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I'm Andrew Graham Dickson and I'm an art historian. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
I'm Giorgio Locatelli and I'm a chef. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
We are both passionate about my homeland, Italy. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:12 | |
The smells, the colour, this is what food is all about for me. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:17 | |
The rich flavours and classic dishes of this land are in my culinary DNA. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:22 | |
And this country's rich layers of art | 0:00:22 | 0:00:25 | |
and history have captivated me since childhood. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
It's enough to make you feel as if you are being whirled up to heaven. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
We're stepping off the tourist track and exploring Italy's | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
Northern regions of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:40 | |
It's part of Italy that's often overlooked, but it drives | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
the whole country and I want to show off its classic dishes. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
Not to mention its hidden legacy of artist, designers, intellectuals. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:52 | |
Wow, this is incredible. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
This week we are in Lombardy, where I grew up. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
I can't wait to introduce Andrew to the hearty Lombardy food of my youth. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:03 | |
We'll also enjoy the ingenious art and thrilling design that | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
reveal how this region really is the motor of Italy. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
Lombardy may not be the most exotic region in Italy, | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
but, for me, it's special. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
Bordering Switzerland, we are closer here to Zurich than Rome. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:39 | |
There is only one place to start our journey, | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
my home town of Corgeno, by Lake Maggiore. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
I've cooked for Andrew many times at my restaurant, | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
but I'm taking him to where it all started, Casa Locatelli. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:53 | |
Mama, Papa. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:55 | |
Oh, ciao, Mama. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
Small daddy, he's a small daddy. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
He used to be bigger than me, but now he's... | 0:02:13 | 0:02:15 | |
-Ferruccio. -Pinuccia and Ferruccio. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:22 | |
No, I'll remember, I'll remember. I'm hungry. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
'We're here for lunch and polenta's on the menu.' | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
You see, what happens here is, my mum runs the kitchen | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
and even when I come home, I'm not allowed to cook. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
So she cooks all the time. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:41 | |
An exception is made for polenta. Polenta is a man thing. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:50 | |
So my dad, as you can see, he's ready with his apron. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:55 | |
So we're going to leave my mum here. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
No. No, no, we do it on the fire on the garden. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
So we're going to cook the polenta downstairs. Let's go. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
SHE SPEAKS ITALIAN | 0:03:08 | 0:03:10 | |
It has to taste of smoke, otherwise, it's not good. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:12 | |
Even though she's the captain of the kitchen, | 0:03:12 | 0:03:14 | |
she's still telling you how to do the polenta. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
She's got to prepare the mushroom and the thing | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
and we go and do the polenta. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:23 | |
'Polenta, made from ground maize, really is the pasta of the north. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:28 | |
'In fact, the southerners call us Lombards, Polentoni, | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
'because we eat so much of the stuff.' | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
OK, you see, it's the most simple thing. You know, you just need a fire | 0:03:34 | 0:03:39 | |
and a paiolo, which is this like cast iron, and then copper inside. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
And so, I remember when I was little I used to see all the shepherds | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
going around with their flocks, and they had the donkey | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
and on the donkey they will have the paiolo on the back. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
-So that would actually make polenta in the field? -That's right. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
-On the open fire? -That's why you make it on the open fire. | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
During the war, that was the only thing that they had, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
polenta and when the partisan, which were striving here, | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
-you know it's like lost... -The heroes? -The heroes. -That lived in the woods. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
Yeah, you know they were living in the woods. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
They'll camp, you're duty as a, somebody that | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
didn't like the Fascists, obviously, at that point | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
was to give half of your polenta to them. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
A beautiful colour! It's like saffron or something. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
-Beautiful yellow. This is Roberto -This is your... -This is my brother. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
This is your brother. You look exactly, nothing like you. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
No, he's been training how to do polenta for the last 20 years. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
-Who's the older brother? -He is. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
And he's the one that's getting all the training. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
I'm just been around just doing Michelin starred food. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:41 | |
You know, something not very important. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
I'm hungry. Is this the moment of truth? | 0:04:46 | 0:04:48 | |
This is the most important moment. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
The man job is done, now we've got to go upstairs | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
-and see what the girls have managed to... -Fantastic. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
..Rustle up. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:03 | |
I like the way, I like the way it's all swaddled up like a baby. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:07 | |
While we were making the polenta, my mum was busy whipping up | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
a meaty brochette and some delicious porcini mushrooms. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:16 | |
Come, sit down. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
'This is the kind of food that ignited my love affair with cooking. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
'Hearty and simple, just the way I like it.' | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
-Wow. -Look at the lake. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
Eh, and eat the polenta. Now you are full emersion. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
-You smell it? This woody smell. -Mmm.. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:38 | |
-You see how the flavours are so settled, so...? -Mellow, gentle. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:43 | |
Mellow, gentle. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:44 | |
Almost like it reflects the personality of the people. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
Here, the people are a bit more mellow, | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
and the nature determine what the people eat, but it almost | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
looks like you almost determine the character of the people. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
Having visited Giorgio's home, it's only reinforced my sense of how | 0:06:00 | 0:06:05 | |
strong an influence his earthy Lombard roots have had on him. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:10 | |
But there are still sides to this region he doesn't know. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:13 | |
Lombardy is a treasure trove of surprising little known | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
works of art, and near the town of Bergamo there's a fascinating | 0:06:16 | 0:06:21 | |
masterpiece Giorgio has never seen before. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
Just a few miles from where you live, there's this chapel attached | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
to a grand house, and inside the chapel is one of the most | 0:06:27 | 0:06:32 | |
extraordinary weird fresco cycles of the whole Renaissance. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
-Right. -By an artist called Lorenzo Lotto. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
-Right. -It's absolutely bizarre. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
He's like the Renaissance version of Magritte or Salvador Dali. OK. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:46 | |
The frescos he created here in 1524 | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
were commissioned for the private chapel of the Suardi family, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
one of the oldest and most influential in the region. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
The chapel isn't usually opened to the public, | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
but the family have kindly agreed to let us in. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
-Same. -The same family from the time, so from the time of Lorenzo Lotto, | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
500 years later, still the same family. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
Oh, that's fantastic. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:18 | |
