his move.

0:36:280:36:33

Michelangelo wants the statue out here, in front of the town hall, where it'll really get noticed.

0:36:330:36:39

A committee is formed to decide where it should go

0:36:390:36:43

and a variety of prominent locations are considered.

0:36:430:36:47

However, who should be sitting on the committee charged with this decision but Leonardo da Vinci,

0:36:470:36:54

who thoughtfully suggested that the statue should be placed over there, out of the way.

0:36:540:37:00

He was, of course, over-ruled.

0:37:000:37:03

And Michelangelo's David was given pride of place right in the heart of the city

0:37:060:37:12

where he stands, in Michelangelo's words, "proudly in the blaze of the piazza".

0:37:120:37:19

David was to become the most famous statue in the world,

0:37:210:37:25

but his creator would never forgive Leonardo for the slight.

0:37:250:37:30

By 1504, the relationship between Leonardo and Michelangelo had declined to the extent

0:37:300:37:36

that they could hardly pass in the street without grimacing.

0:37:360:37:40

We actually have an account of one famous public squabble

0:37:410:37:46

left by a friend of Leonardo's who'd witnessed it.

0:37:460:37:50

Here comes Michelangelo. Ask him!

0:37:500:37:52

-Explain Dante's love for pagan gods.

-YOU explain, horse modeller! You've an answer for everything.

0:37:520:37:59

'Michelangelo was not only a poet but also he was famous for his knowledge of Dante...'

0:37:590:38:05

and it was natural to say, as Leonardo did, "Michelangelo will explain it."

0:38:050:38:11

Michelangelo took umbrage at this.

0:38:110:38:13

You've an answer for everything, except how to cast a statue in bronze.

0:38:130:38:19

Will you ever finish ANYTHING ever again?

0:38:190:38:23

'This was a rotten thing to say. It was very rude, very offensive

0:38:230:38:27

'and Leonardo was red in the face. He was blushing with embarrassment.'

0:38:270:38:32

And soon, they really did have something to fight about.

0:38:320:38:36

The new powerbrokers in Florence invited Leonardo to paint a battle scene 60ft across in this building,

0:38:360:38:43

the town hall.

0:38:430:38:45

But there's a twist.

0:38:490:38:52

They then asked Michelangelo to paint another battle scene alongside it in the very same room.

0:38:520:39:00

As if this wasn't enough, the man who set up this battle of battles was the infamous Machiavelli,

0:39:030:39:11

the godfather of political spin.

0:39:110:39:13

He was Cesare Borgia's right-hand man and, supposedly, Leonardo's friend.

0:39:130:39:20

Leonardo worked feverishly, determined to achieve spectacular effects,

0:39:230:39:28

to prove something. He immersed himself in all the detail of battle and the psychology of men at war.

0:39:280:39:36

How to capture the hell of war, Salai?

0:39:360:39:41

Smoke mingling with the dust-laden air.

0:39:420:39:46

Arrows flying in every direction.

0:39:470:39:50

The conquerors bearing down on you,

0:39:520:39:55

their hair streaming in the wind.

0:39:550:39:58

Some of them shouting, some of them with teeth apart, their eyes brimming with terror.

0:40:000:40:08

Show the fallen corpses covered with mud. Others in a death agony, fists clenched, limbs distorted.

0:40:080:40:16

Show men fallen in a heap on top of a dying horse

0:40:160:40:21

and see there is no part of the ground that is not trampled and stained with blood.

0:40:210:40:28

While Michelangelo is in his studio doing one drawing,

0:40:320:40:36

Leonardo's actually, for once, getting a move on! He's made the cartoon, got the scaffolding up

0:40:360:40:44

and he's doing the fresco.

0:40:440:40:48

-But things began to go very wrong.

-CLAP OF THUNDER

0:40:480:40:53

On Friday, at the 13th hour,

0:40:530:40:57

I had just picked up my brush when the great storm began.

0:40:570:41:02

The church bells rang the alarm.

0:41:020:41:05

Day was transformed into night as the rain poured down - water everywhere.

0:41:050:41:10

The cartoon began to come apart piece by piece.

0:41:100:41:14

It was a bad omen and there was worse to come.

0:41:160:41:20

Leonardo's great Battle Of Anghiari should be here and Michelangelo's battle scene alongside,

0:41:200:41:27

but Leonardo decided to experiment.

0:41:270:41:30

He made a fatal decision to use oil on plaster.

