0:00:05 > 0:00:10In 1506, Leonardo da Vinci left his native Florence
0:00:10 > 0:00:14and took to the road in search of work and patrons.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17His travels would take him to Milan, Rome,
0:00:17 > 0:00:21and, finally, into exile in France.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25And for the last 13 years of his life, everywhere he went,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28he carried with him one painting...
0:00:28 > 0:00:30It was the portrait of a woman.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35And it was to become the most famous image in the history of art.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50'A good painter has to bring up two things -
0:00:50 > 0:00:53'the physical appearance of the subject he's painting,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56'but also what is in the mind,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58'the intentions of the soul.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03'Achieving the first is easy, the second very hard.'
0:01:08 > 0:01:12MUSIC: "Mona Lisa" by Nat King Cole
0:01:23 > 0:01:25# Mona Lisa... #
0:01:25 > 0:01:28- Mona Lisa.- # Mona Lisa, Men have named you... #
0:01:28 > 0:01:32- Mona Lisa.- Mona Lisa. - # You're so like the lady... #
0:01:32 > 0:01:35She's a man.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37# ..Mystic smile... #
0:01:38 > 0:01:41This is Italiano. # Is it only cos you're lonely... #
0:01:41 > 0:01:45When I was eight years old, I saw it for the first time.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49# For that Mona Lisa... # Leonardo da Vinci.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53# In your smile... # It's beautiful, man.
0:01:55 > 0:01:59# Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa? #
0:01:59 > 0:02:01Michelangelo.
0:02:01 > 0:02:08# Or is this your way To hide a broken hea-a-a-art?
0:02:10 > 0:02:16# Many dreams have been brought To your doorstep... #
0:02:18 > 0:02:21This is the story of the most famous work of art
0:02:21 > 0:02:23ever created by a human hand.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27A painting so valuable, it's impossible to put a price on it.
0:02:27 > 0:02:33In the Louvre, in Paris, it's known as painting number 779.
0:02:33 > 0:02:40It's a portrait of an unknown Italian lady, who seems to be smiling. Her name - Mona Lisa -
0:02:40 > 0:02:42simply means Madonna, Lady Lisa.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46Yet from the moment she was painted, 500 years ago,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50she's obsessed and intrigued the whole world.
0:02:50 > 0:02:55Who was this mysterious lady? How did she become such a superstar?
0:02:55 > 0:02:59And what is the secret of her smile?
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Wherever you look at this woman,
0:03:02 > 0:03:05you have an impression that she is looking at you.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10I heard that she was pregnant at the time.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13- You heard...?- She was pregnant.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15She was having a baby.
0:03:15 > 0:03:17Expecting a baby.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23I don't think it's a smile. It's the way her face is formed.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Some people have smiles, some don't. I, if I'm not smiling -
0:03:27 > 0:03:29which is probably why I always smile -
0:03:29 > 0:03:31will have a mouth that goes down.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35People say to me, "Don't worry. It's not the end of the world."
0:03:35 > 0:03:41I think she's probably got an expression that is...at peace
0:03:41 > 0:03:44with the world around her.
0:03:44 > 0:03:50I see a woman that's looking at someone and saying, "You've got me on my worst day of the month!
0:03:50 > 0:03:52"What am I doing here?
0:03:52 > 0:03:56"And you're trying to get me to smile at you."
0:03:56 > 0:03:58That's what I'm seeing.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00She's trying her best.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05But she's pretty annoyed about it. And I don't blame her.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07# Mona Lisa
0:04:09 > 0:04:16# Mona-a-a Li-isa-a-a. #
0:04:25 > 0:04:31Today, like a Hollywood star, the Mona Lisa has her own bodyguards.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37She lives in an air-conditioned concrete box, protected by triple bulletproof glass.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42It doesn't seem to deter over six million tourists every year.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49So what's the secret of her fascination?
0:04:49 > 0:04:53Why has this, of all the images in the world,
0:04:53 > 0:04:58gripped the imagination of so many people for the past 500 years?
0:04:58 > 0:05:03Kings, emperors and presidents have all paid their respects to her.
0:05:03 > 0:05:11On the Mona Lisa's American tour, Kennedy greeted her as the ultimate symbol of Western civilisation.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16We citizens of nations unborn at the time of its creation
0:05:16 > 0:05:22are among the inheritors and protectors of the ideal
0:05:22 > 0:05:24which gave it birth.
0:05:24 > 0:05:29For this painting is not only one of the towering achievements
0:05:29 > 0:05:32of the skill and the vision of art,
0:05:32 > 0:05:37but its creator embodied the central purpose of our civilisation.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47She's been exploited and replicated in so many forms,
0:05:47 > 0:05:52that it's easy to forget she was once a living, breathing person,
0:05:52 > 0:05:56her image and expression caught in one moment of time
0:05:56 > 0:05:59and immortalised by the hand of the artist.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04This is how I think the Mona Lisa first looked
0:06:04 > 0:06:07when Leonardo painted her in 1503.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11It's a cleaned-up version of the picture we're familiar with.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16To get to this, there have been many changes and stages involved.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18I'll show you some of those stages.
0:06:25 > 0:06:30This is a board of poplar wood, which the Mona Lisa was painted on.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34Everybody thinks people used canvas, but then, they painted on wood.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38In the south of Europe, it was poplar, in the north, it was oak.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42It's this nice, solid wood that became a masterpiece.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44Chalk drawing.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49Now almost certainly, Leonardo would have done a chalk drawing
0:06:49 > 0:06:55or an image in pen or silverpoint, to give an idea of the look of the portrait, the feel.
0:06:55 > 0:07:01The drawing would be transferred by pricking and pouncing.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05The little lines would have been joined up by the wet fluid paint.
0:07:08 > 0:07:13This will surprise you. A green face, brown dress, blue background.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18What's happening here? He's roughing in what goes where colourwise.
0:07:21 > 0:07:27We're roughing in the flesh tones over the green, so it comes through.
0:07:31 > 0:07:37The background and the sky now. The marvellous blue, ultramarine sky.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44Mona Lisa.