Originally, the Suardis didn't reserve the chapel | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
for their own exclusive use. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
Ordinary people who lived locally were encouraged to worship here. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:30 | |
The works of art inside plunge you back to 16th-century Lombardy, | 0:07:30 | 0:07:35 | |
a world in the grip of the Reformation. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
What do you think of this extraordinary weird image? | 0:07:40 | 0:07:45 | |
Yeah, it's like this fingers, isn't it? | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
It's very weird, surreal isn't it? | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
It's absolutely surreal. Christ in need of a manicure. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
He's got these strange...it reminds me of that German story | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
Struwwelpeter, the boy who lets his nails grow for ever. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
If you look, you see there's a little clue at the top | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
actually to what's going on. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:04 | |
Lorenzo Lotto is the only painter who took that line from the Bible. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:09 | |
Ego sum vitis vos palmites. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
I am the vine and you are the branches. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
And he turned it into this extraordinary image. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
What are all these image up there? | 0:08:16 | 0:08:18 | |
You've got saints growing in the...the whirls | 0:08:18 | 0:08:22 | |
and the curls of this vine as it reaches up. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
But although it's so striking as an image, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:27 | |
you mustn't think of it as a single scene, cos it's not. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
It's actually like a comic book. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
And what it tells is this very bloody story of Saint Barbara, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:37 | |
Santa Barbara, and she is the daughter of Dioscoro, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:42 | |
this evil pagan. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:44 | |
And he wants to marry her off, but he wants her to be a virgin, | 0:08:44 | 0:08:48 | |
-so he locks her into this tower. as he goes off on his travels. -OK. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:52 | |
What he doesn't know, is that when she's in the tower, | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
Christ visits her, gives her a vision, | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
she converts to Christianity. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
There she is kneeling, praying outside the tower, | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
always accompanied by this lovely little white dog with her. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
Yeah, the dog is there. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
And now this is where the story gets bloody and turns nasty. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
Dioscoro, her father, has come back and there he is saying, | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
"Now's the time for you to get married." | 0:09:16 | 0:09:18 | |
And she points up to heaven and says, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:20 | |
"No, I'm not going to marry any man, I have become a bride of Christ." | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
Now he has her tortured. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
He got her. Look, he's carrying her... | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
-He's got her hair there. -He's dragging her by her hair. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
Dragging her. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:33 | |
And it gets really nasty. I mean, it's X-rated, isn't it? | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
I mean, he doesn't pull his punches. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
So they apply burning brands to her breasts and her genitals. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:44 | |
It's very physical, you know. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:45 | |
Lotto's living in this time that's extremely violent. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
It really looks terrible, doesn't it? | 0:09:48 | 0:09:50 | |
And throughout this sort of bloody story, | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
sufferings are punctuated by little rays of hope. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:55 | |
And now an angel comes down from heaven | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
and gives her a white cloak to put around her body. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
And as soon as she puts the cloak around her body, her whole | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
body is healed, and then her little dog is accompanying her all the way. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
The thing about this fresco cycle is the date. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
-Hmm. -It's 1524, this is a time of huge crisis in Wittenberg | 0:10:12 | 0:10:18 | |
and the north, just over those mountains that he's painted. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
Luther is saying, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:23 | |
"We must split the church, we must protest against Rome." | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
And this fresco is the Suardi family's way of saying to | 0:10:26 | 0:10:31 | |
everybody who lived around here, don't buy into the idea | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
that this church is going to be split, stay true to the old faith. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
And also, I think just the picture has these kind of normal people. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
-So the people kind of sympathise with that. -Yeah, or... | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
..Can see themselves part of this thing. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
Absolutely, it's saying to the people, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
"This could happen in your world." | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
Hmm, hmm. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:53 | |
Lotto himself is actually represented in that fresco. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:56 | |
-Oh, -OK. I think that's almost like his signature. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
-Looks like that. -And he's looking at us. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
And he's got this haunted expression. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
He's almost saying, "Got the message?" | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
I think, and for such a small chapel and with such a big... | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
-I like that big message. -I think that's what he's saying. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
"Have you got the message?" | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
'He's an Italian artist with an Italian message, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
'but Lotto's style owes a lot to the art of northern Europe. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
'I love it!' | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
Andrew's right. Lombardy often has more in common | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
with northern Europe than Mediterranean south. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
Progressive and pragmatic, unlike the laidback southerners, | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
the Lombards like to get things moving. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
And you don't have to look far for examples from every era. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
My favourite is located on the river Adda, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
one of the greatest arteries of Lombardy. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
It may not be a fresco, | 0:11:54 | 0:11:55 | |
but I'm pretty sure Andrew will appreciate it. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
Andrew this is it, this is the bridge, this is it, we are here! | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
Oh, look at the drop! It's unbelievable. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
Turn, turn right here. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
Here you've got a lot of industry and, and, and exchange. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
So this bridge was very, very important for the communication. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
It is amazing. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
Built in 1889, the San Michele bridge was much admired | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
across Europe for its elegant design and cutting edge technology. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:28 | |
It's simple, beautiful, and most importantly functional. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:32 | |
Wow. It's enormous, isn't it? | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
It looks so tiny from the top, now it is just so big. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
What I like is, when you see it in the river, | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
it's like an eye staring into the 20th century. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
And this is what Lombardy is all about, you know, | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
looking towards the future. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
-They built this thing in two years. -Two years?! | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
In two years they built this thing. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
Their feet were definitely in Europe. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
These guys were there with everybody else with the Industrial Revolution | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
and building and going forwards. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
They're kind of the dreamers, but they're also engineers. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
Bellisimo. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
Well, I think we've had enough wandering around. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
It's time to go into the beating heart, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
the capital of this region, Milan. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
Even the road that takes you there, the A8, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:30 | |
expresses Lombardy's forward looking spirit. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:35 | |