0:41:300:41:34

We believe it's because he got a bad consignment of linseed oil.

0:41:340:41:39

This is the great tragedy of the career,

0:41:390:41:42

because he's pushing the limits of what he can do as an artist

0:41:420:41:46

and what he can do with paint further and further.

0:41:460:41:51

And the result, of course, is the materials just aren't up to it.

0:41:510:41:55

The painting he'd begun soon started to run and seemed to be melting off the wall.

0:41:550:42:02

In desperation, they lit fires under the fresco

0:42:020:42:06

in an attempt to set the paint and save the painting.

0:42:060:42:11

But it was too late.

0:42:110:42:13

So if you think the Battle Of Anghiari doesn't live up to Leonardo's grand plan,

0:42:170:42:23

you'd be absolutely right.

0:42:230:42:26

It isn't even his. The picture that's here today is by Leonardo's biographer, Vasari...

0:42:260:42:32

a far better writer than he was a painter.

0:42:320:42:36

But he leaves an intriguing clue.

0:42:360:42:38

In one corner, he's written "cerca trova".

0:42:380:42:42

"Seek and ye shall find."

0:42:420:42:45

Some people believe that somewhere in this room there are fragments of Leonardo's long-lost masterpiece.

0:42:450:42:52

Michelangelo, by the way, never finished his fresco, either.

0:42:580:43:02

He completed the cartoon for it, but he was called back to Rome.

0:43:020:43:07

So ended this strange battle of the giants - the battle that never was.

0:43:070:43:12

Leonardo would never be awarded a major commission again.

0:43:200:43:24

Now, left behind in Florence and with time on his hands,

0:43:240:43:29

he immersed himself once again in his life's other great project - his work as a scientist.

0:43:290:43:35

Over the next decade, he ranged across anatomy, geology, botany, medicine, geometry.

0:43:350:43:42

Apparently trying to master them all, learning and absorbing everything and drawing it.

0:43:420:43:48

And yet he had a reputation as a flake.

0:43:480:43:52

Well, his reputation as a flake was

0:43:520:43:55

that it's almost a surgical mind.

0:43:550:43:58

What's in front of you, it's the most important thing in the world.

0:43:580:44:04

Then when it's over, it's over and the next thing becomes the most important thing in the world.

0:44:040:44:10

It's a free-associating mind. "Here is work that fascinates me.

0:44:100:44:15

"I will work with it till it stops fascinating me, I'll stop and go to another thing that fascinates me."

0:44:150:44:22

So over short periods of time, you don't get much done,

0:44:220:44:26

but over a long period of time, you get a great deal done.

0:44:260:44:30

Now he would turn his attention to a whole new area of investigation.

0:44:330:44:39

And again, it would require him to break the rules.

0:44:390:44:42

It was at this hospital at the Santa Maria Nuova monastery

0:44:510:44:55

in the early 1500s that Leonardo took the first steps towards a ground-breaking discovery,

0:44:550:45:01

a discovery medical research would only catch up with in the mid 20thC.

0:45:010:45:06

When he started studying anatomy, it was only so he could understand muscle and movement, and so on.

0:45:120:45:18

But he soon became intrigued by what went on below the muscle layers

0:45:180:45:24

and, in fact, became the very first person to dissect the organs of the body.

0:45:240:45:30

At this time, anatomical dissections were occasionally allowed by the Church.

0:45:300:45:37

The bodies of convicted criminals were dissected by surgeons

0:45:370:45:42

who were watched by artists and students.

0:45:420:45:46

Given the conditions of the time,

0:45:480:45:50

few would have been willing to do the gruesome work Leonardo now carried out.

0:45:500:45:56

I want to go home. It's freezing!

0:45:570:46:00

Come here.

0:46:010:46:03

-'What was the atmosphere like in the dissecting room?

-Oh, it was dreadful in the dissecting room.

0:46:030:46:11

'There was no way of preserving bodies at the time.

0:46:110:46:14

'Within 48 hours, there was a tremendous stench,

0:46:140:46:19

'pieces of the body were decaying.

0:46:190:46:22

'The most important instrument that one had was one's bare hands

0:46:250:46:30

'with long fingernails that were used to do a lot of the dissectomy.'

0:46:300:46:35

Why must we spend our night in the company of corpses?!

0:46:380:46:42

Yeah, well...

0:46:420:46:43

most men can't make the journey they need to take to find out the truth.

0:46:430:46:49

The stench of death turns their great stomachs and they're sickened by the blackened organs.

