0:00:07 > 0:00:09Late summer, 1498, Milan.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14Leonardo da Vinci had just put the finishing touches
0:00:14 > 0:00:17to a defining image of the High Renaissance.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24This wasn't just a decisive time in the history of art,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29but also for the world's competing civilisations.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32After centuries of relative dullness,
0:00:32 > 0:00:36Europe was now home to the most dynamic culture of all.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40Why?
0:00:40 > 0:00:42The answers are a little unexpected.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48The story of Europe's rise
0:00:48 > 0:00:51from what used to be called the Dark Ages
0:00:51 > 0:00:54is often presented as a purely European story.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57Somehow the glories of the Classical Age
0:00:57 > 0:01:01are rediscovered, and then the sculptures
0:01:01 > 0:01:05and the paintings just get better, and the churches get flashier,
0:01:05 > 0:01:07and the kings get mightier.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10Go, those Europeans!
0:01:10 > 0:01:11Not quite.
0:01:13 > 0:01:19Europe had been outclassed and outshone by the Chinese and Muslim civilisations.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22And it was only by learning,
0:01:22 > 0:01:27and then profiting from the misfortune of others,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30that Europe rose and shone.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34YELLING AND CLASH OF BLADES
0:01:36 > 0:01:41Europe's emergence would involve explosive brutality far way...
0:01:41 > 0:01:44EXPLOSIONS AND SCREAMING
0:01:45 > 0:01:48..other cultures Europeans barely new...
0:01:51 > 0:01:52..Oriental inventions...
0:01:53 > 0:01:56..titanic sieges.
0:01:56 > 0:01:57YELLING
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Few cultures just keep going all by themselves.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06They steal rivals' ideas.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11They flow into the gaps that others leave behind.
0:02:11 > 0:02:15Civilisations aren't just shaped at the centre
0:02:15 > 0:02:20but also at the margins, on the edges,
0:02:20 > 0:02:27in the empty spaces where one day something unexpected arrives.
0:02:42 > 0:02:43BIRDSONG
0:02:48 > 0:02:51After the fall of Rome in the 5th century AD,
0:02:51 > 0:02:56Europe huddled, her optimism froze.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01Strange migrants poured in from the east.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06Towns shrunk. Learning was forgotten.
0:03:08 > 0:03:13The vitality came not from the old centres but from the edges.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21And no people were more vital,
0:03:21 > 0:03:23more unexpected
0:03:23 > 0:03:24than the Vikings.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35Crossing the seas and oceans by flat-bottomed boat,
0:03:35 > 0:03:39the Vikings had already terrorised
0:03:39 > 0:03:44and begun to colonise the British Isles, Iceland and France.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47They'd even reached Greenland and North America.
0:03:48 > 0:03:53Now they were heading deep into the heartlands of eastern Europe.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57BIRD CALLS
0:03:57 > 0:04:01When it comes to civilisation,
0:04:01 > 0:04:06the Vikings from Norway, Sweden and Denmark haven't had a very good press.
0:04:06 > 0:04:14Europeans tended to see them as ravening marauders, pagans without mercy.
0:04:14 > 0:04:19They prayed to God, "Preserve us from the fury of the Norsemen."
0:04:22 > 0:04:26And raid they did, quite a bit of ravening.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28But the reason the Vikings really matter
0:04:28 > 0:04:32is because their greatest talent was for settling down.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39And one morning in the year 882,
0:04:39 > 0:04:43a group of Slavs in the small trading settlement of Kiev
0:04:43 > 0:04:49were about to be confronted by this strange talent of the men from the north.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57We know what happened next,
0:04:57 > 0:05:00astonishingly enough, through written records.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Though only from the point of view of the Vikings,
0:05:03 > 0:05:05or the Rus', as they were known.
0:05:06 > 0:05:11Below the ancient Monastery of the Caves in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev
0:05:11 > 0:05:15is a labyrinth of cells and underground churches -
0:05:15 > 0:05:19the last resting place of mummified monks.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24And here, in the early 10th century,
0:05:24 > 0:05:30some of the monks wrote what became known as The Russian Primary Chronicle.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37The great thing about The Primary Chronicle
0:05:37 > 0:05:40is that it is the Vikings speaking.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43It's quite clearly the Viking world view still.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48And the story it tells is that the local Slav tribes had no law
0:05:48 > 0:05:50and rose up against one another.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58And so they went to the Rus' and they said,
0:05:58 > 0:06:02"Our land is vast and rich, but it has no order in it.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06"Come in and rule over us."
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Is it likely that the invitation was quite so polite?
0:06:15 > 0:06:18No. But come the Vikings did.
0:06:22 > 0:06:27At the head of their expedition was Oleg, a Viking prince and leader of the Rus'.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32He now staked his claim to Kiev.
0:06:32 > 0:06:34SPEAKS NORSE
0:06:37 > 0:06:39YELLS
0:06:48 > 0:06:50SCREAMS
0:06:50 > 0:06:52YELLS IN TRIUMPH
0:06:52 > 0:06:57Victorious, Oleg declared himself the new prince of Kiev.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03And Kiev grew into the royal capital of a region that became known
0:07:03 > 0:07:05as the land of the Rus'.
0:07:07 > 0:07:08Or as we'd say today...