0:07:53 > 0:07:58'Painting excels because it does not fade, as music does, as soon as it is born.
0:07:58 > 0:08:05'It endures and keeps all the appearance of being alive, though it's confined to one surface.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08'It preserves the transient beauty of mortals
0:08:08 > 0:08:12'and endow it with a permanence greater than the works of nature.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14'For these are the slaves of time.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18'Even when death has destroyed nature's original,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21'painting preserves the image of divine beauty.'
0:08:29 > 0:08:32To find the first ever mention of the Mona Lisa
0:08:32 > 0:08:39in any historical document, we have to travel 150 miles from Paris to Amboise, in the Loire valley.
0:08:39 > 0:08:46Leonardo came to live and work here near the end of his life at the invitation of King Francis I.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49This is the fine house the king gave him to live in.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52On October 10th 1517,
0:08:52 > 0:08:58two travellers on the grand tour came to pay their respects to the great painter.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02They were Cardinal Louis of Aragon and his secretary, de Beatis.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05This is what de Beatis recorded in his diary -
0:09:05 > 0:09:11"Leonardo showed the Cardinal three pictures. One was a Florentine lady
0:09:11 > 0:09:14"painted from life at the request of Giuliano de' Medici.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18"It was absolute perfection. This I have seen with my own eyes."
0:09:25 > 0:09:30By 1530, the Mona Lisa found her way into the royal collection.
0:09:30 > 0:09:36Unfortunately, King Francis decided she would look particularly good on the walls of his bathroom.
0:09:36 > 0:09:42She was kept there for many years. Experts believe that the craquelure on the surface
0:09:42 > 0:09:46is partly due to the steam from the royal ablutions.
0:09:48 > 0:09:53From the bathroom to the bedroom, the king also possessed
0:09:53 > 0:09:59this curious striptease version of the Mona Lisa, called the Monna Vanna.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04'What could possibly connect this and Leonardo's masterpiece?'
0:10:05 > 0:10:13Its origins are obscure, but it's clearly related to the portrait of Mona Lisa,
0:10:13 > 0:10:16except she's not wearing anything.
0:10:16 > 0:10:21There is a rather unusual taste at the court of Francis I
0:10:21 > 0:10:23for nude portraits of respectable women.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28There's one of two women in the bath pinching each other's nipples.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32This is a way of celebrating their fecundity,
0:10:32 > 0:10:37because breast milk is a symbol of the way that you create children.
0:10:37 > 0:10:44So the Monna Vanna may fit in best with the taste of the French court.
0:10:46 > 0:10:51The Monna Vanna was probably the work of Leonardo's favourite pupil, Salai.
0:10:51 > 0:10:59The Mona Lisa was locked away till the people of France decided they didn't want a monarchy any more.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06When the French Revolution began in 1789,
0:11:06 > 0:11:11the aristocracy was sent in their thousands to the guillotine.
0:11:11 > 0:11:16Soon, King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, would be executed.
0:11:18 > 0:11:24The royal collections were plundered and the palace of the Louvre became a people's museum.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29It was there the Mona Lisa was put on public view for the first time.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34When Napoleon came to power and was crowned emperor of France,
0:11:34 > 0:11:41one of his first demands was to have the Mona Lisa removed from the Louvre and placed in his bedroom
0:11:41 > 0:11:47in the Tuileries, thus reviving the tradition of the royal collection.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54He kept her there for nearly a decade and called her Madame Lisa.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59His fascination with Leonardo continued as he invaded Italy.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03There he found Leonardo's drawings and notebooks.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06He took those back to France, too.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08He said, "All men of genius are French,
0:12:08 > 0:12:10"no matter what their country of birth."
0:12:14 > 0:12:18After the fall of Napoleon, the Mona Lisa returns to the Louvre,
0:12:18 > 0:12:22and starts its life as a tourist attraction in the French capital.
0:12:22 > 0:12:30Then, 100 years on, on August 21st 1911, in the early hours of the morning,
0:12:30 > 0:12:36she becomes the leading player in a story of crime, politics and extortion.
0:12:44 > 0:12:50The thief had spent the Sunday night hiding in the building.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53While the security guard was asleep,
0:12:53 > 0:12:56he slipped out through a back door into the courtyard,
0:12:56 > 0:13:02and then made his escape along one of the quays of the River Seine.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05'Visitors to the Louvre were undeterred.
0:13:05 > 0:13:11'For some time after, they queued up to contemplate the blank space where the Mona Lisa had once hung.'
0:13:11 > 0:13:16The theft made headline news around the world.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19A massive police hunt was launched.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21Among those suspects brought in for questioning
0:13:21 > 0:13:26was a radical young Spanish artist called Pablo Picasso.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30'But by this time, the Mona Lisa was a long way away.'
0:13:37 > 0:13:43On November 11th 1913, Alfredo Geri, a Florentine antiques dealer
0:13:43 > 0:13:48received a letter offering him the Mona Lisa for half a million Lira -
0:13:48 > 0:13:53today, about a million pounds. The letter was signed "Leonardo."
0:13:56 > 0:13:58Signore, ecco La Gioconda.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08A month later, the mysterious Leonardo instructed Signor Geri
0:14:08 > 0:14:11to meet him at this hotel in the Via Panzani.
0:14:11 > 0:14:18Geri took with him Giovanni Poggi, a Leonardo expert and the director of the Uffizi Museum.
0:14:20 > 0:14:26The two men then made their way to the man's room on the second floor of the hotel.
0:14:34 > 0:14:41What happened next, Signor Geri recalled as the most exciting moment of his life.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45"At first, all we could see was dirty, festering old clothes,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48"but then we noticed the trunk had a false bottom.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57"As it came into view, we had the conviction this WAS
0:14:57 > 0:15:00"the authentic work of Leonardo da Vinci."
0:15:01 > 0:15:03Poggi had been told by the Louvre
0:15:03 > 0:15:08to look for a splinter mark on the back of the panel. It was there.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12It confirmed that this was the real Mona Lisa.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16BELLS CHIME
0:15:16 > 0:15:20"The smile of the Mona Lisa was again alive in Florence."