0:46:500:46:57

But if you want to follow where the light of truth leads, you have to get through all this.

0:46:570:47:04

The bodies come back and haunt me in my sleep.

0:47:060:47:09

His dissections were convincing him more and more that man is a wonderful piece of machinery.

0:47:120:47:19

He conceived of the bones of the arms and of the legs as levers.

0:47:190:47:24

And lines of force, namely the muscles, worked on the levers.

0:47:240:47:30

So he could demonstrate exactly how you turned your arm

0:47:300:47:35

and why you were able to turn your arm.

0:47:350:47:38

This led him to his most audacious conclusion - that he could create an automated machine

0:47:380:47:44

with a life of its own.

0:47:440:47:47

Leonardo married his fascination for anatomy with his passion for mechanics

0:47:470:47:52

to create the world's first humanoid robot.

0:47:520:47:56

We've asked NASA engineer Mark Rossheim to see if he can bring Leonardo's scheme to life.

0:47:560:48:03

These are drawings of Leonardo's robot knight. These are fragments.

0:48:030:48:07

-This is the torso...

-Yes.

0:48:070:48:10

..the shoulder. Here is a detail of the arm.

0:48:100:48:14

This is a cable-operated system with pulleys.

0:48:140:48:18

They transfer the motion from the cables into a rotary motion for an elbow or an arm.

0:48:180:48:24

You've done a virtual model.

0:48:240:48:27

Yes, we've done a virtual-reality reconstruction of the robot knight.

0:48:270:48:32

We've taken Leonardo's anatomical drawings and translated them into mechanics.

0:48:320:48:37

He left these really interesting drawings showing how the forces moved in the human joints.

0:48:370:48:45

He would substitute cords. They're called cord diagrams.

0:48:450:48:49

By looking at those, I was able to plot the paths of force.

0:48:490:48:53

We were eventually able to construct joints and actual levers,

0:48:530:48:57

so you get the impression of muscles moving, of flexing,

0:48:570:49:02

just like a bodybuilder.

0:49:020:49:04

We've done a virtual-reality, uh...animation of the machine

0:49:040:49:11

and here you see the pulleys of the cable system operating the visor.

0:49:110:49:16

It's going down in the body. This is what allows the robot to stand up.

0:49:160:49:20

And so understanding how the human body works mechanically and how it can create gestures

0:49:200:49:28

is just a foundation principle of his art.

0:49:280:49:31

There's a famous line where he says, "Nature doesn't use counterweights." Nature doesn't build animals,

0:49:360:49:43

or humans, like grandfather clocks. His tools were very limited.

0:49:430:49:48

He had to use winches and cables and pulleys.

0:49:480:49:52

Take a bow, robot!

0:49:530:49:56

At the time, the robot was designed as a stunning party piece.

0:50:010:50:05

It would probably have been set up in a grotto as a climax to a court entertainment,

0:50:050:50:11

so a patron could impress guests.

0:50:110:50:14

Leonardo was kind of a special effects master of his day.

0:50:140:50:18

It would have had kind of a Stephen Spielberg effect.

0:50:180:50:23

THEY LAUGH

0:50:270:50:30

I love it!

0:50:460:50:48

Well done! ..Well done!

0:50:500:50:53

His anatomy told him something of what he wanted to know about this marvellous machine, the human body.

0:51:000:51:07

But he wanted to discover where man's soul might be found,

0:51:070:51:12

the sensus communalis, the seat of reason and imagination.

0:51:120:51:17

He wanted to read the mind of God.

0:51:170:51:20

There was a new Pope in Rome - Leo X.

0:51:290:51:33

The Vatican was summoning major artists from all the Italian states to create great new works.

0:51:330:51:40

Michelangelo was already firmly ensconced here as a favourite.

0:51:400:51:44

But if Leonardo expected to be greeted as a hero of this new age, he was to be disappointed.

0:51:440:51:51

This is not the time to have him at the Vatican,

0:51:550:51:59

this painter who never finishes anything he starts.

0:51:590:52:03

He has asked for an assistant. Choose him well.

0:52:030:52:07

Leonardo was provided with a studio, but, it seems, no serious work

0:52:090:52:15

and the German assistants he was given appear to have been spies.

0:52:150:52:20

He describes the wickedness of a German deceiver who spreads rumours about him throughout the Vatican

0:52:200:52:27

and his insistence on continuing his studies in anatomy

0:52:270:52:31

were giving his enemies plenty of grounds for suspicion.