0:07:08 > 0:07:10Russia.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14Kiev still celebrates Oleg's victory
0:07:14 > 0:07:18as its real founding moment. And quite rightly,
0:07:18 > 0:07:23because what Oleg achieved was he united all the tribes around
0:07:23 > 0:07:26and forced them to pay tribute.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29He and the Vikings now had a stranglehold
0:07:29 > 0:07:31on all the trade running from north to south.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41Many great civilisations have begun on river banks.
0:07:41 > 0:07:42And here on the Dnieper,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46furs, wax and slaves went south,
0:07:46 > 0:07:49while silver - mined in Afghanistan
0:07:49 > 0:07:53by the powerful, new civilisations of Islam - went north.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58At the mouth of the Dnieper was the Black Sea -
0:07:58 > 0:08:02gateway to the largest and wealthiest city in Europe,
0:08:02 > 0:08:04Miklagard,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07the Viking name for Constantinople.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13A source of trade and ideas,
0:08:13 > 0:08:17it was also home to the Greek Orthodox Christian Church.
0:08:20 > 0:08:22BIRD CALLS
0:08:26 > 0:08:29A century after its birth,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32Kiev was still as pagan as its Viking founders.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38Its ruler at the time, Vladimir the Great,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41wasn't an obviously religious man.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46One chronicler described him as "Fornicator immensus".
0:08:48 > 0:08:51But Vladimir decided that an up-and-coming city
0:08:51 > 0:08:55needed one of these fashionable, new-fangled religions.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59And he came up with his own unusual way of choosing which one.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04It's said that he asked representatives of Roman Catholicism,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08Greek Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam
0:09:08 > 0:09:11to come here and persuade him.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13"Go on, argue. Convert me."
0:09:13 > 0:09:16The old Viking warrior was quite interested in Islam
0:09:16 > 0:09:21until he heard that it would involve giving up alcohol, at which point he said,
0:09:21 > 0:09:23in effect, "OK, you're out."
0:09:23 > 0:09:28In the end, he chose Greek Orthodox Christianity
0:09:28 > 0:09:31and began to build the first stone church in Kiev.
0:09:31 > 0:09:32It was a momentous choice
0:09:32 > 0:09:38because so much of what we think of as the look of old Russia,
0:09:38 > 0:09:43those onion domes, the priests and the monasteries and the icons,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46all goes back to Vladimir's decision.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00What had started with trade - furs and silver -
0:10:00 > 0:10:04had flowered into culture, architecture and religion.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06By the 10th century,
0:10:06 > 0:10:11Europe had an eastern Christian border, drawn by the Vikings
0:10:11 > 0:10:14and lasting to the present day.
0:10:18 > 0:10:24Inside that border, Christian Europe still seemed unsophisticated, a bit ploddy.
0:10:27 > 0:10:32Particularly compared to the vibrant, intellectual culture developing
0:10:32 > 0:10:35across huge areas of the world under Islam.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44The year 827.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49A team of astronomers and mathematicians was at work in the Sinjar Desert,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51in north-western Iraq.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55They were led by Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58an Uzbek scholar from the House of Wisdom,
0:10:58 > 0:11:02the great centre of Islamic learning in Baghdad,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06itself the heart of the new Muslim civilisation.
0:11:17 > 0:11:19Al-Khwarizmi was struggling with
0:11:19 > 0:11:23one of the biggest scientific puzzles of the time -
0:11:23 > 0:11:27trying to accurately measure the circumference of the Earth.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35This trek across the desert was only the first stage in a project
0:11:35 > 0:11:40which had been commanded by the Caliph of Baghdad, Al-Ma'mun,
0:11:40 > 0:11:44who wanted him to use his great scientific understanding
0:11:44 > 0:11:47to produce an accurate map of the world
0:11:47 > 0:11:51which would show the huge extent of the Islamic empire.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00Islam already dominated an area bigger than the Roman Empire.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06By the ninth century, Muslim rulers had more than 30 million subjects,
0:12:06 > 0:12:12stretching from today's Pakistan in the East to Spain in the West.
0:12:21 > 0:12:27This is the age of vigorous, young, inquisitive Islam,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30bringing together ancient texts from all around the world,
0:12:30 > 0:12:35trying to understand them, pushing forward in science and maths.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38This is Islam's golden age.
0:12:43 > 0:12:48Al-Khwarizmi's idea was to measure the Sun's angle to the Earth
0:12:48 > 0:12:51until it changed by one degree.
0:12:51 > 0:12:57He worked out that his men had walked 64.5 miles before the angle changed.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00Using just sticks and a simple brass instrument,
0:13:00 > 0:13:06he calculated the circumference of the Earth to be 23,200 miles -
0:13:06 > 0:13:09a figure that, remarkably,
0:13:09 > 0:13:12is very close to the accurate calculation.
0:13:17 > 0:13:23Al-Khwarizmi went on to create a series of charts, listing more than 2,000 cities
0:13:23 > 0:13:27and geographical features right across the Islamic empire.
0:13:30 > 0:13:36Al-Khwarizmi was taking breakthroughs in trigonometry and arithmetic
0:13:36 > 0:13:38and putting them together and explaining them.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41His books were still being used hundreds of years later,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45and his real speciality was algorithms.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50In fact, the word comes from the Latin version of his name, Al-Khwarithmi.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54And of course algorithms are essential in modern computer programming,
0:13:54 > 0:13:57so every time you pick up your mobile phone,
0:13:57 > 0:14:02remember, there is an old Uzbek Muslim hidden inside it.