They say it's the first motorway in the history of roads. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
That's right, not the German, not the English, | 0:13:38 | 0:13:41 | |
but the Italians built the first. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
North Italians. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
This was the first road, straight in a very Roman way | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
and went through all these big fat towns and took you to Milan. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:54 | |
This road is also very important at a symbolic level, | 0:13:54 | 0:13:58 | |
for what a northern Italy wanted to represent | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
in the earlier 20th century. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
Because throughout the 18th and 19th century, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
Italy was a byword for a country living in the past, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
going really nowhere. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:10 | |
And then suddenly this road, this road said no, no, no, | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
we're going somewhere and where are we going, we're going to the future. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:19 | |
Rome may be the capital, but Milan is the real power behind Italy. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:28 | |
Over 2,000 years old, it occupies a key position along | 0:14:28 | 0:14:32 | |
the ancient trade route between Rome and northern Europe. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:37 | |
Dynamic and industrious, | 0:14:37 | 0:14:38 | |
it remains the most important commercial centre in the country. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:42 | |
For me, there's only one place to start our exploration | 0:14:45 | 0:14:47 | |
of the city, the grand Gothic Cathedral. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Dominating the old city centre, it's the heart and soul of Milan. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
All roads seem to start and end here. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:58 | |
Construction started in 1386 and it's one of the earliest examples | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
of the great Milanese gift for design and engineering. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:06 | |
-Do you know, Giorgio, I think that's the first time... -Yeah. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
..I have ever seen the front of Milan Cathedral | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
without huge amounts of scaffolding on it. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
-It's the first time I've seen it so white. -Yeah. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
Even in the picture on the panettone, the one you buy | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
at Christmas, there's a picture of it and it's much greyer than that. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
It's wonderful this cathedral front. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
Ruskin loved it, he talked about its frost, crystalline beauty. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:32 | |
He thought it was almost like a snowflake | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
-that has come down to Earth. -Yes. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:36 | |
It's got that sort of structure of a snow flake. It's beautiful. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
It is impressive, isn't it? | 0:15:39 | 0:15:40 | |
-Shall we go inside? -Let's go and have a look. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
Built over six centuries, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
the cathedral is one of the largest in all of Europe. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
It's dedicated to the Madonna | 0:15:58 | 0:15:59 | |
and is still one of the great pilgrimage sights in all of Italy. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:04 | |
I've visited many times, and always find something new to marvel at. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:11 | |
'This time we're going to explore a very different part of the building.' | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
I love this, what a treat. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
'We're on our way to the roof of the Duomo, | 0:16:20 | 0:16:23 | |
'the most ingenious part of its design.' | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
-Oh, yes. -How beautiful is that?! | 0:16:26 | 0:16:30 | |
I think we've arrived. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
'We've arranged to meet one of the engineers currently restoring the roof.' | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
Hello. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
'Benigno Morlin works for the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, | 0:16:47 | 0:16:50 | |
'the 600-year-old workshop that built the cathedral, | 0:16:50 | 0:16:53 | |
'and is still dedicated to its restoration.' | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
These are pieces they've remade. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
Oh, beautiful. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:15 | |
OK so, they own, | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
they own the quarry where you actually get this stone from. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:25 | |
-It is an historic quarry. -It's an historic... -It's the same. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
-It's the same quarry... -It's the same quarry. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
..They got the stone from in the first place. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:33 | |
'It was modelled on the Gothic cathedrals of northern Europe. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
'But the Lombard builders couldn't resist adding a few | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
'innovations of their own. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
'And the construction of its roof was completely revolutionary.' | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
'Talking to Signore Morlin made us | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
'want to see more of the Duomo's crowning glory. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:14 | |
'I love how what might have been a purely functional feature | 0:18:14 | 0:18:17 | |
'has been made a thing of beauty. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:20 | |
'It's as if there's a whole other cathedral here up in the clouds. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
'And it's open to the public too.' | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
-It's a phenomenon, this building. -It is incredible. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
I tell you, it's the only great Gothic cathedral that seems | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
almost designed for you to be able to enjoy | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
and take pleasure in the structure of its making. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
Down here, you see, you've got the sort of series of walkways, | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
-pathways, it was always made to be walked on, enjoyed. -Right. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:46 | |
So all the different levels, you can see the structure, and as a | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
result of that, you know they've exercised their ingenuity, | 0:18:50 | 0:18:53 | |
whereas in other Gothic cathedrals, the spires and the minarets | 0:18:53 | 0:18:56 | |
just rise up to the sky pointing to God. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
Here they've become plinths for outdoor sculptures. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
You could say this is the first outdoor sculpture park. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
You know what it reminds me of, it reminds me of this, you know when | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
you wet the sand and you make these things and they just sort of | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
grow underneath your hands. It has the same kind of fragility to that. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
That's what's so beautiful about the Gothic, I think. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:18 | |
This cathedral is actually the engine room of what's made | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
Milan a great temple of modern technology and design, | 0:19:21 | 0:19:26 | |
because in the Gothic period, the mathematicians, the engineers, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
the architects, the designers, | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
they were brought into being by the needs of this cathedral. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
Solving problems. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
So yes, it's kind of a machine | 0:19:37 | 0:19:38 | |
that's constantly attracting to Milan, technological innovators. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:43 | |
'Back in the day, every great intellectual who came to | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
'Milan seems to have been involved with the cathedral. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
'And in the Duomo's archives, there's evidence of one particular | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
'genius and his small contribution.' | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
Roberto. Buongiorno. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
A list of payment for everybody who collaborated to build the Duomo. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:36 | |
A lot of people seem to have collaborated. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
Excusi, Roberto. Si. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:52 | |
This is, you've picked this one out for us and it's actually | 0:20:52 | 0:20:56 | |
evidence that Leonardus Florentinus, so Leonardo from Florence... Si. | 0:20:56 | 0:21:01 | |
..ie, Leonardo Da Vinci | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
had actually done some work for the cathedral. How wonderful. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
-The tiburio is the top... -The cupola. -That's right. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
What a wonderful little detail, cos that's far less than he would be | 0:21:30 | 0:21:35 | |
paid for the major commissions. And yet, a wooden model for a cupola is | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
a very complicated thing to make, so that suggests to me that he really | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
wanted to work on the cathedral, he wanted to leave a mark on Milano. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
-He understood something. -Yeah. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
-Well, of course, he didn't, in the end, design the cupola. -Yeah. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