0:15:25 > 0:15:29Florentines are proud that the picture was recovered here,
0:15:29 > 0:15:33because they felt at last the Mona Lisa had come home.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40This was, after all, Leonardo's native city,
0:15:40 > 0:15:48the place he trained as an artist and where he first began to work on his most famous picture in 1503.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55Leonardo the thief was also a Florentine.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59A house painter, whose real name was Vincenzo Perugia.
0:15:59 > 0:16:06He claimed to be a patriot who had stolen the Mona Lisa so she could be returned to her motherland.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09POLICE SIRENS WAIL
0:16:09 > 0:16:11He was tried. He got six months -
0:16:11 > 0:16:16a very lenient sentence, incidentally.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18And in a way, he became famous.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21When he died, he had an obituary in the press -
0:16:21 > 0:16:24"The Man Who Stole The Mona Lisa."
0:16:28 > 0:16:32The Italian government was in an embarrassing situation.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36It was when Italy was trying to build an empire in Africa.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39The government was under pressure -
0:16:39 > 0:16:43"This is our painting. Leonardo was Italian. Mona Lisa is Italian.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46"Let's keep it." It was shown in Rome, Florence and Milan.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49It travelled, and crowds flocked.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52TRAIN HORN SOUNDS
0:16:52 > 0:16:56Unfortunately, the French wanted their painting back.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00She's then taken back to Paris in the train
0:17:00 > 0:17:04and welcomed by a huge crowd at the train station.
0:17:04 > 0:17:09For three days there is an exhibit with her and the crowds flocked.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13With interest, every little thing can be built up.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16One should add that other paintings had been stolen before
0:17:16 > 0:17:18and did not receive such publicity.
0:17:18 > 0:17:24So there was something about the Mona Lisa, but particularly something about Leonardo.
0:17:36 > 0:17:42By 1500, Leonardo had returned to Florence after 17 years in Milan,
0:17:42 > 0:17:45but it was no longer safe for him there.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49His patron had been deposed and imprisoned by the French army.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53By now, he was absorbed with his inventions and experiments.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58He wasn't painting any more.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09When he came to live at the Servite Monastery,
0:18:09 > 0:18:13the monks expected some paintings in return for his board.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16But as one priest, Father Pietro, noted,
0:18:16 > 0:18:20"Leonardo was, by now, weary of the brush."
0:18:22 > 0:18:27Then in 1503, something happened to rekindle Leonardo's interest in painting.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36A woman arrives in his studio for him to paint her likeness,
0:18:36 > 0:18:43and Leonardo agrees. He begins work on the portrait that will obsess him for the rest of his life.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50So what happened, then, to make him change his mind?
0:18:54 > 0:18:57Part of the reason may simply have been money.
0:18:57 > 0:19:03This is the Santa Maria Nuovo, a monastery and a hospital which also served as a bank.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06Leonardo kept his savings here,
0:19:06 > 0:19:13and quite remarkably, his bank statements from those crucial months in 1503 still survive.
0:19:13 > 0:19:19He was withdrawing 50 florins every few months and not paying anything back in.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22He had an expensive household to maintain,
0:19:22 > 0:19:26so it's possible he took on the commission of the Mona Lisa
0:19:26 > 0:19:30simply to get some quick and ready cash.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Even if he was short of money, why would he take on this commission
0:19:34 > 0:19:39and turn down work from some of the richest patrons of the day?
0:19:41 > 0:19:46What's remarkable about Leonardo is that more than anybody of his time,
0:19:46 > 0:19:51and more than anybody for decades after, he worked for himself.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53He did what interested him.
0:19:53 > 0:19:59It's not that he didn't need to make a living - he did. He needed income.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03More than he wanted to satisfy his patrons, whoever they were,
0:20:03 > 0:20:07he wanted to satisfy his own intellectual curiosity,
0:20:07 > 0:20:09his own aesthetic needs.
0:20:09 > 0:20:15The patrons for him were enablers and inconveniences, at worst.
0:20:19 > 0:20:26From patrons you first get flattery, then hard work, then ingratitude and recriminations.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34The most obvious thing that patrons wanted from their portraits
0:20:34 > 0:20:36was to establish their identity.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38But in the case of the Mona Lisa,
0:20:38 > 0:20:43Leonardo deliberately avoided even this basic requirement.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51In his other portraits, Leonardo left some clue or symbol,
0:20:51 > 0:20:54so that people could identify the sitter.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56This is the earliest of them.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59The subject is by a juniper bush,
0:20:59 > 0:21:04because in Italian, juniper or ginepro, is a play on her name.
0:21:04 > 0:21:06Ginevra de'Benci.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16And in his exquisite portrait of Cecilia Gallerani,
0:21:16 > 0:21:20the ermine she's holding is a mascot of her lover,
0:21:20 > 0:21:22the Duke of Sforza.
0:21:25 > 0:21:26But in the Mona Lisa,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29he left no clue in the picture at all
0:21:29 > 0:21:32and there is no mention of her in any of his writings.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36She's simply a mysterious woman sitting in a landscape.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41He may not have wanted to reveal her name,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46but his secret inspired one of the greatest quests in the history of art -
0:21:46 > 0:21:49to discover the Mona Lisa's true identity.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55One person who would have loved to have had her portrait painted in oil
0:21:55 > 0:21:59by Leonardo da Vinci is Isabella d'Este, the Marchioness of Mantua.
0:21:59 > 0:22:05When he visited her, he did at least two charcoal sketches.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10Brief, rapid, bravura performance sits there.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15Left one with her, and took the other on his travels to Florence.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18Now for the next two years, she's in constant negotiation,
0:22:18 > 0:22:22pleading with him to finish the portrait
0:22:22 > 0:22:27or send the sketch back, or send her SOMETHING from his hand.
0:22:28 > 0:22:34She was so desperately keen, she even pleaded with Cecilia Gallerani to borrow HER portrait by Leonardo,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38so she could work out her own instructions to the painter.
0:22:38 > 0:22:40Isabella was a bit of a pain.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44She sent lengths of string of how big the figures should be.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49Even for people being used to told what to paint,
0:22:49 > 0:22:51this was going a bit far.