0:14:06 > 0:14:11At this time, the Islamic world had Christian Europe surrounded.
0:14:11 > 0:14:16The Spanish city of Cordoba was a glittering western outpost
0:14:16 > 0:14:20of the Muslim world, and the second-largest city on the planet,
0:14:20 > 0:14:22after Baghdad.
0:14:23 > 0:14:28It was a sparkling rebuke to the more meagre, muddy
0:14:28 > 0:14:30Christian kingdoms of northern Europe.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38At its centre stands the Great Mosque.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42In its praying hall
0:14:42 > 0:14:47shimmer 850 pillars of marble, onyx and jasper,
0:14:47 > 0:14:51an imaginative mingling of Roman columns
0:14:51 > 0:14:56and the memory of palm trees in some distant oasis.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59Fusion architecture.
0:15:02 > 0:15:08Cordoba's Royal Library was said to hold 400,000 books,
0:15:08 > 0:15:13at a time when the largest Christian libraries contained a few hundred.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19And where East met West, ideas were shared.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25Places like Cordoba were wonderful
0:15:25 > 0:15:29at taking the news from one part of humanity and passing it on,
0:15:29 > 0:15:31so, ancient Greek learning, Jewish philosophy,
0:15:31 > 0:15:36Hindu mathematics, Muslim astronomy and engineering
0:15:36 > 0:15:39were passed to the Christian world.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Eventually, the Christians would destroy the kingdom of Al-Andalus,
0:15:43 > 0:15:49but not before one enemy had passed on the torch of learning to the next,
0:15:49 > 0:15:56so that what we call the Dark Ages was lit up by Muslim Spain.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05At this point, you might have assumed
0:16:05 > 0:16:08the Islamic world would just keep advancing,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12that the future was scientific and Muslim.
0:16:17 > 0:16:24The answer to why it wasn't can be found in another story from the margins,
0:16:24 > 0:16:28from a world of remote grassland and forests.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34There's a very simple way of telling the human story.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37First, hunter-gatherers and then farmers,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40and then towns and cities and all the rest of it.
0:16:40 > 0:16:45But there's one group of people who stand completely outside this story,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48and they are the nomads,
0:16:48 > 0:16:53living on grassland which is too thin for farming
0:16:53 > 0:16:57but is wonderful for sheep and yak and goats,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00and so they move with the seasons.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03In many ways, the nomads are the people who tread most lightly
0:17:03 > 0:17:08on the surface of the Earth and leave least behind.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12But there is always an exception to the rule.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19In the 12th century, the Mongolian Steppe
0:17:19 > 0:17:24was home to hundreds of rival nomadic tribes.
0:17:24 > 0:17:30Into this world of feuding and violence, a boy was born.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32His name was Temujin.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN
0:17:37 > 0:17:42When Temujin was nine, his father was poisoned by a rival tribe.
0:17:42 > 0:17:44SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN
0:17:47 > 0:17:52Cast out with his mother and brothers, the young Mongol stayed alive
0:17:52 > 0:17:54by foraging and hunting.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07THEY SPEAK IN MONGOLIAN
0:18:10 > 0:18:15Temujin would never forget a lesson his mother taught him.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20"Brothers who work separately,
0:18:20 > 0:18:24"like a single arrow shaft, can be easily broken.
0:18:24 > 0:18:30"But brothers who stand together against a world, like a bundle of arrows,
0:18:30 > 0:18:32"cannot be broken."
0:18:35 > 0:18:37From unity came strength.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43This single piece of learned wisdom
0:18:43 > 0:18:47would be the basis of everything that Temujin would achieve.
0:18:52 > 0:18:58As he got older, Temujin fought and manoeuvred his way to lead his clan.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04But his ambition was much greater than that.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10Temujin's greatest achievement was to unite the tribes of the Steppes.
0:19:10 > 0:19:15When he defeated them, instead of offering them exile and disgrace,
0:19:15 > 0:19:22he would offer them brotherhood and a share in the spoils of future wars.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24And quite soon,
0:19:24 > 0:19:30the rival tribes were being melded together into one people,
0:19:30 > 0:19:33one army, riding and fighting together.
0:19:38 > 0:19:44In 1206, Temujin took the title "universal ruler",
0:19:44 > 0:19:46or Genghis Khan.
0:19:51 > 0:19:57And he began to expand his empire beyond Mongolia.
0:19:57 > 0:20:01In just six years, his army swept across northern China
0:20:01 > 0:20:04and in 1215, ransacked Beijing, giving the Mongols
0:20:04 > 0:20:07weapons they'd never seen before.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13Defeating the Chinese gave Genghis Khan access
0:20:13 > 0:20:15to awesome new military technology -
0:20:15 > 0:20:21battering rams, scaling ladders, monster-sized crossbows,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24and catapults that could fire firebombs.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35With China now absorbed into his growing empire,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38Genghis turned his army west
0:20:38 > 0:20:41and marched into Central Asia
0:20:41 > 0:20:44to confront the greatest adversary of all -
0:20:44 > 0:20:46the forces of Islam.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53In the spring of 1220,
0:20:53 > 0:20:58the Mongols reached the magnificent Eastern outpost of the Islamic empire,
0:20:58 > 0:21:00Bukhara.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06Bukhara, like Merv, Baghdad, and Samarkand,
0:21:06 > 0:21:11was where the rich, optimistic heart of the Islamic world could be found.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15SHOUTS ORDERS
0:21:17 > 0:21:22But Bukhara had never experienced anything like the Mongols.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27The combination of Chinese technology
0:21:27 > 0:21:33and Genghis Khan's disciplined, fearsome army of nomad horsemen
0:21:33 > 0:21:38produced a new kind of army, a new kind of threat.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49The siege of Bukhara raged for 15 days,
0:21:49 > 0:21:52until the city was finally scorched into submission.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58When Genghis entered Bukhara, his army showed no mercy.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09And Genghis himself was honoured, as always,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12with the first pick of the captured women.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20Bukhara was only the start.