-The model never got used. -No. -It's been lost. Grazie, Roberto. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
It's a pleasure. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
-Arrivederci. -Arrivederci. | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
'It's very revealing that Leonardo sold himself to | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
'the court of Milan as an engineer rather than an artist. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:09 | |
'He worked for the great Duke Ludovico Sforza for nearly 20 years. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
'Designing bridges, boats, weapons or war. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
'Design and engineering were the priorities in Milan. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
'They're what its success is built on.' | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
'That philosophy had a radical impact on the shape of the city. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
'Just a short walk from the Duomo, you can visit | 0:22:33 | 0:22:35 | |
'one of the most outstanding examples of technical imagination. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
'La Scala is amongst the most prestigious opera houses | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
'in the world, and we've been allowed to take a look inside.' | 0:22:44 | 0:22:49 | |
I've never been here before. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:51 | |
This, look at this! | 0:22:51 | 0:22:53 | |
I think it's the world's first horseshoe shaped theatre. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
That's right. And it's all designed with sound on their mind. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:03 | |
So it's incredible. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
You know, you see the shape of each thing and how it's made as well. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
-You know, to not destroy the echo. -The boxes? -Yeah, the boxes. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
-I'd love to come and actually... -You sing a little bit, can you sing? | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
THEY SING A NOTE | 0:23:15 | 0:23:16 | |
-No. -Oh. -Oh, no, I can't. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:20 | |
It is absolutely outstanding to be here. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:24 | |
But we didn't just come here to admire the theatre, | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
I'm taking Andrew to Il Marchesini, a restaurant in the same building. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:35 | |
It's owned by the most celebrated Italian chef in the world, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
Gualtiero Marchesi. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:42 | |
With three Michelin stars, he globalised Italian food | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
and made it the success it is today. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
Gualtiero is waiting for us, so come in and see. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
It's like a theatre curtain. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:52 | |
That's what it is, we are in the theatre restaurant. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:55 | |
Gualtiero makes this dish, one of his creations. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
And to me, it's the dish that really, really represents Milan | 0:24:18 | 0:24:24 | |
more than anything else that I have seen before. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
What's this dish called? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
Not just Milan! Italy. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
He says all Italy. THEY LAUGH | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
-With gold? -Yeah, with gold. -Yeah, with gold, saffron and... | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
-We are rich. -We're rich, I like it. -Yeah. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
One of the things that matter is to | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
really concentrate on the flavour. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
And very neat and clear flavoured. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
So even if there is a lot of creation in what he does, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:06 | |
it is always with a great respect for the flavours. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
Hmm. So what is the essential flavour in this risotto? | 0:25:09 | 0:25:14 | |
-The saffron. -The saffron? | 0:25:14 | 0:25:15 | |
Definitely, yeah. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:17 | |
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN | 0:25:23 | 0:25:25 | |
So it's turning the procedure upside down. OK. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
Or the risotto. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:35 | |
They also put a lot of cheese. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
To give the acidity. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
Then you taste only the cheese. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:43 | |
Taste it. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
-Mmm, wow. -Acidity. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:00 | |
-That's like erm... -Very high acid. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:02 | |
-..A beautiful reduction of wine... -Wine with onions. -..With butter. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
Beautiful thing! | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
When he said gold, I thought he meant he was actually going to | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
-put some gold leaf in it. -Hold on a minute. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
But he means, he means gold as in... | 0:26:24 | 0:26:25 | |
No, no, no, no, no, there is some gold coming. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
-..Metaphorical? -No, no, no, no, wait a minute. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:30 | |
-That's amazing. -Go on, you've got to taste it. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
I have to taste it. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:54 | |
Oh, what an idea. I'm just going to eat loads of gold. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
HE MOANS HAPPILY | 0:27:07 | 0:27:08 | |
And the shape of the rice. Can you feel the rice? | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
Yeah, you can get the shape of each of the rice in your mouth, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
which makes a difference how you flavour it. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
Innovation doesn't mean that you have to complicate things | 0:27:25 | 0:27:29 | |
or layer it so much. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:31 | |
And this is a clear example of somebody expressing himself... | 0:27:31 | 0:27:35 | |
-Simplicity. -..Without complicating things. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
So express yourself in simplicity, this is so important. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
Grazie. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:48 | |
Arrivederci. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:50 | |
I will have some more gold. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:51 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
'After sampling Marchesi's gold, | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
'what better way to walk off the richness | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
'than with a passeggiata through Milan's finest galleria. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
'Sophisticated and opulent, | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
'the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is the oldest shopping mall in Italy. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
'Strolling through this luxurious arcade, it's obvious why Milan | 0:28:13 | 0:28:18 | |
'is one of the fashion capitals of the world.' | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
Look how elegant they are. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:22 | |
Even the traffic wardens, look at them. Fantastic. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:26 | |
-Those are the cops. -Those are the traffic warden, not the cops. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:29 | |
-Only in Italy. -Only in Milan, you know. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
It's a bit of a temple of capitalism really, as you can see. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
Well, I think it's a cathedral of capitalism. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
I think what's amazingly daring about it | 0:28:44 | 0:28:46 | |
is that the Duomo is literally there. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:48 | |
And the Scala is there. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:49 | |
And the Scala is there, so you got the temple of art, | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
the temple of religion there | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
and you've got the temple of money here. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:56 | |
Because, yeah, this is what it's all about. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
It is and it's so grand! | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
1861, so it's, it's just a few years after | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
the Great Exhibition in London, the building of the Crystal Palace. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:08 | |
-Because it does look like that, doesn't it? -It's the same. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:10 | |
A Victorian sort of building. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:12 | |
And it's a great statement from a city to, | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
right in the middle of that, to really show their power. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:19 | |
And you know, the commercial. | 0:29:19 | 0:29:21 | |
You know, they are commercial animals those guys. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:24 | |
I think it's the only place where you can really see | 0:29:24 | 0:29:27 | |
and feel that sort of huge pride and self confidence, | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
-you know, across Italy in the Industrial Revolution. -Yes. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
You only really feel that here. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
-Yeah. There is one thing that I want to show you. -Yeah. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:37 | |
And whenever you come to this place, | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
there is this superstitious thing, and if you see any Milanese | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
walking through, they will come along and what they will do is | 0:29:43 | 0:29:47 | |
stand on the balls of the toro. It's called scica i ball al toro. | 0:29:47 | 0:29:52 | |