0:22:52 > 0:22:57I think Leonardo probably found her rather oppressive.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05'But there's no shortage of other possibilities.'
0:23:06 > 0:23:12Visitors to Leonardo's house in 1517 thought the model was Isabella Gualanda,
0:23:12 > 0:23:16the exotic mistress of his old patron, Giuliano de'Medici.
0:23:16 > 0:23:21There's further possibility in the august figure of Constanza Davalos.
0:23:21 > 0:23:22From a warmongering dynasty,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25she was a military commander in her own right.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30There's an Italian poem which names Constanza as the veiled lady
0:23:30 > 0:23:33in a portrait by an artist called Vinci.
0:23:35 > 0:23:40Finally, there's a Florentine housewife, Lisa Gherardini,
0:23:40 > 0:23:43named by Leonardo's biographer, Vasari.
0:23:46 > 0:23:50The best way to clear up this confusion is by going to Milan.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57'I wanted to look through documents related to the painting's history
0:23:57 > 0:24:01'that might help identify the most likely sitter.'
0:24:01 > 0:24:04There are problems with all four candidates.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08Medici mistresses flaunted their status with jewels.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12Not for them, the restrained taste of the Mona Lisa.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20And the well-endowed Grand Duchess was well over 40 and a widow
0:24:20 > 0:24:23when the Mona Lisa was painted, so she's unlikely.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30As for the vain, imperious Isabella d'Este,
0:24:30 > 0:24:33if she really had persuaded Leonardo to paint her portrait,
0:24:33 > 0:24:38wouldn't she have made absolutely sure the whole world knew about it?
0:24:38 > 0:24:40There are also doubts about Lisa Gherardini.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44Italian scholars find it hard to believe Leonardo
0:24:44 > 0:24:48would have chosen to paint a middle-class housewife.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55After centuries of uncertainty, a vital piece of evidence
0:24:55 > 0:24:58has only just come to light in the Milan State Archive.
0:25:01 > 0:25:08It's a probate document, detailing the estate of one Gian Giacomo Caprotti, who was murdered in 1525.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13And we know Gian Giacomo as Salai, the little devil,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16Leonardo's lifetime companion.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21The original is too delicate to handle, but from this photocopy,
0:25:21 > 0:25:27it's clear why scholars regard it as a crucial piece of the Mona Lisa jigsaw.
0:25:27 > 0:25:31It's a list of all Salai's possessions.
0:25:31 > 0:25:33One entry, in particular, is absolutely fascinating.
0:25:33 > 0:25:39It refers to a picture... "quadro dicto La Honda" ..called La Honda.
0:25:41 > 0:25:45It's valued at 505 lira. A small fortune at the time.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50A price which could only be attached to a Leonardo masterpiece,
0:25:50 > 0:25:52that he left to Salai.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56The plot thickens because there's a second document.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00In this document the abbreviation "La Honda" is scratched out
0:26:00 > 0:26:04and replaced with "La Gioconda."
0:26:05 > 0:26:07We know that the married name
0:26:07 > 0:26:12of one of Leonardo's sitters, Lisa Gherardini, was Lisa del Gioconda.
0:26:15 > 0:26:22So after 500 years, the mystery of the Mona Lisa's identity has finally been resolved.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25Salai's inventory confirms Lisa del Gioconda,
0:26:25 > 0:26:29the Florentine housewife was indeed the Mona Lisa.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33This is one of the most amazing discoveries.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38You sit in the Milan archives day after day after day.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41It's a freezing cold place.
0:26:41 > 0:26:46And you're reading all this Latin, and then suddenly,
0:26:46 > 0:26:53you've got it. You've got a document which tells you finally something you didn't know before.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56So who was Lisa del Gioconda?
0:26:56 > 0:26:59By tracking down marriage and birth certificates,
0:26:59 > 0:27:02we've managed to discover some tantalising details.
0:27:02 > 0:27:07She lived here in the Via della Stufa with her husband, Francesco, a silk merchant.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10She was the daughter of a middle-class landowner,
0:27:10 > 0:27:15got married at 16 and was Francesco's third wife.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18His two other wives died tragically in childbirth.
0:27:18 > 0:27:24Lisa herself lost a daughter, but she did have two other children.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28What she meant to Leonardo, we'll probably never know.
0:27:28 > 0:27:33If this was meant to be a portrait of a respectable housewife,
0:27:33 > 0:27:38then it's very odd. Quite unlike any other picture of its time.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43It's here, at the Uffizi galleries in Florence,
0:27:43 > 0:27:48that you can get a clear idea of how radical the Mona Lisa must have seemed in its day.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50Just three decades earlier,
0:27:50 > 0:27:57masters like Piero della Francesca, had to abide by social conventions.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02The whole point of these portraits was to show off your status.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05So they wore their best clothes,
0:28:05 > 0:28:09their jewels, their finery, so they could be seen in all their glory.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13It was very much a man's world, and here you have the man.
0:28:13 > 0:28:18The owner, essentially, of the wife who is the possession.
0:28:18 > 0:28:22She has to be modest, chaste, virtuous, that's what's expected.
0:28:22 > 0:28:28Loose hair was a sign of eroticism, so it was frowned upon.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32You can see that her hair was trussed up and decorated.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35Certainly not allowed to flow in any way.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40In the materialistic culture of 16th-century Florence -
0:28:40 > 0:28:43EVERYTHING was about keeping up appearances.
0:28:44 > 0:28:49By comparison, Leonardo decides to throw away the rule book.
0:28:49 > 0:28:55Far from being fashionable, her dress is plain and timeless.
0:28:55 > 0:28:59Lisa is a married woman, but she wears no wedding ring.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02Indeed, there's no jewellery, no adornment of any kind,
0:29:02 > 0:29:06apart from a simple gold braid on her neckline.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10We're told nothing about her family's wealth or social position.
0:29:10 > 0:29:15Her loose hair would have been seen as implying loose morals,
0:29:15 > 0:29:19the curls falling sensually over her shoulders.
0:29:19 > 0:29:24And there's another radical innovation - her pose.