0:22:20 > 0:22:25One by one, the other great Muslim treasure-house cities were annihilated.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31By 1223, Genghis Khan's destruction
0:22:31 > 0:22:35of the Muslim empire in Central Asia was complete.
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Within 20 years, the Mongol empire stretched from Beijing in the East
0:22:45 > 0:22:48right through the land of the Rus', into eastern Europe,
0:22:48 > 0:22:50almost to the gates of Vienna.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53Genghis Khan's belief in strength through unity
0:22:53 > 0:22:57had resulted in the largest land empire in history.
0:23:00 > 0:23:05In his homeland today, the great warrior emperor is revered as a national hero
0:23:05 > 0:23:11and immortalised by this 40m-high steel monument.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18But it seems as if Genghis Khan,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21a man of many concubines and conquests,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24may have achieved immortality of a different kind.
0:23:24 > 0:23:30In 2003, scientists discovered a specific genetic marker
0:23:30 > 0:23:32in men in Europe and Asia,
0:23:32 > 0:23:37which originated a little less than 1,000 years ago,
0:23:37 > 0:23:41in an area suspiciously close to that of the Mongol empire.
0:23:41 > 0:23:48And they concluded that probably 16 million men alive today
0:23:48 > 0:23:54really did spring from the loins of Genghis Khan.
0:24:00 > 0:24:05By wiping out the heart of the original Muslim civilisation,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08Genghis Khan left the way clear
0:24:08 > 0:24:11for another part of the world to begin to grow.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14Christian Europe.
0:24:21 > 0:24:26Trade flourished between East and West in the century after Genghis died,
0:24:26 > 0:24:32an era of peace known as the Pax Mongolica.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43Flashy fabrics and pungent spices had travelled along the Silk Road
0:24:43 > 0:24:46to Europe from ancient times, but the lands they came from -
0:24:46 > 0:24:49China, indeed all of the Far East -
0:24:49 > 0:24:53remained a mystery in the West.
0:24:53 > 0:24:59After the victories of Genghis Khan, the Silk Road was opened to outsiders.
0:25:00 > 0:25:06And soon, it would set the imagination of Europe aflame.
0:25:15 > 0:25:17Genoa, 1298.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22Two political prisoners share a prison cell.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29One man is Rustichello of Pisa, a writer of popular tales.
0:25:29 > 0:25:35The other...is a gabby Venetian with a fabulous story to tell.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39E dopo tre giorni di cammino sulle montagne...
0:25:39 > 0:25:45And in Rustichello, Marco Polo had found his perfect ghost writer.
0:25:50 > 0:25:55Marco Polo was a new and adventurous kind of European merchant.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58And Venice was becoming the essential hub
0:25:58 > 0:26:02for trade between Europe and the rest of the world.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10Its prosperity was built on ruthless commercial attitudes
0:26:10 > 0:26:16and a navy mass-produced at its world-famous shipyard, the Arsenale.
0:26:21 > 0:26:28But the Venetians were less interested in conquering than doing deals.
0:26:28 > 0:26:35And in a world that craved foreign tastes, you got the best deals by looking east.
0:26:38 > 0:26:43The Venetian fleets were tightly tied into a huge trade network
0:26:43 > 0:26:45dominated by the Muslim world,
0:26:45 > 0:26:48and dealing not just in slaves but in timber,
0:26:48 > 0:26:53fur, salt and the incredibly valuable spices.
0:26:55 > 0:27:01The young Marco Polo's world was already flavoured
0:27:01 > 0:27:05and scented with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves and pepper.
0:27:05 > 0:27:10This was literally the smell and taste of the East.
0:27:10 > 0:27:15And he dreamed from an early age of following the ancient Silk Road
0:27:15 > 0:27:17which led to China.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24In 1271, aged just 17, he was offered
0:27:24 > 0:27:28a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with his father and his uncle.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33He set out east from Venice, bearing greetings from the most powerful man
0:27:33 > 0:27:36in Western Europe, Pope Gregory X.
0:27:39 > 0:27:44Most Europeans barely moved more than a few miles from their birthplace.
0:27:44 > 0:27:46Heading out so far into the unknown
0:27:46 > 0:27:50must have felt like launching yourself at the moon.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09The trek took them more than three years
0:28:09 > 0:28:13through the deserts and the mountains of Asia.
0:28:24 > 0:28:29Finally, in 1275, they reached their destination.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40The court of Kublai Khan in Shangdu,
0:28:40 > 0:28:42better known as Xanadu.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55Xanadu seemed an earthly paradise.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07Kublai Khan was entranced by the civilisation he now ruled.
0:29:07 > 0:29:10He was a Mongol becoming Chinese.
0:29:12 > 0:29:16His court celebrated the flow of ideas.
0:29:16 > 0:29:22This was a land of safe roads, broad canals and manufactured goods.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30Still, he was fascinated by his visitors from Italy
0:29:30 > 0:29:32and their message from the Pope.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35He briefly considered turning Christian himself...