0:52:310:52:36

He is in and out of the hospital. I fear he is dissecting also good Christian people.

0:52:360:52:43

The old man told me he's lived for over 100 years

0:52:450:52:50

and that he's had no bodily ailments, apart from weakness.

0:52:500:52:56

And then, with nothing apparently amiss...

0:53:000:53:05

..he died the sweetest death.

0:53:090:53:12

'He looked at the man's vessels...'

0:53:190:53:22

Hold this here!

0:53:220:53:25

..and realised that the inner part was obstructed. It was like shale inside of a pipe.

0:53:250:53:31

And he reasoned that that's why old people die slowly, why their extremities shrivel,

0:53:310:53:38

because the blood isn't getting to them.

0:53:380:53:41

At about the same time, by coincidence, he dissected the body of a two-year-old boy.

0:53:410:53:48

And, not to his surprise, found that those arteries were straight and soft

0:53:480:53:54

and nothing was obstructing them.

0:53:540:53:57

So he said, "That's the reason people die of old age.

0:53:570:54:01

"The arteries are becoming closed off and obstructed."

0:54:010:54:05

He discovered, in the early 16th century, hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis.

0:54:050:54:11

'Then he said, "But why does this happen?

0:54:130:54:16

' "Something happens over time." '

0:54:160:54:20

Then he lit on it. He said, "There's too much nutrition in the blood.

0:54:200:54:25

"There's something in the blood that precipitates out, that comes out of the blood

0:54:250:54:31

"and deposits itself on the inside of the arteries."

0:54:310:54:35

Except for the word "cholesterol", he had made a 20th-century discovery!

0:54:350:54:41

Given the controversial nature of Leonardo's work,

0:54:470:54:51

his enemies had no trouble finding evidence to condemn him.

0:54:510:54:55

The drawings were proof enough,

0:54:550:54:57

but his mirror writing even suggested witchcraft to those out to denounce him.

0:54:570:55:04

He's not only dissecting the bodies of the dead.

0:55:040:55:08

He then that of a woman with child.

0:55:090:55:13

Then this - writing which can only be read with a mirror.

0:55:130:55:16

You think this is to conceal the true nature of his work?

0:55:160:55:20

We are fearful of necromancy.

0:55:210:55:24

There is no limit to the investigations of the Florentine.

0:55:240:55:28

Fetch Leonardo da Vinci.

0:55:290:55:32

His Holiness requires your presence.

0:55:420:55:45

Your Holiness.

0:55:550:55:57

You have been accused of witchcraft and necromancy. You spend your nights with the dead.

0:55:570:56:04

I will not tolerate the Vatican being used as a charnel house.

0:56:040:56:08

Leonardo da Vinci, you will not continue your unholy practice.

0:56:080:56:14

You will not bring shame upon the Vatican or on the name of God.

0:56:140:56:19

He had by now completed an incredible amount of work

0:56:190:56:24

which he describes with pride.

0:56:240:56:26

120 chapters composed by me will give judgment

0:56:260:56:31

in which I've been impeded neither by avarice nor by negligence, but only by time.

0:56:310:56:37

Farewell.

0:56:370:56:39

Tragically, even his anatomy would be another heroic failure,

0:56:420:56:47

lying undiscovered for centuries while the rest of the world caught up with Leonardo da Vinci.

0:56:470:56:55

His contribution has no significance because it was lost. It affected nobody and nothing.

0:56:550:57:01

When it was rediscovered, his contribution in anatomy, all of these things had been identified.

0:57:010:57:08

Around this time, he wrote in his notebooks...

0:57:130:57:17

Tell me, have I done anything of worth?

0:57:170:57:21

Tell me if anything was ever done.

0:57:210:57:25

But unknowingly, he'd already provided the world with his legacy.

0:57:270:57:31

He took her with him as he left Rome. She accompanied him for the next 15 years

0:57:310:57:37

and she was beside him when he died.

0:57:370:57:41

And after much of the world had forgotten him,

0:57:410:57:45

it would be the Mona Lisa who'd cause him to be rediscovered.

0:57:450:57:49

She would carry his name through the centuries to a new audience for whom curiosity was not a crime

0:57:490:57:56

and where free thinking was applauded.

0:57:560:58:00

It would be her inexplicable smile

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which would hint at the mysteries Leonardo had uncovered in his search for everything.

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Subtitles by Graeme Dibble & Alison Semeonoff - BBC Broadcast, 2003

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