0:29:24 > 0:29:28Traditionally, Renaissance paintings have been profile.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32It's like me standing like this, and you'd only see the profile.
0:29:32 > 0:29:37What Leonardo does is as if he's calling Lisa.
0:29:37 > 0:29:42He calls Lisa, Lisa turns towards him, looks at him, looks at you.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46And has the upper part of her body looking somewhere else.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49It's a snapshot. It's in the middle of the movement.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52He's been able to do that,
0:29:52 > 0:29:54and thus introducing into portrait painting
0:29:54 > 0:29:59something which existed in sculpture, in a single portrait.
0:29:59 > 0:30:06This was such an achievement that Raphael and others started imitating it.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10Nowadays, when a photographer takes a picture of you,
0:30:10 > 0:30:13they say, "Please, don't look at the camera, look slightly away."
0:30:13 > 0:30:17They try to disturb the staticity of the pose,
0:30:17 > 0:30:22and in so doing, they reproduce Leonardo's great discovery.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26And, then, there's her gaze.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31But is she looking directly at us or through us?
0:30:32 > 0:30:35Is she looking past us?
0:30:35 > 0:30:38Over our shoulder, at something we can't see?
0:30:38 > 0:30:43Leonardo understood the compulsion we feel when we meet someone
0:30:43 > 0:30:45to read their character from their face.
0:30:45 > 0:30:51He challenges us to interpret her thoughts, to capture, in his words,
0:30:51 > 0:30:56"The motions of her mind and the passions of her soul."
0:30:56 > 0:30:59But he teases us.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03He draws a veil of ambiguity across her features.
0:31:03 > 0:31:07And, then, of course, there's the riddle of that smile.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12# Mona Lisa
0:31:12 > 0:31:15# Mona Lisa, men have named you
0:31:17 > 0:31:20# You're so like the lady
0:31:20 > 0:31:23# With the mystic smile
0:31:25 > 0:31:31# Is it only cos you're lonely They have blamed you?
0:31:31 > 0:31:35# For that Mona Lisa strangeness
0:31:35 > 0:31:39# In your smile?
0:31:39 > 0:31:44# Do you smile to tempt a lover
0:31:44 > 0:31:46# Mona Lisa?
0:31:46 > 0:31:51# Or is this your way
0:31:51 > 0:31:54# To hide a broken heart?
0:31:54 > 0:31:58# Many dreams... #
0:31:59 > 0:32:06One of the reasons that the smile fascinates people is because they can't quite make it out.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10I think something of this is to do with the fact that it's lopsided.
0:32:10 > 0:32:16Look at this, if I cover this side of the picture, that looks severe.
0:32:16 > 0:32:20If I turn it round and cover this side of the face...
0:32:22 > 0:32:24Now she looks like she's smiling.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32And you see that the smile is also mirrored by the landscape,
0:32:32 > 0:32:35because the landscape seems lopsided, too.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38On the left, you see the water lower in the frame,
0:32:38 > 0:32:43and on the right, it seems to be higher in the frame,
0:32:43 > 0:32:46protruding from the right-hand side of the picture.
0:32:46 > 0:32:51Leonardo did nothing by accident. He liked optical effects.
0:32:51 > 0:32:56This must have been intentional. It gives you a sense of unease.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04What is she smiling at? What does she have that we don't have?
0:33:04 > 0:33:08What does she know about our thoughts that we don't?
0:33:08 > 0:33:15Leonardo was a man listening to voices unheard by other people.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19The smile, to me, is saying,
0:33:19 > 0:33:24"I know things that you will never know.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28"I understand you and the world in ways
0:33:28 > 0:33:31"that you will never conceive of."
0:33:31 > 0:33:33It's his message to the world.
0:33:33 > 0:33:37It's essentially his message to himself at the same time.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40That's why I think, in this portrait,
0:33:40 > 0:33:45he's painting biography and autobiography at the same time.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10Leonardo's mother was a peasant girl, Caterina,
0:34:10 > 0:34:14who'd had a brief liaison with his father, Ser Piero.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17She was married off to another man,
0:34:17 > 0:34:21but she's said to have wet-nursed Leonardo for at least 18 months.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29Then he was brought up by his stepmother, Dona Albiera.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Both woman are said to have been deeply affectionate and loving.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38This separation from his birth mother
0:34:38 > 0:34:40suggested another interpretation of the Mona Lisa
0:34:40 > 0:34:43to the founding father of psychoanalysis.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49We begin to suspect the possibility
0:34:49 > 0:34:53that it was his mother who possessed the mysterious smile,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56the smile that he had lost,
0:34:56 > 0:35:01that fascinated him so much when he found it in the Florentine lady.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08In Leonardo's later painting, the Virgin And St Anne,
0:35:08 > 0:35:11Freud saw the same smile - the Mona Lisa smile on both women.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14As he saw it, both mother figures.
0:35:23 > 0:35:25Both of these women adored him,
0:35:25 > 0:35:32which becomes, in the classical Freudian sense,
0:35:32 > 0:35:38the perfect situation in which a child, a male child, is likely to become homosexual.
0:35:41 > 0:35:47Leonardo was in the sense of what we talk about being gay. He was gay.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51He probably slept with men. I think that all the evidence,
0:35:51 > 0:35:54in terms of his life and his art.
0:35:56 > 0:36:02Most of the drawings are of men and it's centred around the midriff.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05Look at the care and the detail and the obsession
0:36:05 > 0:36:07with the ideal male form.
0:36:07 > 0:36:12It is repeated and drawn over again and again and again,
0:36:12 > 0:36:16which doesn't compare to the way the female form is represented.
0:36:16 > 0:36:21Leonardo's faces often seemed to have some kind of sexual ambiguity.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27And here is that smile again on his most androgynous figure -
0:36:27 > 0:36:29the portrait of St John.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32He, too, seems to have some secret knowledge,
0:36:32 > 0:36:36some understanding of what lies hidden in the darkness.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43What of Lisa del Gioconda herself?
0:36:43 > 0:36:48While she sat for Leonardo, did she, too, have a secret?