0:29:35 > 0:29:37briefly.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41Pleased with their tales of distant lands,
0:29:41 > 0:29:47he invited them to be part of his inner circle of diplomats and advisers.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49Marco Polo told Rustichello
0:29:49 > 0:29:53he travelled to distant corners of China
0:29:53 > 0:29:56on diplomatic missions for his patron.
0:29:56 > 0:30:02Later, he'd tell of astonishing things never seen in Europe,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05such as money made of paper,
0:30:05 > 0:30:09the burning of pieces of black stone for fuel,
0:30:09 > 0:30:13and the practice of eating snakes and dogs.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17Though other things you'd think he'd notice,
0:30:17 > 0:30:21such as chopsticks or the Great Wall of China,
0:30:21 > 0:30:25were missing from his tales when he finally got home.
0:30:32 > 0:30:38Around some men, stories gather like flies.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42It's said that when Marco Polo returned to Venice
0:30:42 > 0:30:46after 24 years travelling in China and the Far East,
0:30:46 > 0:30:50dressed in greasy furs and filthy silks,
0:30:50 > 0:30:54he simply slit open the seams of his clothes,
0:30:54 > 0:30:59and a cascade of rubies and emeralds poured out.
0:30:59 > 0:31:01It's a good story, but take it with a pinch of salt,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04because even in his lifetime, Marco Polo was known
0:31:04 > 0:31:07as Marco Il Milione - Marco Millions.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11Not because of his wealth but because of his exaggerations.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14Millions of this, millions of miles, millions of that.
0:31:18 > 0:31:24At this point, Marco Polo might have disappeared from the pages of history.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27Instead, he dictated himself into them.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30..arrive su un alto...
0:31:30 > 0:31:33During their imprisonment, Rustichello of Pisa
0:31:33 > 0:31:37noted down his cellmate's stories.
0:31:37 > 0:31:38..trovi un fiume bellissimo!
0:31:38 > 0:31:44And in 1298, copies of the manuscript began circulating around Europe,
0:31:44 > 0:31:47as Marco Polo's Description Of The World.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51And Europe was gripped.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00Marco Polo's message was simple and seductive.
0:32:00 > 0:32:06There was a fabulous world of wealth and opportunity beyond Europe.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17But as Europeans would soon learn,
0:32:17 > 0:32:22there was also a dark side to this new international network.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25Seven years after Marco Polo's death,
0:32:25 > 0:32:31a strange epidemic in China started killing people in huge numbers.
0:32:32 > 0:32:38Very soon, the Black Death, carried on ships, probably by rats,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41spread into the Mediterranean region and then beyond.
0:32:44 > 0:32:47The same exchange of goods and people that had made Venice so rich
0:32:47 > 0:32:50was now taking a terrible revenge.
0:32:51 > 0:32:55Across Europe, bustling markets became ghost towns,
0:32:55 > 0:32:58villages emptied,
0:32:58 > 0:33:02literacy retreated, authority tottered.
0:33:02 > 0:33:09Marco Polo had issued a great, optimistic rallying call,
0:33:09 > 0:33:13but Europe was simply too weak to respond.
0:33:16 > 0:33:21The old core of the Islamic empire had been destroyed by Genghis Khan.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26But the decimation of Christian Europe by the Black Death
0:33:26 > 0:33:31meant that the stand-off between these two great religions would go on.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45Yet trade between them always continued, too,
0:33:45 > 0:33:47especially between Venice
0:33:47 > 0:33:50and the fabulously wealthy Muslim city of Cairo.
0:33:53 > 0:34:00And in July 1324, something appeared on the horizon
0:34:00 > 0:34:04that would have a startling effect on Cairo's economy.
0:34:04 > 0:34:09A train of up to 60,000 soldiers, 70 camels,
0:34:09 > 0:34:14and 500 slaves carrying sceptres of gold.
0:34:19 > 0:34:26Leading this astonishing procession was an African king, Mansa Musa,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29on a pilgrimage to Islam's holy city, Mecca.
0:34:32 > 0:34:38They had spent a year marching more than 2,000 miles across the vast desert
0:34:38 > 0:34:42that separated most of Africa from the Mediterranean world.
0:34:49 > 0:34:55Mansa Musa was king of the greatest of the African empires south of the Sahara.
0:34:55 > 0:35:01Mali was a Muslim society where lots of people could read and write.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05It was a rich land based on farmers and fishermen,
0:35:05 > 0:35:10and on trading towns like Timbuktu and Djenne on the River Niger.
0:35:17 > 0:35:22The Niger was the lifeline of Mansa Musa's vast empire...
0:35:25 > 0:35:28..carrying good throughout his kingdom, which occupied
0:35:28 > 0:35:32nearly half a million square miles.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37But the most significant source of Mansa Musa's prosperity
0:35:37 > 0:35:41was a commodity craved by rulers all over the world...
0:35:43 > 0:35:44..gold.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49Mali was an African El Dorado,
0:35:49 > 0:35:52and most of the world knew nothing about it.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58Until now.
0:36:02 > 0:36:07When Mansa Musa's glittering caravan stopped off in Cairo, on its way to Mecca,
0:36:07 > 0:36:09he was an immediate sensation.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13He and his entourage spent three months
0:36:13 > 0:36:16in the city as guests of the Egyptian ruler,
0:36:16 > 0:36:21freely handing out gold to its astonished residents.