-And you go like that. -Step on the balls of the bull? | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
And you turn around and that's it. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:56 | |
Always in Italy there has to be a superstitious... | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
OK, is that 'cos you need balls | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
if you're going to pay the prices for some of these clothes? | 0:30:01 | 0:30:04 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:30:04 | 0:30:05 | |
'One of the things I love about the city is how open it is | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
'to new ideas and innovations. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:12 | |
'Although it cherishes its history, Milan isn't stuck in the past. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:18 | |
'Progressive, forward-thinking, it fostered one of the most | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
'revolutionary art movements of the early 20th century, Futurism. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
'It was dreamed up in 1909 | 0:30:26 | 0:30:28 | |
'by an eccentric poet and orator called Marinetti.' | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
Fillippo Tomasso Marinetti, in my opinion, wasn't a very nice man. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
-A lot of things wrong with him, he was a Fascist. -Misogynist. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:40 | |
He glorified war, but he did have a vision. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:44 | |
And I think he's a very interesting character because what he did was, | 0:30:44 | 0:30:47 | |
he set out to drag Italy into the 20th century, | 0:30:47 | 0:30:52 | |
into the modern world. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
The Futurist Manifesto, it's a guide to enjoying modern life. | 0:30:54 | 0:31:00 | |
Everything that an Italian perhaps at the beginning of the 20th century | 0:31:00 | 0:31:03 | |
might find disconcerting, that rapid movement of a tram, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:07 | |
a crowded street, the sudden sense that everything's moving, | 0:31:07 | 0:31:12 | |
it's confusing. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
And, Andrew, what was amazing is that when you travel the world | 0:31:14 | 0:31:17 | |
and when I went to New York and I went to the MOMA, | 0:31:17 | 0:31:19 | |
I was so shocked to see there is a room only of Futuristic painting. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:23 | |
In Italian museums, very rarely you find a whole room of Futurism. | 0:31:23 | 0:31:27 | |
Maybe you find one of these. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:28 | |
The Italians have kind of refused them this. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
I think that's part of the later story, because Futurism turned dark, | 0:31:31 | 0:31:34 | |
became associated with Fascism, it got a bad name in Italy. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:38 | |
But here in Milan, it's the one exception. A home city of Futurism. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:42 | |
They did actually create and build a great collection, | 0:31:42 | 0:31:45 | |
-which we're going to see and we're... -Yeah. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
And I think we're just about there. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:50 | |
Yeah, we are in Duomo, we have to get out now. | 0:31:50 | 0:31:52 | |
Andiamo, let's go and look at some electric art. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
'We're visiting the Novecento Museum, | 0:32:01 | 0:32:03 | |
'home to the best collection of Futurist art in Italy.' | 0:32:03 | 0:32:07 | |
I really like this. It's like a little capsule of Futurism, | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
all condensed into just a couple of galleries. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:13 | |
Here they begin, they're in Paris, they're in the cafes, | 0:32:13 | 0:32:17 | |
they're reading the papers, they're doing what Picasso had done, | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
they're trying to think, "What would it be like to be a modern artist?" | 0:32:20 | 0:32:23 | |
And I think, suddenly, on this other wall, bang, you've got the answer. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:27 | |
-Hmm. -They turn, this is not a very well-known Futurist, Achille Funi. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:32 | |
But he is turning to Milan, he's not in Paris, | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
he's painting Milan, he's painting a man getting off a tram. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:39 | |
That's what it looks like for real, look at that. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
It's like an explosion, isn't it? | 0:32:42 | 0:32:44 | |
I think what he's trying to, he's trying to capture that, | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
you know when we were on the tram, | 0:32:47 | 0:32:49 | |
that sense that the world is not still. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:51 | |
That there's the sound, you can almost hear the shriek of the tram. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
They do take their cue, to a certain degree, from Paris. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
Because Paris is the great centre of modern art, | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
but they're changing all the time. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:01 | |
Think of someone like Toulouse Lautrec painting the can-can girls. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:05 | |
Well, this is an Italian artist, Gino Severini | 0:33:05 | 0:33:07 | |
and this is what he makes of the can-can. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
This is very much an artist who's read Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:14 | |
-Hmm. -And he's interested in this idea that we are inhabitants | 0:33:14 | 0:33:17 | |
of the machine age, and when he looks at the chorus line, | 0:33:17 | 0:33:21 | |
it's as if he sees a group of people who've turned themselves | 0:33:21 | 0:33:24 | |
into a kind of animated piston engine. You know, legs kicking. | 0:33:24 | 0:33:28 | |
Yeah, 12 pistons going up. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:29 | |
It's almost like people becoming like the inside of a motor car. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
They were setting themselves quite a difficult task, | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
which is to capture in a still frame, a sense of movement. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:42 | |
This picture, once you read the title, you can see the subject. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
Girl Running On A Balcony. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:46 | |
It is there, the girls running on a balcony, literally. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:51 | |
-Like if it was different frames of a moving image. -Yeah. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:56 | |
The further you get, the more you can actually see the image moving. | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
It takes really shape. It is brilliant. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
One of the things I like about Futurism is, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
that they're trying to break up the language of the past. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
But the real star of the movement was a man called Umberto Boccioni. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
Look at this. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
This is, this is Boccioni's sort of masterpiece in sculpture. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:22 | |
And it's called Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space. | 0:34:22 | 0:34:28 | |
It was based, | 0:34:28 | 0:34:30 | |
how appropriate for one of the masterpieces of Milan, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:33 | |
with its two great football teams, | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
is based on the image of a football player. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
What do you think of it, do you like it? | 0:34:39 | 0:34:42 | |
I really, really like it. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:43 | |
It reminds me more than a footballer, | 0:34:43 | 0:34:45 | |
he actually looks like one of those | 0:34:45 | 0:34:47 | |
little robo transformers that my children used to have. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:52 | |
Yeah, well, I don't think it's a coincidence. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
It's the Futurist man striding into what he thought was the future. | 0:34:56 | 0:35:01 | |
'The Futurists didn't just want to revolutionise art, | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
'they wanted to transform how Italians ate as well. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
'Marinetti even wanted pasta banned. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
'And in 1930 he compiled a radical cookbook. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:17 | |
'I can't resist trying out a couple of recipes on Andrew.' | 0:35:19 | 0:35:22 | |
What is that? | 0:35:22 | 0:35:23 | |
Look, here you got a sandwich that instead of having | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
the bread on the outside, you have the salami on the outside | 0:35:26 | 0:35:29 | |
and the bread is in the inside. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:30 | |
You have got anchovies and you got green apple. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
Fantastic, it looks brilliant, doesn't it? | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
So it's really like a very Italian version of what they, | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
you know, what they thought the food of the future would be. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:43 | |
Do you expect me to like this? | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
Oh, I expect you to taste it! | 0:35:46 | 0:35:48 | |
You know, you know, I made an effort to make it | 0:35:48 | 0:35:50 | |
so you're going to have to taste it at least. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
OK. OK. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:55 | |
-Is it delicious or what? -What is that?! | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
ANDREW LAUGHS | 0:36:05 | 0:36:07 | |
I'm trying to be polite, Giorgio. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
No. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:10 | |
In deference to Fillippo Tomasso, but... | 0:36:10 | 0:36:14 | |
No, there is some...it's a quite an interesting taste, isn't it? | 0:36:14 | 0:36:18 | |
Hmm. | 0:36:18 | 0:36:20 | |
It's sort of a little bit disgusting when you bite into it because | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
you're chewing through vast amounts of thick, fatty salami. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:27 | |
-Taste the other one. -It's, do you...? | 0:36:27 | 0:36:29 | |
It's the other one. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
So what...the other one's a strong taste. OK. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:34 | |
And it has got, shall I tell you what's inside? | 0:36:34 | 0:36:36 | |
-No, let me guess. -OK, bite, go. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:39 | |
-Sandwich tasting. -This is... | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
Oh. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:48 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
That is amazing. That's amazing. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
I have to say, actually, I like this one. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
-It's got a banana in it. -I know. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:58 | |
And what you have to think about is, you know, | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
this is 100 years ago. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:03 | |
We're talking about certain ingredients that were so far ahead. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
These guys were so far out, much more than Heston Blumenthal is | 0:37:06 | 0:37:10 | |
with his snail porridge at the moment. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:12 | |
Banana. Man, they see banana once a year. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
And it's got anchovies, banana, and another very important thing. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
Mustard, like an English mustard. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
So they look again to the outside world, | 0:37:22 | 0:37:25 | |
they look to the English, they look to another world, | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
a world more industrialised than they one that they had. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
-It's seriously weird. -Seriously good as well, I think. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:35 | |
The perfect breakfast sandwich, isn't it? | 0:37:35 | 0:37:37 | |
It'll be really an energetic food, it's food on the go | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
and it's supposed to inspire you, and make you feel | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
like you are a modern man, that's what it's all about. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:45 | |
Bizarrely, if you told me what you were going to put in there, | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
-I wouldn't have even touched it. -Right. -But it's fantastic. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:52 | |
How many recipes in the Futurist Cookbook did you look at? | 0:37:52 | 0:37:55 | |
I read them all. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:56 | |
And how many did you think actually could be | 0:37:56 | 0:37:58 | |
turned into food you could eat? | 0:37:58 | 0:38:00 | |
Eh, two. THEY LAUGH | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
-So we're eating the only two recipes you thought... -Yeah. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:08 | |
..And I thought one of them was disgusting anyway, so. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
Cheers, man. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:13 | |
I think the only way to toast a banana and anchovy sandwich | 0:38:13 | 0:38:16 | |
is with pineapple liqueur champagne cocktail. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:18 | |
What are we doing? | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
'For all their exuberance, | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
'Marinetti and many of the Futurists were politically misguided. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
'When Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in 1922, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
'they embraced his radical policies to modernise Italy. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:37 | |
'Mussolini would bring Italy to its knees and into the Second World War. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:42 | |
'And there's one artist, Mario Sironi, who I think | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
'captures the darkness of this time better than anyone else. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:50 | |
'His work in the Novecento is a poignant reminder of how | 0:38:50 | 0:38:54 | |
'Fascism devastated Italy.' | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
These are some of Sironi's pictures in the '20s and '30s. | 0:38:57 | 0:39:00 | |
And here, Sironi seems, | 0:39:00 | 0:39:03 | |
I think, to be painting a kind of dark portrait of Italy | 0:39:03 | 0:39:06 | |
as it moves into the Fascist years, | 0:39:06 | 0:39:08 | |
as it moves towards totalitarians and... | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
It's very difficult to think that this guy | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
-was associated with that movement. -Yeah. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
I mean, what we see downstairs is this explosion of colour | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
and energy, and things in here are just like monochrome. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
There is no hope in this picture isn't there? | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
It's like the guy is almost fading away, isn't he? | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
And the other one is in desperation completely. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
Like there is no future. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
Sironi had it from both angles because the Fascists, who he was | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
supposedly working for, didn't like what he produced for them. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
And the avant-garde, the rest of Italy, as well, | 0:39:43 | 0:39:46 | |
didn't like him because he was Fascist. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:48 | |
And his work became ever increasingly melancholic. | 0:39:48 | 0:39:53 | |
If we look at this picture, | 0:39:53 | 0:39:55 | |
I mean, if anything, it's even darker than the other one. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
This melancholy figure, as it were, | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
stranded among the ruins of this new modern Italy | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
by a sort of shattered aqueduct. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
A night sky, it's all darkness, it's all despair. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:11 | |
Do you think these pictures do get to the heart of | 0:40:11 | 0:40:14 | |
this dark moment in Italian history? | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
Definitely. Definitely, both of them. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:18 | |
They really are very, very sad pictures. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:21 | |
You know, because my family have been through that. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
-My uncle got shot by the Fascists. -He was a partisan? | 0:40:24 | 0:40:27 | |
He was a partisan and he got killed. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:29 | |
All the family were involved in the Resistance. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:32 | |
When you hear my father talking about those years, | 0:40:32 | 0:40:34 | |
they just, you know, they were really suffering, there was no food. | 0:40:34 | 0:40:38 | |
The Americans were coming and bombing, | 0:40:38 | 0:40:40 | |
the Germans were running away, | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
you know, it's just really like a social implosion, the wars. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:46 | |
You know, somewhere along the line you understood that this was | 0:40:46 | 0:40:49 | |
what was going to happen. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
It's a rollercoaster ride, Italian history. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
'Despite the trauma suffered at the hands of the Fascists, | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
'the country bounced back. | 0:40:57 | 0:40:59 | |
'After the Second World War, Lombardy rolled its sleeves up | 0:40:59 | 0:41:02 | |
'and kick started the economic boom of the '50s and '60s, | 0:41:02 | 0:41:06 | |
'that transformed Italy into a modern country.' | 0:41:06 | 0:41:09 | |
'Even though they never stand still, | 0:41:15 | 0:41:17 | |
'the people of Lombardy never forget their roots. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:21 | |
'Much of Lombard life is rooted in our food, | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
'the kind of staple dishes I grew up eating. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:28 | |
'After a busy day, I think it's time for Andrew | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
'to experience a local classic.' | 0:41:31 | 0:41:34 | |
-We've been poncing around a lot. -Poncing around? | 0:41:34 | 0:41:37 | |
Yeah, we've been, we've been in the super shops | 0:41:37 | 0:41:40 | |
and things like that, I want to show the heart | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
that's really what the people eat, you know. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:45 | |
So you're going to de-poncify us through food. | 0:41:45 | 0:41:47 | |
Yes, that's right. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
So we have check out one very important ingredient. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:51 | |
It's very early in the season, see if we've got any cabbage. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
If we've got cabbage, I can cook you Cassoeula. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
'Hearty and earthy, the Cassoeula is just as representative | 0:42:05 | 0:42:10 | |
'of Lombardy as Marchesi's delicate risotto. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:13 | |
'With the vegetables chosen, it's time to go to the butchers, | 0:42:13 | 0:42:17 | |
'the Macelleria of Roberto Faravelli.' | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
See, this is the Macelleria. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:22 | |
This has been here for 50 years, Andrew, you know. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
We're going to meet the son. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
'The meat is the most important part of the Cassoeula. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
'This is real nose-to-tail eating. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:34 | |
'And I know Roberto will sort us out with the best cuts.' | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
-This is puntina. -Pork, spare ribs. -Spare ribs, yeah. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:43:13 | 0:43:15 | |
Sexy Italia, eh! | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:43:17 | 0:43:18 | |
-The nose. -The nose. Si. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
-Gelatine. -Gelatine. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
So you put the pig's nose in to make, to make it gelatinous? | 0:43:27 | 0:43:31 | |
That's right. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:32 | |