0:36:48 > 0:36:52One that might explain the mystery of her smile.
0:36:52 > 0:36:56It's my personal thought that she is pregnant.
0:36:56 > 0:37:03In the first place, if you look at her hands, she's supposed to be a young woman in her early 20s.
0:37:03 > 0:37:08There's no question she has swollen fingers as you look at the picture,
0:37:08 > 0:37:11or that she's holding her hands in an attitude
0:37:11 > 0:37:17we're accustomed to seeing in women far advanced in pregnancy.
0:37:18 > 0:37:24In 1502, 1503, Lisa del Gioconda was expecting a child - second child.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27They were moving into a new house the next year,
0:37:27 > 0:37:31so it may be prosaic that this was to celebrate her pregnancy.
0:37:36 > 0:37:42Although it's perfectly obvious that Leonardo wasn't physically attracted to women,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45he was fascinated by them, both as an artist and a scientist.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48Most men of his time believed
0:37:48 > 0:37:53that the male was responsible for the act of procreation.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57Leonardo realised that the man's role was quick and easy,
0:37:57 > 0:38:00whereas the woman's was complex and mysterious.
0:38:00 > 0:38:06He was convinced that women were key to the process of creation.
0:38:17 > 0:38:19Leonardo's notebooks reveal
0:38:19 > 0:38:21that after painting the Mona Lisa during the day,
0:38:21 > 0:38:25he would come to the hospital at Santa Maria Nuovo,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29and spend the night cutting up female corpses.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35He wanted to learn everything, not just about the surface of the body,
0:38:35 > 0:38:36but what lay underneath.
0:38:40 > 0:38:45Leonardo was the first anatomist to document the female body.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48This astonishing drawing is called The Great Lady.
0:38:48 > 0:38:53In the margins, some of Leonardo's characteristic notes to himself,
0:38:53 > 0:38:58ideas that become the foundation for a new science - embryology.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03Begin with the formation of the infant,
0:39:03 > 0:39:06put in such parts as are successively composed
0:39:06 > 0:39:09according to the duration of the pregnancy
0:39:09 > 0:39:11and how it is nourished until birth.
0:39:13 > 0:39:19Leonardo makes the first drawings of a human foetus in the womb.
0:39:19 > 0:39:26He was making this, and he'd been doing the dissection at the time that he was painting the Mona Lisa.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29That seems so extraordinary to me.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32This dissection was not a dissection.
0:39:32 > 0:39:37It was a synthesis of everything he was learning about the human body.
0:39:37 > 0:39:44It's almost the most remarkable anatomical drawing ever made.
0:39:44 > 0:39:49These are drawings about what makes a living body a living body.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53And one of the things he's most interested in in anatomy
0:39:53 > 0:39:58is the cycle of life, death, and maturity.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04He's doing Leda at the same time, this painting about generation.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09Here is this wonderful image of a bird -
0:40:09 > 0:40:13we know his obsession with flight - mating with a woman
0:40:13 > 0:40:16and producing babies from eggs.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20What a subject for Leonardo. This is absolutely perfect.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24It's all the mysteries of generation all in one package.
0:40:29 > 0:40:34If you put, as we've done literally, this together
0:40:34 > 0:40:39and think that Leonardo, a great sculptor of things in his mind,
0:40:39 > 0:40:42in a sense saw this inside her body.
0:40:42 > 0:40:47You suddenly think, "Wow! That is how he looked at it!"
0:40:49 > 0:40:53He thinks he's really getting to the mystery of life -
0:40:53 > 0:40:58the cyclical nature of the death of things and the birth of things.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01This then refracts back beautifully into the landscape
0:41:01 > 0:41:04and the notion of the cyclical change of things.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08How landscape changes over vast periods of time.
0:41:12 > 0:41:18When you see a scene of the primeval or primordial world
0:41:18 > 0:41:22behind the person being portrayed,
0:41:22 > 0:41:26it immediately puts you in mind of creation,
0:41:26 > 0:41:30of early forms that will evolve into what we are today.
0:41:30 > 0:41:36In the foreground, you are looking at a woman who represents exactly the same thing.
0:41:38 > 0:41:42It strikes me as it's a very unstable picture.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46You have these towering mountains behind. They're overhanging.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50They look like they might fall down. The lakes are very full.
0:41:50 > 0:41:55They might come tumbling over the dam and wash away the bridge.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58I do wonder whether what he's depicting here
0:41:58 > 0:42:02is how he imagined the Arno Valley would have looked
0:42:02 > 0:42:05in previous times.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08There is some clear evidence in the notebooks
0:42:08 > 0:42:11that he thought there used to be a lake where Florence stood.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14There is a lake lower down the valley.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17Maybe this is what he's seeing with these two lakes.
0:42:17 > 0:42:21He's imagining what the landscape used to look like.
0:42:23 > 0:42:24So what's going on here?
0:42:24 > 0:42:30How does the Mona Lisa connect with the primeval landscape behind her?
0:42:30 > 0:42:34It's time to get out of the city and go back to where it all began -
0:42:34 > 0:42:39the Tuscan landscape where Leonardo spent his childhood.
0:42:41 > 0:42:46The valley of the River Arno wasn't just his playground, it was his laboratory.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50Here he studied the principles of flight,
0:42:50 > 0:42:53the dynamics of water, of light and perspective.
0:42:57 > 0:43:05So is the apparently fantastical landscape behind the Mona Lisa real or imaginary?
0:43:05 > 0:43:1030 miles from Florence, the Buriano Bridge crosses the River Arno.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14Is this the bridge behind the Mona Lisa?
0:43:14 > 0:43:20What we do know for sure is that Leonardo knew the bridge and the surrounding area intimately.
0:43:20 > 0:43:25The Buriano had a vital, strategic importance to the city of Arezzo.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29A year before beginning the Mona Lisa, Leonardo was sent here
0:43:29 > 0:43:34as a military engineer to the infamous warlord, Cesare Borgia.
0:43:37 > 0:43:44And only minutes away from the Buriano Bridge, there was another connection with the Mona Lisa.