0:36:37 > 0:36:42Cairo at the time was the world's largest gold market.
0:36:42 > 0:36:48But he threw around so much of the stuff that the price of gold plummeted.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53Indeed, merely because of Mansa Musa's tips,
0:36:53 > 0:36:56the economy of Cairo, it is said,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59took ten years to recover.
0:37:04 > 0:37:08The sudden appearance of Mansa Musa and his gold was a revelation.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11The world had just got bigger and richer.
0:37:16 > 0:37:21By the end of the 14th century, two-thirds of the gold in Europe came from Mali.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28It's thanks to the Muslim trading world
0:37:28 > 0:37:32that Mali was able to touch hands with Europe.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36And it's thanks to the Muslim travellers and writers we know so much about it.
0:37:36 > 0:37:38But Mali was not alone.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42There were plenty of other African civilisations at this time.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46There was Zimbabwe, with its great stone-city dwellers.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49There was Benin, with its amazing metalworkers,
0:37:49 > 0:37:53who could rival anything in Italy or Germany at the time.
0:38:01 > 0:38:06But it was gold and glittering Mali that had caught the European imagination.
0:38:07 > 0:38:12And in 1375, when map-makers in Spain produced a series of charts,
0:38:12 > 0:38:15known as the Catalan Atlas,
0:38:15 > 0:38:20Mansa Musa was shown sitting at the centre of Mali.
0:38:21 > 0:38:25Mansa Musa had quite literally put Africa on the European map.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35Wherever European Christians reached outwards in the Middle Ages,
0:38:35 > 0:38:38they found Islam.
0:38:38 > 0:38:43These two great religions of the Book had been at war for centuries.
0:38:46 > 0:38:50The Christian Crusades to gain control of the Holy Land
0:38:50 > 0:38:54and the city of Jerusalem had inspired Europe,
0:38:54 > 0:38:56but then the tide turned,
0:38:56 > 0:39:02and Muslim Turks, the Ottomans, pushed deep into once-Christian lands.
0:39:04 > 0:39:10But all that time, religious propaganda cast a discreet veil
0:39:10 > 0:39:16over a flourishing web of trade and ideas passed between the rivals,
0:39:16 > 0:39:21and that is true even of the most epic moment in the story -
0:39:21 > 0:39:24the Siege of Constantinople.
0:39:31 > 0:39:35May, 1453.
0:39:35 > 0:39:40The Ottoman leader Mehmet II had dreamed of possessing Constantinople
0:39:40 > 0:39:42since he was a small boy.
0:39:43 > 0:39:49It was a vital trading crossroads at the edge of Christian Europe,
0:39:49 > 0:39:52protected by massive Roman walls.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59For more than 1,000 years,
0:39:59 > 0:40:03these were the most awesome defences in the Western world.
0:40:03 > 0:40:08They kept out rebels and renegades, and Islamic armies too.
0:40:08 > 0:40:15If a massive Arab siege in the early 700s had succeeded in breaking these walls,
0:40:15 > 0:40:20then there's no reason why the armies of Islam wouldn't have reached the North Sea.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22We've heard of the Great Wall of China -
0:40:22 > 0:40:25well, these were the great walls of Europe.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37Established by the Romans on seven hills,
0:40:37 > 0:40:44Constantinople had always seen itself as the new Rome, and its people Roman.
0:40:45 > 0:40:50They were fiercely proud of its imperial past and its magnificent churches.
0:40:50 > 0:40:55Including the greatest one in Christendom, Hagia Sophia.
0:40:59 > 0:41:06The city was still a storehouse of classical learning and ancient ritual.
0:41:06 > 0:41:08It was still hypnotic.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16But now, it faced its fiercest threat yet.
0:41:21 > 0:41:24SCREAMING
0:41:28 > 0:41:33In Mehmet, the Ottomans had a cool and calculating leader.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35SPEAKS IN TURKISH
0:41:35 > 0:41:37He was a pious Muslim,
0:41:37 > 0:41:43though there were plenty of Christians among his army of up to 400,000 soldiers.
0:41:46 > 0:41:51By contrast, Constantinople was seriously undermanned.
0:41:51 > 0:41:57The army defending the city numbered fewer than 5,000 people.
0:41:57 > 0:42:04Most of Christian Europe was far too busy making money to bother to come to its aid.
0:42:08 > 0:42:14Among the few who did was Giovanni Giustiniani Longo,
0:42:14 > 0:42:19a mercenary from Genoa and an expert at siege warfare.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39As the weeks passed, the city was slowly throttled.
0:42:46 > 0:42:47For the people of Constantinople,
0:42:47 > 0:42:51the days before the final attack were days of bad omens.
0:42:51 > 0:42:52WOMAN SHOUTS
0:42:54 > 0:42:58The priests carried a huge icon of the Virgin Mary through the streets,
0:42:58 > 0:43:01praying for her to intercede.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05But the icon seemed strangely heavy, and they slipped and almost dropped it.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07Bad omen.
0:43:07 > 0:43:10Then, there was a terrible rainstorm, turning the streets into rivers,
0:43:10 > 0:43:13worse than anyone could ever remember.
0:43:13 > 0:43:15Bad omen.
0:43:15 > 0:43:21And finally, there was an unearthly, eerie, red glow in the sky
0:43:21 > 0:43:24which seemed to bathe the dome of St Sophia
0:43:24 > 0:43:28with a colour rather like that of human blood.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31You don't get many omens worse than that.
