A Home Away From Rome Italy Unpacked

'I'm Andrew Graham-Dixon and I'm an art historian.'

We're in the basement of Italian history.

'And I'm Giorgio Locatelli and I'm a chef.'

Untuosa, unctuous.

'We are both passionate about my homeland, Italy.'

Come on, everybody! Let's go!

The rich flavour and classic dishes of this land are in my culinary DNA.

Pasta will be hanging.

And this country's rich layers of art

and history have captivated me since childhood.

It actually brings out the naked body all the more.

In this series, we'll be travelling all the way down

the west coast of the country from top to toe.

-Stepping off the tourist track wherever we go.

-This is so Italian.

I want to show off some of my country's most surprising food.

It's hot.

Often most born out of necessity but leaving a legacy that's still

shaping Italian modern cuisine around the world.

And the art too, is fantastic.

Exotic, deeply rooted in history.

This week we're in beautiful Lazio and unlike many visitors,

we're going to ignore its famous capital city, Rome,

and focus on the amazing legacy

of those who took refuge here from the cauldron of Rome life.

We'll be trying incredibly diverse dishes

from the banqueting halls of the glutton popes to the peasant kitchen,

where nothing gets wasted.

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

For centuries, Lazio has been a land where dramatic stories have unfolded

and you can still read them in the region's art and architecture.

It's a rich and very generous land,

where for us, not all roads lead to Rome.

I think a lot of people think of Lazio as being a football team.

They don't even realise that it's a...

You know, it's an entire province

full of wonderful things to see, wonderful things to eat.

One thing that you must always remember is, like...

that here is where the Romans invented

the idea of the weekend.

So here is dotted with absolutely beautiful places where people

retire from the cosmopolitan...

-Yeah.

-..you know...

-triggering malice of the town.

-The idea... Yeah.

So it's lovely to be in Lazio, with this tree cover, the woods.

In fact, we are on our way to a place that I've...

-Well, I've quite, for a long time, wanted you to see...

-Right.

..which is this beautiful garden.

-I think it's my favourite garden in the world.

-Really?

Because, Andrew, you know I am only interested in gardens

-that grow things that I can cook.

-I think...

I think you'll be interested in this garden anyway.

-Fantastic.

-It's our first stop.

-OK.

This is the Palazzo d'Este in Tivoli.

In the 16th century, it became home to a cardinal, who despite his

high clerical status, had a rather troubled relationship

with Rome and the Vatican.

So, Giorgio, we are rubbing the sleep from our eyes,

it's horribly early in the morning

but if you want to see the Villa d'Este

without throngs, throngs of tourists,

this is the only time to come.

It's half past seven in the morning,

they'll actually be arriving fairly soon, believe it or not.

This is the garden of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este,

the son of Lucrezia Borgia

and a very disappointed man.

-He tried to be elected pope five times.

-Wow.

This garden contains... Well, not a little surprise

but quite big one.

Vieni con me.

It's starting, Giorgio.

When the garden was finished he simply said...

"Let there be water!"

All of you people in Tivoli, well, you'll just have to suffer drought.

You know, he took a third of the town's water supply for his garden.

So that he could thrill and surprise visiting dignitaries.

So you think I'm not good enough to be pope?

See what I can do!

How it turned from that little wiggling thing. Look at that!

The power it's got in that.

That is incredible.

The style of this garden is called mannerism.

The art of the surprise, the conceit, the extravagant gesture.

I think water is a great symbol for mannerism

because in mannerist art, things are always turning into other things.

Faces are turning into rocks, rocks are turning into faces,

dragons are turning into lions.

Water is always changing its shape.

It's the perfect expression of a culture that's... I think it

lies at the origin of the modern culture of the spectacle.

It looked quite dull when we arrived, didn't it?

But now, look. It's just moving completely.

The whole thing has just come alive.

Look, it's wonderful! The water's reached the light.

So when the water reaches the light it becomes like a sparkler.

And of course, you know, it's kind of obvious

but it's a huge symbol of potency.

Oh, it's such a beauty.

How many litres of water

do you think this garden pumps out every day?

This is still the original 16th century hydraulic system

-and they're still using it.

-Yeah.

We wonder at the fact that the Victorian sewage system

-has survived until now.

-Yeah.

This is 300 years before that!

Cardinal d'Este might have been bitter about Rome in his own time,

but his garden was directly inspired by the ancient Romans'

legendary prowess with water and hydraulic engineering.

To me, these gardens must have helped him in taking his mind

off his failure to become a pope and to show off his power.

I think maybe, even a sweet revenge.

Guardi che bello. Don't fall.

It's very slippery, Giorgio.

That is fantastic.

Control of water, I think is...

I think it's hard for us to understand.

Now, any of us can turn on a tap.

But, you know, you go back to the 16th century, it's a lot of water...

You got a bucket to get the water.