0:43:46 > 0:43:51This epic landscape is known to locals as the valley of hell.
0:43:53 > 0:43:59These primeval rock formations rise hundreds of feet out of nowhere to form a ridge
0:43:59 > 0:44:02running some 30 miles along the Arno River.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14The rocks appear frequently in his notebooks
0:44:14 > 0:44:18and there are similar forms in the backgrounds of other paintings.
0:44:20 > 0:44:21The Virgin Of The Rocks.
0:44:28 > 0:44:30The Virgin And St Anne.
0:44:33 > 0:44:39Little rivulet streams have carved their way down through these rocks,
0:44:39 > 0:44:41and formed the amazing shapes you see today.
0:44:41 > 0:44:46And that's, I'm sure, what Leonardo understood had happened.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51The Mona Lisa gives a very clear sense of time passing,
0:44:51 > 0:44:55particularly in the landscape in the background.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59You have a clear depiction of the geological cycle.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03You have the river starting up in the mountains.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06These very jagged, unstable mountains.
0:45:06 > 0:45:12It wends its way down bringing the sediments with it, until it eventually gets to the sea.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17Leonardo had this idea that it was taken back up to the mountains again
0:45:17 > 0:45:19and would start again.
0:45:19 > 0:45:21So you have this continuity,
0:45:21 > 0:45:24this continual cycle of geological time forever.
0:45:30 > 0:45:35In Leonardo's time, the natural world was regarded as a wilderness,
0:45:35 > 0:45:37best avoided by God-fearing people.
0:45:39 > 0:45:41But Leonardo was not God-fearing.
0:45:41 > 0:45:47Like his contemporary, Christopher Columbus, Leonardo was an explorer.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51He had an insatiable curiosity to observe the unknown world.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07'I came one day to the mouth of a great cavern.
0:46:07 > 0:46:13'I had never been here before, never been aware of its existence. I stood for a time,
0:46:13 > 0:46:19'peering in to see what forms had been created there by nature, but the darkness of the cave was deep.
0:46:19 > 0:46:25'I felt fear and desire. Fear of the mysterious cavern,
0:46:25 > 0:46:31'desire to see whether there might be any marvellous thing within its walls.'
0:46:31 > 0:46:32Look.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39- What is it?- It's a whale.
0:46:43 > 0:46:44I think.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52How many years this beast has ploughed through the oceans.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56Chasing the tuna fish, buffeting the ships,
0:46:57 > 0:47:00creating great storms in its wake.
0:47:04 > 0:47:08'Oh, time, swift destroyer of all things living,
0:47:08 > 0:47:10'how many kings, how many peoples
0:47:10 > 0:47:14'have you brought low since this creature was flung here to die?
0:47:14 > 0:47:19'Its bare bones become the columns to support a mountain.'
0:47:21 > 0:47:25He's at the mouth of the cave and he's afraid to go in,
0:47:25 > 0:47:28but his curiosity is pulling him in.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32Ironically, what does he find when he gets in there?
0:47:32 > 0:47:37He finds the fossil of a great fish, very likely a whale,
0:47:37 > 0:47:39and the beginnings of the Earth.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42Everything is tied in in his work.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47The search for the maternal power of generation,
0:47:47 > 0:47:50and then the perpetuation of a species.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56Here's another sea creature. A thousand more.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59These shellfish once lived underneath the ocean.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02How do you think they got up here, on the top of a mountain?
0:48:02 > 0:48:05- The Great Flood?- No.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10The Bible says fossils were carried onto the mountains by Noah's flood.
0:48:10 > 0:48:16But to Leonardo, this was nonsense because fossils were found in many different layers of rock.
0:48:16 > 0:48:22Did the Great Flood sweep them up in a mass and line them up in rows?
0:48:22 > 0:48:28So what he realises is that actually it was just a coming and a going of the sea.
0:48:28 > 0:48:33The sea would wash over the land at some point and deposit these fossils
0:48:33 > 0:48:36and then wash away and the fossils wouldn't be deposited.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Therefore, you would gradually build up these layers
0:48:39 > 0:48:43and this was incredibly important
0:48:43 > 0:48:47because it was another 150 years before this theory -
0:48:47 > 0:48:50we call it "The Law Of Superposition" -
0:48:50 > 0:48:55before people realised that that's what actually happened.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58Such heretical observations were unpublishable,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02but they provided Leonardo with a new theory of creation.
0:49:02 > 0:49:07"Only observation", he said "is the key to understanding."
0:49:07 > 0:49:12His observations told him the Earth wasn't created in six days,
0:49:12 > 0:49:19that it took thousands if not millions of years of geological changes,
0:49:19 > 0:49:23of atmospheric changes, of biological changes.
0:49:23 > 0:49:28To him, there was no question about the way the Earth had evolved.
0:49:28 > 0:49:33It evolved the same way a human being evolved.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38Drawing together all these threads,
0:49:38 > 0:49:42it seems to me that the Mona Lisa provides us with a snapshot
0:49:42 > 0:49:44of the mature Leonardo's mind,
0:49:44 > 0:49:51a distillation of all he discovered through a lifetime's observation into the secrets of nature.
0:49:52 > 0:49:56All his life, Leonardo had wanted to control nature.
0:49:56 > 0:50:02He mapped town and countryside, planned to divert great rivers.
0:50:02 > 0:50:08He cut through mountains, built bridges, all to rearrange an order - God's creation.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17But order had its flipside in disorder and chaos.
0:50:17 > 0:50:24Leonardo knew that nature could be both unpredictable and terrifying.
0:50:24 > 0:50:29It strikes me as it's an unstable picture. Towering mountains.
0:50:29 > 0:50:32They look like they might fall down, tumble down...
0:50:32 > 0:50:38- Unease about the picture...- Biggest cataclysmic changes imaginable.
0:50:44 > 0:50:50The River Arno has always been unpredictable and subject to often devastating floods.
0:50:50 > 0:50:57As recently as the '60s, it caused terrible destruction to buildings and works of art in Florence.
0:50:57 > 0:51:03Leonardo himself had witnessed as a child one of the worst of all deluges.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06One he recalls years later...