-Ears. -Ears. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:34 | |
-Nice and cruchant. -Cruchant. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:37 | |
How do you say in Italian, that's a meal to put hairs on a man's chest? | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
GIORGIO TRANSLATES | 0:43:44 | 0:43:46 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
-Grazie! -Arrivederci, grazie. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:11 | |
'Now it's time to get to work, and there's quite a lot of work to do. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:22 | |
'It's ages since I've cooked it.' | 0:44:24 | 0:44:26 | |
Beautiful, isn't it? | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
Yeah, beautiful. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:32 | |
The smells, the colour, | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
you know, this is what food is all about for me. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
This is the smell that I used to smell as I came home from school. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:46 | |
As soon as I got to the gate of the house, I knew that my | 0:44:46 | 0:44:49 | |
grandmother was cooking this, because you could smell it from outside. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:54 | |
-Red wine. -Red wine. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
-Mmm, it's such a good smell. -It is, isn't it? | 0:44:59 | 0:45:01 | |
Now it's cooking. So we're going to add the rest of the pig. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:05 | |
Do you want me to shave the pig's ear? | 0:45:05 | 0:45:06 | |
That's right. Well, I want you to take away the hair. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
Just like that, yes. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
And in the meantime, while you're doing that, | 0:45:11 | 0:45:13 | |
I'm going to add the other pieces. The tail, the snout. | 0:45:13 | 0:45:17 | |
This feels to me, like a recipe that people have been | 0:45:17 | 0:45:19 | |
cooking for many centuries. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
The idea is, they're using these parts because they are the parts | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
that are ready to be used straight away when you've killed the pig. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:27 | |
The rest of the meat, if it's hanged for a bit, it's better. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:30 | |
The ham will go and be cured, the back will be back heated and slice. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:34 | |
Oh, cos this is the dish for the day of killing of the pig, right. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
That's right, that's right. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:39 | |
OK. Oh, it all begins to make sense. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:41 | |
Here I've got the cabbage. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:43 | |
Cabbage and pig, it's a classic combination, isn't it? | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
Absolutely. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:51 | |
And now all we have to do is wait for a couple of hours. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:55 | |
OK, we are happy. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:01 | |
'Finally, it's ready and time for Andrew to taste Lombardy.' | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
Andrew, I introduce you to the Cassoeula. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:13 | |
-Mmm. -Smell that. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:15 | |
Mmm, fantastic. | 0:46:15 | 0:46:17 | |
The nose. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
It looks lovely. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:21 | |
I'm going to have the ears. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
-Is there another ear? -I'll give you half of my ear. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:26 | |
Then, Andrew, what you do... | 0:46:26 | 0:46:28 | |
You excavate some cabbage. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:30 | |
The cabbage is fantastic, | 0:46:32 | 0:46:34 | |
it's completely permeated with the meat juices. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
And kind of sweet, you know. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:39 | |
It's a bit of ear. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
It's like cutting into jelly, fantastic. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:44 | |
Mmm, it's really good. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:48 | |
Completely melts in your mouth, doesn't it? | 0:46:48 | 0:46:50 | |
It's fantastic food. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:52 | |
I love food that belongs to somewhere, to a culture. | 0:46:52 | 0:46:55 | |
And this, for me, it's Lombardy. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
Fantastic. Cheers. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
Cheers. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:02 | |
And the next two hours eating. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:04 | |
That's OK. We got time. Pace yourself. | 0:47:04 | 0:47:07 | |
I know, we've got a lot to get through. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:10 | |
'The Cassoeula was the perfect dish to change gear | 0:47:13 | 0:47:16 | |
'and lead us out of Milan. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:18 | |
'We've come to Mantua, in the Po Valley, | 0:47:18 | 0:47:22 | |
'one of Lombardy's great treasures. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:24 | |
'Tranquil and elegant, it's home to the second great masterpiece | 0:47:27 | 0:47:31 | |
'I want us to visit. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:33 | |
'The work of art is to be found inside the Palazzo Te, | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
'a hunting lodge built in 1525 for the powerful Duke Federico Gonzaga. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:50 | |
'I think Giorgio may even like it more than the frescos | 0:47:52 | 0:47:55 | |
'we saw at Villa Suardi.' | 0:47:55 | 0:47:56 | |
Prego signore. Cavaliere. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
'Inspired by the grand villas of Rome, | 0:48:00 | 0:48:02 | |
'the palace was designed by architect and painter Giulio Romano.' | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
So, Giorgio, welcome to the Palazzo Te. | 0:48:08 | 0:48:10 | |
These guys used to live in luxury, didn't they? | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
Well, I think of this as the house of fun. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:15 | |
The whole place was once full of jokes. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:17 | |
This courtyard, originally, there was a labyrinth, | 0:48:17 | 0:48:19 | |
so even trying to get into this place, you'd get lost. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
Unless you were with the Duke, who would take you through. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:24 | |
-Oh, right. -It was just full of little games. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:26 | |
So here we are. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:27 | |
Now this palace was not a place for serious thought. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:31 | |
It wasn't a place for the administration of his estates. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:35 | |
It wasn't a place for business. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:36 | |
It was, so to speak, a place for monkey business. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
No way! | 0:48:39 | 0:48:41 | |
And er, I think the theme of this set of illustrations, | 0:48:41 | 0:48:46 | |
or decorations, is basically sex and drinking. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:50 | |
'Inside, Giulio combined his skills to create some truly | 0:48:50 | 0:48:54 | |
'sense-stunning illusions.' | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
Everything I've shown you so far | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
is a prelude to Giulio Romano's piece de resistance. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
Wow! Oh, my God! | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
Come in the middle, come in the middle. | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
It's so brilliant. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
Oh. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
It makes you almost feel sick, doesn't it? | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
It's like it's falling down, the whole thing. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
Is it not straight or something? | 0:49:22 | 0:49:24 | |
No, it's not straight at all. The room's got no corners, you see. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
So that's why you feel like you really fell down, doesn't it? | 0:49:28 | 0:49:32 | |
Wow! | 0:49:32 | 0:49:34 | |
And originally, the floor was undulating, | 0:49:34 | 0:49:36 | |
so when you came in, you would almost stumble | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
and feel like you were taking part in the scene, | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
because the subject, in a sense, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:45 | |
is the biggest earthquake in mythological history. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:48 | |
It's called the Sala Dei Giganti. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
And the story is, that the giants had tried to | 0:49:52 | 0:49:56 | |
rebel against Jupiter in heaven. | 0:49:56 | 0:49:58 | |
And Jupiter punishes the giants | 0:49:58 | 0:50:01 | |
by striking them with the thunder and lightning. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:04 | |
Oh, this is incredible! | 0:50:05 | 0:50:07 | |
Giulio Romano was taught by Raphael, | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
the great master of the High Renaissance. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:12 | |
And master of the calm and tranquillity, order, reason. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:15 | |
And this, so to speak, is the first thing that Giulio Romano does | 0:50:15 | 0:50:18 | |
after he gets out of school. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:20 | |
He's rebelling against his teachers. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:22 | |
It's almost as if he's bringing down the great edifice | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
of the High Renaissance. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:26 | |
He's bringing it down with his jokes and his games, | 0:50:26 | 0:50:29 | |
poking fun at it, making fun of it. | 0:50:29 | 0:50:32 | |
This style of art is called, Maniera, Mannerism. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:35 | |
It's a reaction against all that purity, all that classicism. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:39 | |
It's incredible. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:41 | |
What a place, eh! | 0:50:45 | 0:50:46 | |
I'm glad you liked it. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:48 | |
'Palazzo Te certainly packs a punch. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:51 | |
'But it's not just architecture and painting | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
'that Lombardy does brilliantly. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:56 | |
'A short drive away in Cremona, is another example of | 0:51:00 | 0:51:04 | |
'the perfect marriage of tradition and innovation. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
'It's the home of the Stradivari violin. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:12 | |
'Antonio Stradivari perfected the art of violin-making | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
'here in the 18th century. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
'The Lombards have always been proud of their excellent craftsmanship, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:22 | |
'and they are still making instruments | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
'to the Stradivari standard today. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
'We are visiting the International School Of Violin Making.' | 0:51:27 | 0:51:30 | |
Number five, here we are. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:33 | |
Come, Andrew. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
When I was little, I used to go in Varese | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
and there was this shop where these guys made violins. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:47 | |
And I was so fascinated by how they made them. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:50 | |
-Signor Daniele, buongiorno. -Buongiorno. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:54 | |
Signor Andrea. Piacere. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
Look at those tools that they have to make it. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
I love the precision and it takes... | 0:52:02 | 0:52:04 | |
-..50 days to make a violin. -50! | 0:52:09 | 0:52:11 | |
50 working days. So it is a work of love. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:15 | |
I notice that he's... | 0:52:15 | 0:52:17 | |
One little stroke of that wrong, you can just mess it all up. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:32 | |
So, to me, this is artisan work taken to a different level. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:38 | |
Look at that. Beautiful! | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
Every liutaio goes and chooses his own wood, | 0:52:41 | 0:52:45 | |
like an artist would choose his own colours. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:48 | |
Michelangelo going to Carrera to choose his marble. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:51 | |
-Or a chef choosing his own ingredients. -Yeah. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
You know, the principle ingredient is the wood. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
'Stradivari violins are the most valuable in the world. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:59 | |
'In the town's museum, there is an unrivalled collection | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
'of some of the Master's original instruments. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
'To preserve their sound, they must to be played regularly. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:10 | |
'I've arranged for us to have a private audience with Maestro Bosco, | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
'the person responsible for keeping these precious objects alive.' | 0:53:14 | 0:53:19 | |
-We're going to hear a Stradivarius. -Yes. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
-And it's called Vesuvius. -Vesuvius. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
'I can't quite believe we're going to have our own private concert | 0:53:44 | 0:53:48 | |
'played on an original Stradivarius.' | 0:53:48 | 0:53:51 | |
Vesuvio. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:53 | |
HE PLAYS THE VIOLIN | 0:53:54 | 0:53:56 | |
'This is such a treat. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:07 | |
'I never realised that Stradivari was from Lombardy, | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
'but it all makes sense. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
'The attention to detail, the beautiful design, | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
'the utter fitness for purpose.' | 0:54:15 | 0:54:17 | |
'There is one last stop for us in Lombardy. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
'A place that for me epitomises the spirit of the region, | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
'the Taccani power station. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
'Built in 1904, it was one of a series of hydro electric plants | 0:54:41 | 0:54:45 | |
'on the river Adda, that powered the modern success of Lombardy. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:49 | |
'My father and his father before him were hydraulic engineers, | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
'so places like this are special to me.' | 0:54:53 | 0:54:57 | |
Going and seeing my father when he was working, | 0:54:57 | 0:54:59 | |
I spent a lot of time in places like that. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:01 | |
But, you know, it is so important | 0:55:01 | 0:55:03 | |
because this is the blood of Lombardy. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:06 | |
They found themselves with a really enormous light industry that | 0:55:06 | 0:55:11 | |
needed energy to propel it forward. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
They didn't have anything to burn, so they harnessed the power | 0:55:13 | 0:55:17 | |
of these mountains and this water coming down. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:20 | |
I love these old machines, I think they are wonderful. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
They are incredible, aren't they? | 0:55:23 | 0:55:25 | |
This is like a...it's really an expression of what the | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
Lombards are, which is about movement, energy, going forwards, | 0:55:28 | 0:55:33 | |
building, you know, just getting things moving all the time. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
They really built them to last, didn't they? | 0:55:37 | 0:55:39 | |
To think they were made in 1904, | 0:55:39 | 0:55:41 | |
and they're still powering Lombardy with electricity. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:43 | |
Still, yeah. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:45 | |
And what is really, really nice as well is, | 0:55:45 | 0:55:47 | |
the river makes the motion to get the tram in Milan to work. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:50 | |
And it is lovely to think that energy then propelled that thing | 0:55:50 | 0:55:54 | |
all the way through the Futurism to everybody. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:57 | |
Oh, I was going to say without this place, | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
-Futurism wouldn't have been possible. -Absolutely. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
They were celebrating the electrical city. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:04 | |
-There's so much noise in here. -Yeah, there is. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:07 | |
It makes me feel like I am in a cathedral full of machines! | 0:56:07 | 0:56:10 | |
Strikes me that this is quite a good place to end our journey, | 0:56:13 | 0:56:16 | |
given that we have been banging on about how Lombardy is | 0:56:16 | 0:56:19 | |
the motor that drives Italy. | 0:56:19 | 0:56:21 | |
And here we are, at a turbine station that furnishes | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
half of the electricity of the region. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
Pretty amazing building. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:28 | |
It's great, it's like a palace. | 0:56:28 | 0:56:30 | |
It's like the Palazzo del Te, except instead of having... | 0:56:30 | 0:56:33 | |
Palazzo del electricita. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:35 | |
I think it really sums up what I've got from this particular journey, | 0:56:35 | 0:56:38 | |
which is a really strong sense of the role that this part of Italy | 0:56:38 | 0:56:43 | |
has played in the larger Italian story. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
I think really Lombardy has sort of electrically propelled | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
the rest into the 20th century. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:52 | |
Well, that's the reason that I took you here, | 0:56:52 | 0:56:55 | |
because I really see the connection between these kind of spaces. | 0:56:55 | 0:57:00 | |
These kind of showpieces like this are very beautiful to see, | 0:57:00 | 0:57:06 | |
but, as well, they really show the resilience of the Lombard. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:09 | |
And that meal you cooked, what did you call it, the cass...? | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
-Cassoeula. -Cassoeula. -Yeah. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:14 | |
I felt that it was a really nice transition. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:17 | |
It helped me understand, as it were, where Lombardy came from, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:20 | |
because that, to me, felt like the origins of this place. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:24 | |
I was going back to something that people had eaten almost for ever. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:27 | |
And it wasn't very fancy, it wasn't very posh, it was really rustic. | 0:57:27 | 0:57:31 | |
That's food from the fields, and that, to me, | 0:57:31 | 0:57:34 | |
almost was a symbol of how far they rose, you know. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:38 | |
Through that cathedral, bringing all the intellectuals here. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:41 | |
Through that culture of design | 0:57:41 | 0:57:43 | |
gradually developing into the 19th century, | 0:57:43 | 0:57:45 | |
It's an amazing evolution from really quite low origins. | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
This is also based really on an absolutely strong work ethic. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:55 | |
Everybody realised themselves through work. | 0:57:55 | 0:58:00 | |
Work is like a religion for them. | 0:58:00 | 0:58:01 | |
When they get up in the morning and see you in the square, | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
they don't say to you, "How are you?" | 0:58:04 | 0:58:06 | |
They say, "Come va il lavoro?", which means, "How's the work?" | 0:58:06 | 0:58:09 | |
How's the work?! | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
How's the work, yeah, how do you do in the work? | 0:58:11 | 0:58:13 | |
Do you think I've finally...hey, maybe I've finally understood | 0:58:13 | 0:58:16 | |
-that's why you're the way you are! -Why? | 0:58:16 | 0:58:19 | |
Because you are a Lombard, you never stop working! | 0:58:19 | 0:58:22 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:23 | 0:58:26 |