Yeah, or go to the well and travel with the donkey, you know?

To have water like that is such a symbol of your power.

Look at this guy. What is he doing?

Buongiorno.

Every day, they start from the top and they clean all the way down,

because every level must work,

because you receive enough water to be constant flow all the way through.

So, if one of the mouth is shut, or two mouth are shut, or there is

a problem, then it will start to overflow and it loses its effect.

-How does it feel, Giorgio?

-It's brilliant.

I feel like I'm working on this big project

and getting it all working as well.

No, no, no.

-Sorry, Giorgio.

-I didn't get a job.

-Grazie, buono lavoro. Buono giornata.

-Ciao.

-Ciao.

What I love about the garden is...

..it's designed like the set of an opera.

But you stand in it and where you're allowed to stand, you know...

-This is a position of power. Only a few people would be allowed here.

-Right.

You know, the lower cardinals down there,

the members of the court on level three.

You really feel like you're

looking down on the rest of the world from up here,

with Ippolito d'Este. He clearly wanted to look down on everyone else.

And you say to everybody, "Look at me. Look what I'm able to do.

"Look what I am... what I'm capable of. "

Very Lazio.

-Said from the outside of Rome, but in the direction of Rome, eh?

-Power.

There's always that black hole of Rome over there.

-You always know that.

-Struggle for power.

-Like, standing over Rome, isn't it?

-I think it's like...

How... What's the Italian expression?

Ah, thank you.

Lazio's history may be full of stories about wealth and power,

like that of Cardinal d'Este,

but the food of this region is mainly made up of simple dishes.

Often made with ingredients that people anywhere else may throw away.

Like the coda alla vaccinara, the oxtail stew.

This is our first meal in Lazio so I could not, you know,

ignore what is the great tradition that they have in this region,

which is the quinto quarto. Quinto quarto,

-so the fifth fourth.

-The fifth quarter.

The offal makes up more than a quarter of the carcass

in terms of weight, with the snout, the tripe,

the tongue and, in this case, the tail.

Coda alla vaccinara is possibly one of the most representative

dishes of this region.

It is something that comes from hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

The recipe is really, really simple.

The only problem with this... I'm sorry to say to you - I know that

you're a very patient man, but it's going to take three hours.

-I can wait, I can wait.

-So the tail is being cut down in pieces.

This meat is really muscly and it's got a lot of tendons

and hard bits. These we're going to have to melt gently, OK,

when we cook it, so that's why the cooking time is just so long.

OK, I'm going to start to blanch the coda for a minute.

OK, now look, all we're going to do is... I've got a dish there.

While those ones are coming back to...

-What's that sink you're working at?

-Look.

THEY LAUGH

There's a lot of vegetables to cut.

What do you want me to do, wash the celery?

Not wash it, but take away the leaves. Yeah?

-Get rid of all the leaves.

-All of the leaves?

-Yeah.

The vegetables here are exceptional.

Mmm. It's amazing celery, Giorgio.

-It's smelling good.

-A tiny little bit of white wine.

The sauce becomes rich and untuosa.

-Unctuous.

-Unctuous.

Good word. You didn't put very much, you just put enough to do it's job.

-I put in...

-Half a glass?

-A glass maybe, yeah.

Here we go.

Tomato paste.

And this is a way I learn how to cook.

I must admit that with the tomato paste,

it gets a better flavour kind of thing.

Just a good old squidge.

OK, listen, now I'm going to put in the onions,

the celery and the carrots.

Cos it's a very traditional thing.

Not many people cook out of this, outside this region.

So now we've got to wait for three hours.

That we can't wait for things, this is incredible, especially with food.

We have come across this idea that it has to be fast

because we haven't got the time.

But now suddenly, no, you have to put it in the microwave

and tick-tick-tick, ping!

I'm going to do nothing but I'm just deciding where to do nothing.

And, actually, you have to do nothing

but I have to keep on watching what is going on there.

It's not like I'm doing nothing.

I just kind of worry a little bit, which is part of the recipe.

To worry a little bit about it.

It's an ingredient. "What you doing?"

I'm worried that it's cooking properly.

-And every now and then, I go and check it.

-Can I have a sleep?

No, because then you are asleep, you are not doing nothing.

ANDREW LAUGHS

You have to be consciously doing nothing.

-Consciously.

-Consciously.

OK.

I'll give it a go.

The tradition of quinto quarto goes back to the second century BC,

when the Romans indulged themselves with extravagant

dishes like fattened goose liver and figs, crest of swan,

flamingo tongue and rooster's testicles.

Offaly good, they thought.

But by the 19th century,

offal had been degraded to poor man's food only.

It's thanks to the vaccinari, the people who work at the meat market,

that we have this fabulous recipe.

They were paid in leftovers of the animals, which they

ingeniously turn into a coda alla vaccinara dish.