0:43:31 > 0:43:36It seemed to the people of what had once been called the city of God
0:43:36 > 0:43:40that perhaps God was deserting them.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47BELL CHIMES
0:43:51 > 0:43:58At 1.30am on the night of the 29th of May, the city came under all-out assault.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02EXPLOSIONS
0:44:07 > 0:44:12Giustiniani rallied every able-bodied defender to the walls.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16Facing him was, well, Christian technology.
0:44:16 > 0:44:24Awesome siege guns made for Mehmet by Hungarian and German technicians.
0:44:26 > 0:44:31Constantinople managed to hold off the remorseless attackers for five hours.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40But then, Giustiniani was mortally wounded.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45Panic quickly spread amongst his exhausted men.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49SHOUTING
0:45:01 > 0:45:06Wave upon wave of Ottoman soldiers now smashed their way into the city.
0:45:15 > 0:45:22On that final morning, Hagia Sophia was crammed with the last of the Romans.
0:45:25 > 0:45:30Terrified people, old men and children, nuns and noblemen,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33crammed in here for a final mass.
0:45:33 > 0:45:38Up there on the altar, the priest would be chanting and praying,
0:45:38 > 0:45:42and yet above their voices was the sound of the great oak doors
0:45:42 > 0:45:45splintering under Ottoman axes.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49And as the screaming inside the church got louder,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52and the chanting by the priests got louder,
0:45:52 > 0:45:54so did the sound of the axes,
0:45:54 > 0:45:57until finally...the doors gave way.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09So the most coveted city in the world was taken.
0:46:09 > 0:46:15And soon the great Christian cathedral of Hagia Sophia
0:46:15 > 0:46:18resounded to Islamic prayers.
0:46:18 > 0:46:21It's been a mosque ever since.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37Later that day, a triumphant Mehmet rode through the city.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43Even he was shocked by the scale of the slaughter.
0:46:46 > 0:46:53And so an empire which had lasted for more than 1,100 years gave way to the Ottomans.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Christianity was replaced by Islam.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02The news of the fall of Constantinople arrived in the rest of Europe
0:47:02 > 0:47:06like a thunderclap, and it spread like wildfire.
0:47:06 > 0:47:11But no sooner was the blood dry on the corpses of the defenders,
0:47:11 > 0:47:16including many heroic Genoese and Venetians,
0:47:16 > 0:47:20than boats were setting sail again from Genoa
0:47:20 > 0:47:24and from Venice back to Ottoman Istanbul,
0:47:24 > 0:47:27seeking terms of trade with the Sultan.
0:47:28 > 0:47:33Almost as soon as the gunpowder smell had faded,
0:47:33 > 0:47:37it was back to business as usual.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40Business never rests.
0:47:45 > 0:47:51The capture of Constantinople was the Ottomans' greatest victory.
0:47:51 > 0:47:54But it also marked the end of an era.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57This was the last great medieval siege.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03And what Mehmet could not have realised
0:48:03 > 0:48:10is that the most advanced, pushy part of the world had already moved on.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13The great new cultural clash
0:48:13 > 0:48:18was between the rising and fiercely competitive city states of Italy.
0:48:21 > 0:48:27Now brimming with wealth from trade and new ideas from around the world,
0:48:27 > 0:48:32Christian scholars who had fled from Constantinople found these buzzing towns
0:48:32 > 0:48:36to be citadels of knowledge, and from within their walls,
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Europe would be reborn.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45The Renaissance.
0:48:45 > 0:48:47Europe's rebirth.
0:48:47 > 0:48:52Well, it was a long and painful birth - it went on for about 200 years.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55We're told that the Renaissance was all about
0:48:55 > 0:48:59the rediscovery of classical learning, and it's absolutely true
0:48:59 > 0:49:02that in this period the great Latin and Greek writers
0:49:02 > 0:49:06begin to bubble back into Europe's consciousness.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14But, really, the Renaissance is about the new.
0:49:14 > 0:49:16New ways of building,
0:49:16 > 0:49:19new ways of painting and making,
0:49:19 > 0:49:22new money and new confidence.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25Not coming from empires or nation-states
0:49:25 > 0:49:29but from the great city-states of Europe
0:49:29 > 0:49:33and, in particular, the great city-states of northern Italy.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35Genoa.
0:49:35 > 0:49:36Pisa.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38Florence. Venice.
0:49:38 > 0:49:39And Milan.
0:49:44 > 0:49:461495.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52For 13 years, Leonardo da Vinci
0:49:52 > 0:49:58had been employed at the court of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.
0:50:00 > 0:50:05Every week, he bombarded the duke with new ideas and schemes
0:50:05 > 0:50:09for portable bridges, fighting machines...
0:50:09 > 0:50:12deep-sea diving suits?
0:50:14 > 0:50:17His talents were prodigious.
0:50:17 > 0:50:23A prolific inventor, he was also a musician, an engineer and an artist,
0:50:23 > 0:50:28and he had found the perfect place to fulfil his talents.
0:50:30 > 0:50:34Milan in the late 15th century was the wealthiest city in Italy.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40With its ambitious duke,
0:50:40 > 0:50:45it offered a fertile environment for new thinking, risk-taking.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47The duke's family, the Sforzas,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50were part of a new political class who had grown rich
0:50:50 > 0:50:54from Europe's ever-expanding trade networks.