0:51:06 > 0:51:10"The air was darkened by the heavy rain driven aslant by the cross winds.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13"The fire rent and tore the clouds asunder.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18"What fearful noises were heard as thunder violently shot through it
0:51:18 > 0:51:20"to strike anything that lay in its course.
0:51:20 > 0:51:25"What wailing as terrified beings flung themselves into the waters.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28"How many mothers wept for their dead children?
0:51:28 > 0:51:33"Their arms raised to heaven as the hills collapse into the depths of a flooded valley."
0:51:40 > 0:51:43Leonardo even produces a record of the aftermath.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47Furniture, books, the detritus of everyday life,
0:51:47 > 0:51:51heaped up after the terrible flood subsided.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05The deluge drawings are, in a sense, the ultimate reflection
0:52:05 > 0:52:07of this idea that there is a superior force.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10And these are vast forces.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14What happens in the human heart, in the mind
0:52:14 > 0:52:18are all little microcosmic reflections of these vast forces.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20So it's a complete spectrum.
0:52:20 > 0:52:27Near the end of his life, there are visions showing insight that however much you understand the forces,
0:52:27 > 0:52:31there is an awesome dimension which is outside human ability to control.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45"The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters
0:52:45 > 0:52:48"is expressive of what in the ways of 1,000 years
0:52:48 > 0:52:51"men had come to desire?
0:52:51 > 0:52:54"She is older than the rocks among which she sits.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57"Like the vampire, she's been dead many times
0:52:57 > 0:53:00"and learned the secrets of the grave.
0:53:00 > 0:53:06"What was the relationship of a living Florentine to this creature?
0:53:06 > 0:53:09"By what strange affinities had the dream and the person
0:53:09 > 0:53:13"grown up thus apart, and yet so closely together?"
0:53:16 > 0:53:20Leonardo never delivered the portrait of Lisa del Gioconda.
0:53:20 > 0:53:25He carried it with him for the last 16 years of his life.
0:53:25 > 0:53:27Even into exile.
0:53:36 > 0:53:41At the age of 61, Leonardo left Italy never to return.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44Younger, more fashionable artists, like Raphael and Michelangelo
0:53:44 > 0:53:49were now regularly gaining the most glamorous commissions.
0:53:53 > 0:53:58His journey ended at the French town Amboise, in the Loire Valley.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02If Leonardo was underappreciated in his homeland,
0:54:02 > 0:54:05he was certainly welcomed by the French king.
0:54:06 > 0:54:12Francis I was determined to import the glories of the Renaissance.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17In recognition of Leonardo's unique status,
0:54:17 > 0:54:21he gave him a manor house next door to the royal castle.
0:54:23 > 0:54:25Leonardo's last years weren't easy.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29He suffered a stroke, which meant he lost the use of his right hand.
0:54:29 > 0:54:34But his increasing infirmity didn't matter to the French king,
0:54:34 > 0:54:38who treasured every moment he was able to spend with such a wise man.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45Many believe that this tunnel in Leonardo's house,
0:54:45 > 0:54:49was directly connected to the royal castle in Amboise,
0:54:49 > 0:54:54and that Francis I used it to visit Leonardo at night.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03They would talk through the night, the old man and the young king.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06At last, towards the end of his life,
0:55:06 > 0:55:09Leonardo, often misunderstood and taken for granted,
0:55:09 > 0:55:15had found a patron who understood the nature of his genius.
0:55:22 > 0:55:28In his last years, Leonardo tried to pull together thousands of pages of notes and drawings
0:55:28 > 0:55:30into a grand encyclopaedia.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40But the task of compiling the observations of a lifetime,
0:55:40 > 0:55:44like so many of his ambitious schemes, remained unfinished.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56'Well, I thought I was learning how to live.
0:55:56 > 0:55:58'I've really been learning how to die.
0:55:58 > 0:56:03'As a day well-spent brings happy sleep, so a life well-used
0:56:03 > 0:56:05'brings contented death.'
0:56:11 > 0:56:17Leonardo died here in his room in Clos-Luce on 2nd May 1519.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21He was 67 years old.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25He's said to have died in the arms of the French king.
0:56:25 > 0:56:31This is how the painter Ingres imagined the scene 300 years later.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34The great architect Benvenuto Cellini,
0:56:34 > 0:56:38who also served Francis I, wrote this...
0:56:40 > 0:56:43"I have to record the words the king spoke to me.
0:56:43 > 0:56:49"That he believed there had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo.
0:56:49 > 0:56:54"Not so much about painting, sculpture, and architecture,
0:56:54 > 0:56:57"as that he was a very great philosopher."
0:57:08 > 0:57:14It's taken 500 years for many of Leonardo's ideas to become reality.
0:57:14 > 0:57:19We can only begin to understand the sheer scale of his achievements.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22When he began his restless journey through life,
0:57:22 > 0:57:26the painter was regarded as little more than a lowly craftsman.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28Leonardo changed all that.
0:57:28 > 0:57:35In one painting, the Mona Lisa, all the passions and preoccupations of a lifetime come together.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39The Mona Lisa is the first great psychological portrait.
0:57:39 > 0:57:44It's Leonardo's attempt to capture the essence of life itself.
0:57:44 > 0:57:47It's not a mystery that's easily resolved,
0:57:47 > 0:57:50but he's caught an instant AND an eternity.
0:57:50 > 0:57:55Like a magician, he's made the invisible visible.
0:57:58 > 0:58:03Don't pity the humble painter. He can be lord of all things.
0:58:03 > 0:58:05Whatever exists in the universe
0:58:05 > 0:58:10he has first in his mind, and then in his hand.
0:58:10 > 0:58:15By his art, he may be called the grandchild of God.
0:58:17 > 0:58:20# Mona Lisa
0:58:20 > 0:58:24# Mona Lisa, men have named you
0:58:24 > 0:58:32# You're so like the lady with the mystic smile
0:58:33 > 0:58:37# Is it only cos you're lonely
0:58:37 > 0:58:40# They have blamed you
0:58:40 > 0:58:42# For that Mona Lisa strangeness... #
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