After three hours of a bit of worrying and a bit of waiting,

it's finally ready.

-See all the vegetables are almost gone.

-Beautiful.

Use your hand, use your hand! Pick this, take the bone.

Just, you know, the bone between your fingers like that and then...

You should suck the meat. It'll soon come out.

You suck at it like that.

It's just hot, man.

Hello. I'm not giving you any of my food.

I've been waiting three hours for this

so you can just sit and wait, mate.

Wow.

I like all the jelly bits.

When you get close to the knuckle, you get those jelly bits.

All the nerves and the tendons and they are on the tail.

Can you imagine? The tail has got...

It's absolutely really fibrous muscle.

This recipe releases it.

That's why you have to cook it long time and low temperature.

It really melts away and that's what'll give you that glutinous bit.

-It's glutinous, it's unctuous.

-Unctuous, yeah.

It's sticky and meaty.

Mmm. That is...

-That is delicious.

-It's really good.

-To the quinto quarto.

-Si. To the fifth quarter, grazie.

Mmm.

The fountains of Villa d'Este told the story of one man's troubled relationship

with Rome, but the complications between city

and region date back as far as Rome itself,

to the ancient civilisation that was here before,

that of the Etruscans.

It's a nice road, this one, don't you think?

-Not only nice, it's unbelievably beautiful too.

-Yeah.

Look at that yellow.

It feels like a really primeval landscape and it's still grown

with, I think, what the Etruscans first cultivated, which was...

-spelt, do you call it?

-Spelt, yeah, spelt. Spelt is in English.

-It's called farro in Italian.

-Farro.

This part of Italy, in a sense, it's slightly forgotten or it's the

land of things that have been forgotten.

There's an aqueduct that looks like it's been

abandoned for several centuries and we're on our way to

explore the remains of a largely forgotten people, the Etruscans.

We're at Tarquinia,

one of the coastal centres of the ancient Etruscan civilisation,

about 80km north of Rome.

The Etruscans had a rich and varied culture

and were thriving well before Rome became a dominant power.

Their story begins around the seventh century BC.

On the surface, if you compare this site to Roman ruins,

you could be a little bit underwhelmed.

Who were the Etruscans?

We don't actually know that much about them,

their texts do not survive.

We do know there were a lot of them

because there are 6,000 of these tombs in the hills.

It's dark and cool.

This is spectacular.

Oh, look.

How beautiful.

-You see this guy?

-He's got a catapult.

-That's a sling.

So he's hunting the birds.

I love these birds.

And, Andrew, look at these.

Look, the guys just pushed the other guys down the...

I think he's climbing up the rock and he's diving.

That's beautiful, the diving figure.

Look, he's got a little smile on his face.

That, to me, looks almost like Egyptian, isn't it?

-Yes, all the figures seen in profile.

-Yes.

Especially that figure on the right.

I love that figure of the diver.

-Do you know, the diver?

-Yes, fantastic.

I found these wall paintings really fascinating and even touching.

I'm happy we came here.

But there are some other beautiful frescos that we should really see.

Spectacular colours.

Here are the people whose tomb it is.

The dancer is dancing to the music of the flute.

Wearing a diaphanous, see through dress.

Dancing, holding an amphora on her head in the centre of the room.

These scenes of Bacchic revelries - drinking wine, dancing.

Just one line, look at it, it's perfect.

A modern cemetery, there is a lot of gloom.

-This is more like, so beautiful.

-It's a celebration.

Dancing and singing that seems to accompany them into death.

All these birds and fish. Like a dolphin, it looks like.

You don't find these in Ancient Greek art, the dolphins

and the birds. That's Etruscan. This shows the influence of Greece.

They have Cult of Dionysus, which becomes the Cult of Bacchus.

All these different levels of history.

I mean, Christ takes on the same...

You know, the blood of Christ that saves us,

that comes from the blood of the wine of Bacchus, Dionysus.

So there's these layers of meaning that continue through

thousands of years in Italy.

We've just come down here, we're in the basement of Italian history.

This is where it all kind of started.

Curiously, a man defecating,

-complete with the end product so to speak.

-Yes, the end product midway.

Maybe he suffered from constipation in real life, so in the

afterlife he's going to

defecate copiously through all eternity.

Let's hope so.

There's 6,000 of these tombs!

Hey, Andrew, we're not going to go and see all of them, are we?

They've only excavated about 150.

It's going to take them 600 years to dig up the lot at this rate.

Eventually, in 264 BC, this rather wonderful Etruscan civilisation

crumbled under the assault of the Roman invaders

and was absorbed into the culture of their conquerors.

Before moving on, I think it's time for a little break.

We are in Ariccia, where they do the best porchetta in Italy

and I know that Andrew is a big fan.

-That's Claudio. Ciao, Claudio.

-Ciao, Giorgio.

The one that he makes is special.

The thing is, this is so part of their tradition.

I love the crackling.

-Salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary.

-Buon appetito.

-Grazie.

-Grazie, grazie.

-Prego.

Porchetta is another reminder of the Roman Empire,

since it dates back more than 2,000 years.

History even tells us that this was one of Nero's favourite foods.

I mean, this is delicious, isn't it? Fantastic.

-I love it when you get the little bits of crackling.

-Yeah.

-I also love the temperature, is perfect.

-Yeah, that's interesting.

I think of roast pork as something you eat hot, but it's lovely just like this.

They cook it and then they let the temperature naturally drop,

so you have it this kind of lukewarm

and I think that's the best to get the sweetness.

-So, if it's too hot, you lose a bit of that.

-So the meat really rests.

That's right, the tenderness,

the juiciness - so important, so fantastic.

It's something that you don't have at home because it's impossible

to cook, in that way, that piece of pig like that.

So you have to have it as a takeaway food sort of thing.

And this is it, this is the Italian fast food.

-You almost have to cook it, like, in a baker's oven, I mean, it's so big.

-That's what it is.

Something of such a high quality becomes street food

and that shows you why the Italians don't have so many McDonald's,

because you have things like this and it sustains it, you know?

That is a very good point.

If you are a pig,

that's what you want to be, what you want to become really.

If you're a pig, this is what you want to become?!

-I suggest we take a straw poll of pigs.

-Hey, boys!

They're parking next to our car.

-You see, this is the typical day.

-A little tour outside the door.

Outside the door of the town.

That's a hell of a snack. I mean...

-I'll have another one.

-You'll have another one?

-It's very, very good.

The Romans might not have been the most tolerant civilisation,

but they definitely knew how to eat.

As we have seen, this area wasn't home just to the Romans.

The Etruscans weren't the only sophisticated civilisation to

blossom in Lazio under the expanding shadow of Imperial Rome.

The Prenestini were another people who flourished

and I'm bringing Giorgio to Palestrina, once their capital city,

to see a remarkable work of art from around the second century BC.

So here we are. You get this great elevator ride...

..up through the ancient ruins of this Roman foundation.

This is amazing.

-So, we're going up in space, but we're going back in time.

-Oh.

Now, they call it Palestrina but that's a medieval name.

In Roman times, it was called Preneste

but the people from here, if we go back to the second century BC,

-they're not actually part of Rome.

-No.

They're part of an independent city state and they're doing really well.

Their money is built on slavery,

they control a large part of the territory that goes all the way

down to the sea, they're basically seafarers and they're merchants,

and they create this whole town complex.

What we're going to go and see is something that gives us

a little picture of what Preneste was like when it was independent.

-What is it?

-It's a fantastic, really rare, mosaic.

For my money, it's one of the greatest mosaics in the world.

So, here we are.

GIORGIO LAUGHS

-It's big, isn't it?

-Enormous!

Really big.

Because this is so close to Rome,

they assumed this must be an ancient Roman mosaic,

but no, it's not an ancient Roman mosaic.

This is created for the independent people of Praeneste

and it's made by Greek artists from Alexandria.

And that's why, look at the tesserae,

look how small they are and look how fine the detail is.

Unbelievable. It looks exactly like a mallard.

-You see there, the little duck?

-Yeah.

You can't be that specific with Roman-style mosaic

because in the Roman mosaic, the pieces are much bigger.

It's a Nile scene. It's a wonderful subject.

It's created about 150 years after the Greeks had moved into Egypt.

It feels like the river is coming down with all its goodness.

And then the men come through, transform whatever it is.

I mean, in a way, we're looking at it as if it were a painting

because that's how they display it in the museum,

but that's not how it would have been experienced.

-It would have been on the floor.

-And not only was it on the floor,

it would have been part of a water feature.

So, this would've been probably under about that much water.

I can't emphasise how rare it is.

The detail are incredible.

Look at the shadow of the boat.

Shadow of the boat - I hadn't seen that!

I really love the way the artist has created an abstract idea

of a mass of people.

They are kind of like shadows, with their swords raised up.

-Can you see that black line going through?

-Yes.

-It's almost like the water is moving, isn't it?

-Yep.

That's really vivid there, the way it's eddying around the rock.

I love this staring eye.

That is a hippo that has been skewered to death.

It's like a one-off, like so many of the wonderful things in Lazio.

It's not what you can necessarily easily put a label on

or put into a package. It's created for these people

who are now no longer very well known in Praeneste,

who are allowed their independence, up to a point, by Rome.

Nothing in Rome of this period survives that is as fine as this.

-That's why we've come here.

-OK, I got you!

So, in that sense, although they lost out to the Romans...

-They won.

-..they won the art battle.

-The thousand years.

Well, now they did,

in that we still have to come here to see the very best of it.

The relationship between Rome and Lazio has been a pretty continuous

drama and that tale will continue in our next stop - Viterbo.

But before that, we need to pick up supplies for this evening's supper.

'I want to stop at the nearby Lake Bolsena,

'to find one of the specialities of this area.'

Look at that!

This is the fish that I grew up with.

This is freshwater fish, unbelievable stuff. Can't remember the name!

This is what I used to fish when I was little - perch!

OK, grazie.

Eels aren't the only slippery characters here.

It's also been home to some very political clerics.

It's very hilly, the landscape of Lazio.

It constantly opens up to these beautiful panoramic views.

A landscape full of lakes.

-And these hilltop fortress towns.

-Mmm.

And we are going to visit one of the most beautiful of them -

Viterbo.

Viterbo!

Which is principally famous for what happened there in the Middle Ages,

when, in this land of exiles, discontents and fantasists,

it became home to the exiled papacy, the entire papal conclave

who settled there for about 20 years, 25 years,

in the 13th century,

when Rome became too uncomfortable for them.

-Maybe dangerous, I guess.

-Dangerous.

I know one thing...

that the idea of conclave with the keys was born in Viterbo.

That's what I studied when I was little.

And they made some extraordinary decisions, or rather

they failed to make one extraordinary decision!

Rome wasn't always a safe place for the clerics.

Back in the 13th century, they had to flee the city several times

and one of their favourite refuges was the town of Viterbo -

a town that still looks like a medieval stage set.

I remember from school the story of how Viterbo hosted

the longest papal election in history,

in what became the first conclave.

We are meeting Professor Luciano Osbat, an expert in papal studies,

who is going to simplify this extraordinary tale.

During that period, Viterbo was even called the City of Popes.

It changed the way popes are elected right up to the present day.

The 19 cardinals were inside here and they have to elect the pope.

Took long time, a long time. So, they shut the door first.

They can't take a decision.

Two years and a half goes by,

the people of the city goes nuts about it.

It's obviously raining in and it's cold and everything.

This is so Italian, it's unbelievable! It's so Italian.

Three years to take a decision and at the end of the day,

it was somebody else who took the decision!

The idea of the conclave was born here, the fact that you have

to take somebody, shut him in a room in order to take a decision.

Because if you leave him to go out

and consult, you will never get a decision.

This is so Italian!

It's like Macchiavelli before Macchiavelli.

This is definitely like so Macchiavellian!

So, trying to disentangle all the political interests at work

would almost be like trying to disentangle the different pieces

-of spaghetti on a plate.

-With a lot of sauce on it! A lot of sauce on it!

The discourse always finishes with the table!

Before ending the day around the table with a suitable papal feast,

I'd like to see a fresco that I've only ever read about.

Where the scale is quite this...sort of, cosy.

I feel like I'm in a... It's like a stage set,

you expect Romeo and Juliet to be kissing on that balcony...

or not getting to kiss.

Wow!

This is the only known work, bar one,

by a mysterious painter called Lorenzo di Viterbo.

It's the first time I've seen it.

Absolutely beautiful and the colour is very light.

I love the way he has painted this grey cloak,

very difficult in fresco, because you are really just painting

into wet plaster.

That outline...that is sculptural, that sense of line.

The scene that's fullest of life, teeming with life

is this freeze-like depiction of the marriage of the Virgin

to the aged Joseph. According to legend, all of these suitors

have come to try to win Mary's hand, much younger than Joseph,

but she will only marry the one who brings a stick

that miraculously bursts into leaf.

All of the suitors with their dry sticks -

can you see them in the background sort of sticking up in the air?

And broken sticks on the floor.

In fact, see this chap here in red, is actually snapping his stick

across his knee in frustration,

so there are all the frustrated suitors.

That guy with the green shirt on the left, look at his face.

He is incredible. He looks really like he's looking at the Virgin Mary.

You know, I've missed out!

So, these were done in 1472.

It's this moment where you can really see

what people really looked like. It's high realism.

The faces of the people are incredible.

You could meet those faces in the streets now.

It's said that these are actual portraits of 15th century people

from Viterbo and I think they have the actuality that you believe them.

I mean, the chap with the grin,

you know, he's definitely a real person. You couldn't make him up!

Andrew doesn't know it, but I've been doing some research too

and I found a cookbook written by the chef of Pope Martin V.

I'm taking him to a wonderful medieval kitchen

in the Corte della Maesta to cook him a meal fit for a pope.

I make you a starter, a pie

and a dessert!

What's in the mystery bag?

I'm going to cook you something you'll love. Look what I got you!

Errrrhhhh!

In the past, it was kind of a real, real speciality.

-The pope used to eat these.

-And is this in an old recipe?

This is an old recipe that I got from this book.

It's that one from papal cuisine.

A cook of Martino Quinto.

Martino Quarto - fourth - when he died,

on his tomb they wrote, "Gaudent Anguillas.

"Qui mortus hic giacet quasi mortorear exorbitant eas..."

"Here lay the guy who died because he ate too many eels!"

-Does it actually say that on his tomb?

-On his tomb. Imagine that.

They are still extremely alive.

They have to be and this is one of the quality of this fish.

You can make it travel quite a long time,

compared to other fishes, and it's still alive.

That means that you, we...have got to kill them.

I kill them!

They're really slimy! So I'm going to show you

a little trick with fig leaves.

-What are they for? For, sort of, descaling the eel?

-That's right.

-This is to make it easier to handle the eel?

-To handle it, yeah.

-That's it! The eel is dead.

-What are you doing now?

We're going to take the skin off. It's not going to be that easy.

HE GAGS

-OK, you want to try to do one?

-I'd love to.

-Come on.

-OK. Can I pull it?

Yes. Vai.

-OK?

-Now you go. Pull it!

ANDREW GROANS

-It's difficult to...keep my grip.

-Come on!

Bravo! Yeah! GIORGIO LAUGHS

I've peeled an eel!

-I show quite a lot of promise, don't I, as a sous chef?

-Yes.

I think the emphasis is on promise.

It's time to start.

There are so many herbs and spices

that I have to carefully put together.

Although it's complicated,

I want to try to stick to the original recipe as much as possible.

The dishes require such meticulous and time-consuming preparation

that I'm not surprised that they have been largely forgotten.

You really need time and an army of people to make it happen.

A leaf of sage between two slices of eel.

As strange as it might sound,

the top of the meat pie has to be covered with sugar.

And, of course, there is still the dessert to come.

How long have you been cooking?!

You've been cooking for a long time.

I've been reading in the garden, I've fallen asleep twice, erm...

-Andrew it's a papal dinner, it takes time!

-No, I appreciate it.

There was no conception of fast food at this time,

-there was no fast food as such.

-Well, no, absolutely.

Andrew, here we are...after hours of slaving away for you!

ANDREW SIGHS

An eel...fit for a pope.

This is my first taste of eel.

It's very delicate.

Really delicious!

Such a subtle flesh that it takes the flavour of the sage.

With a little crispiness, I should add.

Those recipes sort of almost look like they are made

for the chef to justify his wages.

Almost...they invented recipes that required 15 sous chefs,

so that they can then justify the fact they've got 15 sous chefs.

Yes. Otherwise, if they had a little kitchen, they were nobody,

while if they have big kitchen and a big army of people,

then they were big chefs.

The thing that puzzles me about this dish is that it's very delicious

and I could eat lots and lots and lots of it,

-but I really don't see how you could eat so much of that that you'd die.

-HE LAUGHS

I mean, Martin IV must have had some kind of eel appetite.

Mmm! Well, I'm finished.

I want to eat the pie!

I choose this because it actually says in here...

-.."Fit to eat...per l'inglese."

-"Per l'inglese."

-"English visitors to the papal court shall be served pie."

-Yes.

The cook was also...kind of, in a way, he was a diplomat.

The cook to the pope must have been a really powerful man.

Absolutely! People of a... quite influence.

So what's unusual about this recipe?

It's got meat but it's sweet, it's got sugar on top.

-What's the meat?

-You can use beef, you can use chicken,

or also you can use birds, because at that time, you know,

-wild birds would be always kind of...available.

-So what did you use?

I used chicken and...veal.

I love the smell.

-GIORGIO LAUGHS

-It's unusual!

Unusual for modern taste, but it's really nice.

It's delicious!

This is real medieval cooking, you know,

where the sugar has the same importance as salt.

And where, you know...

It's rich food.

-I mean, it feels like...a rich person's food.

-It really does.

-Do you want me to get you the dessert?

-Yes!

You know, people kind of think,

"Oh, they used to love spice because they get to cover up the bad smell."

No! They used a lot of spice

because spice would come from foreign countries.

And to have a lot of spice in your food means you are extremely rich.

Sugar starts to be commercialised.

The clerics were the biggest buyer.

OK. There we are.

Kind of pancakes, they've got no flour, no nothing else, just eggs.

-Mmm!

-Yeah.

It's very nice. The only thing I would say,

-is that after the pie...it's a bit similar, the taste.

-That's right.

-Some of the things coming on again.

-That's right, I think there is that little flavour.

-But this is completely sweet.

-How many courses?

The banquet was, you know, 18, 20, 22 courses easy.

You know, there are one or two medieval paintings

-of the circles of Dante's Hell.

-Yeah.

And in the gluttons' section,

there are always a lot of men of the cloth, ecclesiastic types.

-They've got these huge bellies and now I understand...why.

-Pie.

-THEY LAUGH

-Cheers!

Well, I enjoyed cooking the papal dinner,

but it's definitely something that I wouldn't put on my restaurant menu.

That was certainly quite an unusual taste,

not entirely unlike the next stop on our journey.

Not far from Viterbo in these beautiful hills

another man created his own refuge

from the political machinations of Rome.

Often called the Park of Monsters,

Bomarzo dates back to the 16th century like Villa D'Este.

Its creator was the eccentric, disenchanted,

mercenary aristocrat Count Vicino Orsini.

The sculptures here are grotesque and disturbing,

the outward expression of Vicino's inner despondency

at a life of disappointment.

So... GIORGIO SPEAKS ITALIAN

Fantastic!

It's attached to a sphinx and what it says is,

"Enter this garden with your eyes wide open and your mouths closed

"and then you'll appreciate that in this place

"you will find another seven wonders of the world."

-That's right.

-Let's go and find them.

-Let's go and find them.

Of course, the sphinx introduces you to the garden,

a sphinx is a symbol of mystery.

Vicino Orsini was a rather melancholic military man.

He'd been off to the wars,

fought with the French against the Holy Roman Emperor,

picking the wrong side, and ended up in jail for three years.

By the look of the sculptures,

he really must have been wounded by life.

-Look at that!

-ANDREW LAUGHS

It's really something!

This garden was completely lost and forgotten,

overgrown until the 1940s,

when Salvador Dali, who else, rediscovered it.

Dali immediately thought, "Oh, this is surrealism before surrealism."

This figure that seems to be a man is actually a woman,

being seemingly ripped in half by this giant.

This was a stone that was here? They didn't bring this here?

No, it's carved from the stone.

That was here? There was a massive stone like that

-and then they are coming - Bam! Bam! Bam! - and just carve it out.

-Yeah.

-That is exceptional.

-It's really amazing!

We don't even know the names of the artists.

-All created between 1552 and 1583 near Rome.

-Hmm.

So, Michelangelo is still alive,

he's the founder of this extreme mannerist style.

Some people even think that Michelangelo may have played a part in designing these things.

It definitely looks like one of those Michelangelo sculptures.

Look at the muscles, how they are really well defined.

I think maybe...maybe this garden

is meant to be a kind of allegory of his tormented tempestuous life.

You know, if you go through the garden, you'll see that you come

from one struggle to another. You move through this sort of dark garden.

The 16th century was a period of huge turmoil in Europe

with the Protestant Reformation

dealing a major blow to the Roman Catholic Church.

European politics were dominated by religious conflict.

I can see why, in 1557, Count Orsini retreated here,

away from the power games of Rome

and all those wars that he never wanted to fight.

The elephant! Isn't it fantastic?

-I think it's a reference to Hannibal and his army.

-Annibale.

But it's also a reference to Orsini's son -

the elephant's got a dead soldier in his trunk.

And I think Orsini's son died in 1573,

which was when this part of the garden was built.

So classical references but also personal references.

That's Pegasus, Andrew. Cavallo Alato.

Beautiful! I love it with the backlight and the trees coming down.

The mythology says that when Pegasus touches earth, water spurts out

and so this is a big fountain.

It must have been fun when it was all working.

I kept my favourite of the garden's conceits, the Leaning House, for last.

For me, it's still got Vicino's feelings of pain and powerlessness,

but here it's as if he's laughing in the dark.

-I feel like the building is falling on me.

-Yeah.

GIORGIO WHIMPERS

Oh! Oh!

It feels VERY strange!

It's almost like your brain doesn't register properly,

something is wrong with it.

And it's weird, cos you look out and you see mostly the sky.

-You don't actually see the garden.

-Si, because you look up.

-What?! Ahh!

-Are you looking up?

THEY LAUGH

-It's really good, isn't it?

-It's amazing!

Orsino...towards the end of his life,

he felt that everything was wrong in the world.

So there are these symbols of everything being wrong.

Like, in art, you see these images where everybody is upside down

-to indicate the topsy-turvy nature of existence.

-Hmm.

And I think this tower...

This tower was created to design... It's meant to convey Orsino's sense

that everything in the world is awry, it's not working properly.

-Either that or he just employed an architect from Pisa!

-From Pisa!

THEY LAUGH

The last leg of our trip takes us further away from Rome,

towards the coast of Lazio's southern border with Campania.

This was also a place with architectural ambitions,

but here it's not just a villa.

400 years after the park of Bomarzo,

one man built not a villa or a garden, but a city.

We're in Latina, Benito Mussolini's urban planning dream designed in the '30s.

Latina is a statement of a new dream of Italy that the Fascists had.

-Look at this!

-That's Fascio Romano.

-But can you imagine in Berlin

-leaving a huge metal sculpture of a swastika?!

-This belongs to the Italian from the Roman times,

then the Fascists used it.

Look at the square.

You know, it's like a statement of the new dream of Italy

that the Fascists had, which is to modernize it.

-A geometrical plan.

-A geometrical plan, you know, all worked out.

I sort of get it, but I just don't feel it.

To me, it feels like a stage-set version of an ideal city,

not really something that believes in itself.

I mean, these columns... The whole thing feels very sort of brittle and crumbly,

insubstantial, almost like the Fascist regime itself.

-Maybe I'm just looking at it with the hindsight of we know what happened to Fascism.

-Yeah.

-Buongiorno.

-Ciao.

-Ciao.

But we've really come here to see something

that perfectly represents Mussolini's idea of his new Italy.

-Here we are, here we are.

-Here we are.

-La sala comunale.

This is Mussolini's Sistine Chapel.

I've never seen these.

It's brilliant, isn't it?

He has a fantastic name the artist, Duilio Cambellotti!

And this is his masterpiece.

And look, it's got everything!

From that side there, I'll read it for you, you don't need to be an art historian to do this.

Look, that's the working people, old Italy.

That's the malaria swamps that have been completely cleared,

all flat and all arable,

with little houses dotted around

so that everybody owns their little plot of land,

because that's what he promised everybody.

-And there's Mussolini's town.

-That's right.

-With the streets designed like a cobweb.

-Yes.

And here you have... Those guys with the helmet, those are the people who worked...not army.

Well, Cambellotti was a big fan of William Morris.

It was all about getting back to nature.

It was about unalienated labour. He hated the idea of people working in factories.

They should be working with their hands. There's even a hand that's full of soil.

I love the way the clouds are sort of exploding on the horizon.

He was a real idealist, Cambellotti, he managed to persuade himself

that Mussolini was a kind of saviour of Italy

and that this was really a form of benevolent socialism.

And he thought that Mussolini was giving power, giving Italy back to the humble poor Italian people.

This is what's proposed.

A vision of order and purity.

This is actually Latina as it was in Mussolini's imagination.

-That's what all apparatus was made of.

-The propaganda!

-The propaganda was like...

You know, remember the Nazis and the Fascists were very good at their propaganda.

Very good at giving this message out.

-"This is all for you."

-Unifying them.

Luckily, Mussolini was overthrown in 1945.

I can't imagine Italy covered in replicas of Latina.

For me, this isn't one of Lazio's hidden gems,

definitely not a place you'd swap Rome for.

Well, we are at the end of our fascinating journey around Lazio,

but there's just time to stop for one last view of this breathtaking landscape.

-Do you think that we have missed out not going to Rome?

-No.

And...if you look over there,

well, if you squint, you can see St Peter's,

which reminds me that, in a sense,

this has been a little bit of a perverse journey.

They say all roads lead to Rome

and we have deliberately taken the opposite view where all roads must lead away from Rome,

because we wanted to explore Lazio -

the area that lives, as it were,

and has always lived in the shadow of Rome.

I suppose if I'm trying to think of the one thing that holds all of the art that we've seen together,

perhaps it is the fact that it was all created away from Rome.

Tivoli created by a cardinal who didn't make it in Rome.

Bomarzo created by a man who'd failed in the great power struggles in Rome.

Even, in a sense, the Etruscans, their tombs.

The Etruscans are a people who now live in the shadow of the ancient Romans.

Many people have never heard of them, they're almost like a civilisation in the shadow of Rome.

So, I think when you come out to Lazio,

you discover, so to speak, those who've been left behind, those who failed.

What is most amazing, especially travelling around with you,

we saw these statements in art for the rich people

and, you know, all we got on the food is only the food of the poor.

The food of the rich has disappeared.

When we tried to make a recipe of the papal dinner,

it was so complicated, so time wasting and so many ingredients.

-Peel an eel!

-Peel an eel. GIORGIO LAUGHS

You know, so laborious all the work.

And, obviously, the world hasn't got no more time for that.

This is the produce, this is the land that talks.

-Here's the Quinto Quarto.

-Also the porchetta, which is like, so simple.

-Porchetta is...

-It just comes out the oven and he slices it,

put it in-between two slices of bread and there you've got the rosemary, pork and - badabing!

These are the things that are still representative for the region.

And the art that we've been looking at and the gardens and so on,

in a sense they're also the underdog.

They're still made by powerful people,

but they're made by powerful people on hard times.

I do think that Lazio is a wonderful place, I really do, and I think it is worth coming here.

It is worth actually, deliberately, avoiding Rome.

What was your favourite piece of art if I had to put you on the spot?

I was really touched, you know, when we went to the catacombs.

-The Etruscans?

-Yeah, there was a moment there, you know, that was really beautiful.

It felt really like we were back... in common with them.

Here's to Lazio.

-And we're going to finish the whole journey without having gone to Rome.

-GIORGIO LAUGHS

No, now the best part of our journey comes.

We're going into Mezzogiorno now, man! Are you ready? THEY LAUGH

Andiamo.