0:50:54 > 0:50:58Like present-day oligarchs, they dealt in money and power,
0:50:58 > 0:51:03but what they craved was respectability.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09Ludovico wasn't exactly aristocracy.
0:51:09 > 0:51:14His father had been a mercenary warlord who kept changing sides.
0:51:14 > 0:51:16Fight for absolutely anybody.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19And he'd ended up effectively grabbing Milan.
0:51:21 > 0:51:27The Sforzas didn't exactly need bling, but they needed some class.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30They needed some artistic bedazzlement
0:51:30 > 0:51:36to try to make the people out there forget where they'd come from.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44Leonardo was paid to provide this.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48But he wasn't a day-job kind of man.
0:51:48 > 0:51:53He filled notebooks with sketches and scribbled thoughts,
0:51:53 > 0:51:58digging into the underlying structures and curious parallels
0:51:58 > 0:52:01he found all around him in nature.
0:52:03 > 0:52:10In Leonardo's time, there is no division between art and science.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14The artist studies the laws of perspective,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16works out how colours change,
0:52:16 > 0:52:21looks very closely at the underlying structure of things.
0:52:23 > 0:52:28The artist learns how to grind lenses to look more closely,
0:52:28 > 0:52:32learns how to cast metal to create a statue.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38Science is just knowledge, and learning
0:52:38 > 0:52:44the practical skills which allow other things, including art, to be made.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51And now the Duke gave Leonardo a chance to pull together
0:52:51 > 0:52:55his studies of geometry and perspective and human anatomy
0:52:55 > 0:52:58for one spectacular painting.
0:53:10 > 0:53:16Sforza commissioned Leonardo to paint Christ's last supper with his 12 disciples
0:53:16 > 0:53:18on the wall of the monks' dining room
0:53:18 > 0:53:22in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.
0:53:24 > 0:53:28It was a traditional scene, one that had been painted many times before.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31Io voglio un grande...
0:53:31 > 0:53:32va bene?
0:53:32 > 0:53:37Above all, the Duke wanted his Last Supper to be big and impressive.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41But Leonardo realised this was an opportunity
0:53:41 > 0:53:44to do something genuinely new.
0:53:47 > 0:53:52Leonardo was obsessed by the now and the future.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54He was a compulsive experimenter.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58Like modern scientists, he was fascinated by finding
0:53:58 > 0:54:01the hidden patterns underneath reality.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03He wasn't about looking back.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06He was about looking better, looking more intently,
0:54:06 > 0:54:10looking around him and looking ahead.
0:54:15 > 0:54:20Leonardo decided to freeze one dramatic moment in time.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25The climax of the story, when Christ revealed to his disciples
0:54:25 > 0:54:27that one of them would betray him.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37And every posture, every gesture,
0:54:37 > 0:54:43every facial expression in the painting would be taken from real life.
0:54:46 > 0:54:52Leonardo ransacked the streets of Milan looking for faces for the disciples.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55The really difficult one was Judas.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58And, apparently, he spent nearly a year
0:54:58 > 0:55:04looking for somebody with the right mix of cruelty and evil to play Judas.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12Leonardo drew on a series of his own anatomical sketches
0:55:12 > 0:55:15to capture the essence of human expression.
0:55:19 > 0:55:24Slowly, the painting and its characters began to emerge.
0:55:34 > 0:55:40Finally, after three years of painstaking work, The Last Supper was finished.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48Boungiorno signore. Per favore.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51- Posso... - Aspetta.
0:56:25 > 0:56:30Art and science had come together in miraculous harmony.
0:56:31 > 0:56:38Leonardo had humanised the disciples by allowing them to show raw emotions.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40Shock.
0:56:40 > 0:56:42Grief.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44Anger.
0:56:45 > 0:56:50Building on Islamic scholarship of optics and perspective,
0:56:50 > 0:56:55he draws our eye to Christ at the centre of the table.
0:56:55 > 0:56:58Everything radiates from him.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06For the people who first saw it,
0:57:06 > 0:57:10this would have been almost like a hallucination.
0:57:10 > 0:57:14Sitting and eating in this room, they would have been drawn towards Christ
0:57:14 > 0:57:19almost as if they were sitting and eating with Christ in person.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23In its day, this was the shock of the new.
0:57:28 > 0:57:35Leonardo remains a standard-bearer for the new confidence of Christian Europe,
0:57:35 > 0:57:40but its journey to Renaissance was far more than simply a European story.
0:57:40 > 0:57:48That muddy backwater had absorbed wealth and ideas from all around the world.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51Some of that mud was now paved with marble,
0:57:51 > 0:57:57and the backwater now thronged with merchants' ships, adventurers.
0:57:57 > 0:58:01Europe was ready to spread her sails.
0:58:06 > 0:58:08In the next programme...
0:58:08 > 0:58:09EXPLOSION
0:58:09 > 0:58:12..the age of plunder.
0:58:12 > 0:58:15Exploration, conquest...
0:58:16 > 0:58:19..and the birth of capitalism.
0:58:22 > 0:58:25If you'd like to know a little bit more about how the past is revealed,
0:58:25 > 0:58:30you can order a free booklet called How Do They Know That?
0:58:30 > 0:58:33Just call:
0:58:35 > 0:58:38Or go to:
0:58:40 > 0:58:43And follow the links to the Open University.
0:58:49 > 0:58:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd