The Merchants of Venice Italy Unpacked

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

It's one of the top five most beautiful paintings in the world.

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

When you say handmade, this is what it means.

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

It's so, so beautiful.

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

I wouldn't mind being a pig if I had to grow up here.

And this country's rich layers of art and history

have captivated me since childhood.

Primitive but actually fantastic. Beautiful, sophisticated.

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

the east coast of the country from the deep south

to the extreme north

stepping off the tourist track wherever we go.

-Not a bad spot, is it?

-This is a dream!

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

often most born out of necessity but leaving a legacy that is

still shaping Italian modern cuisine around the world.

-It's better than an oyster.

-Much better than an oyster!

And the art too is extraordinary,

exotic and deeply rooted in history.

The last leg of our journey is in Veneto.

Whoo-hoo!

It's one of Italy's most fascinating regions, and a real melting pot,

thanks to its geographical position in the north-east of Italy.

This is the story of how the merchants of Venice

with their work ethic, their sophistication

and love for the dolce vita shaped this unique region.

-Isn't that fantastic?

-It's so brilliant.

So here we are, Venice.

-Who could ever get tired of this view?

-It's so beautiful!

St Mark's, the Doge's palace,

there's your named church, San Giorgio Maggiore.

But, for us, this is not the destination,

it's the setting-off point

because we're not interested in Venice this time around.

Exactly. We are going to go and see Veneto.

The Venetians sort of expand themselves towards

the east for hundreds of years through the sea.

Then, suddenly, when they sort of lost their power, what did they do?

They turn inland, they turn inland and here you are,

you have big cities like Padua, Vicenza, all these cities

that have grown up fed by the wealth that was created by this town here.

And some of the greatest art and artists that we associate

with the name Venice, you can find their masterpieces in places

like Padua, Vicenza, and I imagine also the same is true with the food?

The food is incredible

because again, obviously, the influence of the sea is really,

really strong but then the influence of the land will be incredible.

We will taste some of the best cheeses

that you will ever come through.

And what is amazing is these people are great workers.

At the base of what they say is,

"Chi non lavora non fa' l'amore."

So it means if you don't work hard, you don't even get sex.

Wow, that's the work ethic.

So where are we going to start?

The first thing I'm going to take you to see is this place

-called Chioggia.

-Chioggia.

I'm going to take you to see some of the most exceptional

fish that they do down there.

Let's go.

Chioggia, we are arriving.

The Venetian lagoon extends for 212 square miles

and contains 51 islands altogether.

Chioggia lies at the southern entrance

about 16 miles south of Venice,

and in the Middle Ages, it was second only to Venice.

Fleets from here once controlled the lucrative salt trade,

right across the Adriatic Sea.

I can smell fish. Where are you taking me?

You can smell fish everywhere here.

We are full immersion fish.

Can you follow your nose?

So, Andrew, this is the mercato al dettaglio.

So that means it's where the people come to buy the fish that they eat.

As opposed to...?

As opposed to "all' ingrosso", that is for the trade.

THEY SPEAK IN ITALIAN

Absolutely beautiful.

-You could make a good fish soup here.

-Unbelievable.

That's because having a sand bottom on the sea,

you have a lot more flat fish than the other.

I mean, this is a paradise.

Look at the baby prawns, it's so fantastic.

-I wasn't expecting...

-That's a conger eel.

Look at that, it's a skinned conger eel.

Chop it down, you can use it for soup and you eat the meat.

When I buy it from people in England, it's so difficult to get it.

These, they put them back, they don't take them out.

It's only eight euros.

Bellissimo!

Look at this. No roast beef for lunch here, I tell you.

Sandbanks and mudflats make the lagoon one of the richest

and most fragile ecosystems in the Mediterranean.

The lagoon is famous above all for its clams - le vongole.

They are as much a symbol of the lagoon as Venice itself.

So, Andrew, what do you think?

-Wow, it's...

-Why do you think I took you here?

-I don't know, it's busy.

-Yeah, I took you here, it's a big surprise.

This is my friend Maurizio. Maurizio!

-Ciao! Come stai?

-Ciao, Giorgio!

-Fantastico! Long time, no see!

-Salve, buongiorno, sono Andrea.

-This is Andrew.

-Maurizio, ciao.

So what is this boat?

-This is a special boat for harvesting!

-Yes.

-Harvesting! Not fishing - harvesting, because...

-Harvesting what?

Vongole.

Vongole! The clams!

Maurizio trained as a marine biologist and spent many years

teaching fishermen how to harvest the clams

whilst respecting the ecosystem of the lagoon.

It's thanks to people like him that the lagoon has been kept alive.

On board there are a couple of curious tools,

which must have been perfected through generations of clam harvesting,

as well as some rather unusual get-up.

OK, Andrew, come on, put them on, you have to put your bits on.

-Hang on.

-Just on one.

-Oh, I see, OK.

Just sit down, put one in...

Oh, my God!

-Are you on?

-Yeah, yeah.

-You need to move your feet in.

-Wow!

Now you pull them up like that

and tuck them in like that, that's all you have to do.

It's quite stylish.

GIORGIO LAUGHS

-There you are.

-That's good.

Now you are a real vongolaro.

I think I might make this my daily outfit.

Walking down Piccadilly... it would be quite good.

Looking good today.

We seem to be quite far from the coast.

I'm all togged up, but how are we going to get at the clams?

The answer, according to Maurizio, is one step at a time.

Andiamo a incontrare le vongole.

We are going to meet the vongole now.

I can't believe it's so shallow here.

The whole lagoon is shallow like that.

'It might look like open sea,

'but the lagoon here is never more than three feet deep.'

That's really nice here.

-Easy.

-Have you never been down a stepladder?

Not like this, normally I'm changing a light bulb.

Going the other way, not down.

Ooh, it's such a weird feeling!

It's like a rake.

So it goes in

because the vongole lives about 3-4cm underneath of the sand.

So you've got to really go in.

It's not an easy job.

He has got to clean out the water, which is very sandy.

I'd like to have a go.

It's a very hard job, Andrew. It's not going to be easy.

There you are, that is fantastic, Andrew!

We are looking for something that we have planted here.

How long does it take to grow?

So one year and a half to grow.

-It's brilliant.

-Yeah.

It's almost like picking fruit.

RATTLING

-I love this noise!

-Maurizio, can I have a go?

So what do I do?

-Vibrations.

-Yes, slower.

-Slow.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Like that.

-Yeah.

-It's hard work, man!

-Yes.

Yeah!

Andrew's vongole, man!

-I got a big one.

-I love that!

That's enough for us, for lunch.

That's enough for lunch, half for me and half for you.

Grazie, Maurizio. Fantastico! Andiamo.

Chioggia produces approximately 2,000 tonnes of clams per year.

The clams have to be sold alive.

They can survive refrigerated for five days maximum,

so they are mainly sold in Europe.

Andrew, after all the hard work we have done,

I'm getting these pearls, these are the pearls of the Adriatic.

Look at how beautiful...

Look at the yellow, look at the size of this!

That one is for me.

Anyway, so we are going to go now to the Casoni.

The Casoni are like a man-made house on stilts

and they were built just to process mussel, oyster and vongole.

We are going to go there and we're going to cook.

-We are going to cook.

-Wait and see.

See, we are in the middle of the sea, but still it's not like the sea.

This is like a farm.

This proves the healthiness of the sea.

People say - it's an old cliche -

that Venice and the Venetian lagoon, it smells bad. It doesn't.

It has the sweetest smell of any sea in the world, I think.

-That's right.

-This is like a little corner of paradise, isn't it?

This is beautiful!

Come on, Andrew, let's go cook these.

Get off. Take that.

This is really, really hard, man.

I'm in my favourite place in the world

and you are about to cook me my favourite dish in the world.

How lucky are you?

Look, the most important thing about the most delicious food

is always to not overcomplicate it.

I know people who make spaghetti with vongole, they put cream,

-saffron, tomato, anything that comes to their minds.

-Eugh!

So the main thing is to always make a sauce that is the simplest.

We are going to use a little bit of garlic, a little bit of chilli

and parsley at the end. Olive oil and some white wine.

Your job is to hold this and defend me

from anybody who is going to attack us, OK?

-Anybody who wants to eat our clams.

-Anybody who wants to have our clams.

Look, so the water is boiling.

I'm going to start with the sauce before I put the spaghetti.

I think we like garlic, so me and you will have two cloves of garlic

for two portions, OK?

One of the most important things, Andrew, you know what it is?

It's to use olive oil that is not so strong.

So I wouldn't use our Sicilian olive oil for that.

I'd use like a Ligurian olive oil

that is a little bit lighter in flavour.

Chilli.

I love chilli, you know me.

I'm going to put one whole chilli in there.

That smell is great.

Do not burn the garlic, they will be bitter.

So get the vongole, Andrew.

Here they are.

-The sea's out there.

-Our beautiful little sea sculptures.

OK.

One for you.

Very good.

-I just want to make sure you... Did you put my big one in?

-Yeah.

I'm going to saute like that.

A touch of wine.

A little bit, like that, not much.

-Wow! What a smell!

-Let that come out.

Don't cover it straightaway,

make sure you let the wine evaporate

so you have that really nice flavour,

but not the actual alcohol of that.

This is going to take 4-5 minutes to cook, so off we go.

So this is really "fasto foodo", as you say.

Well, you pick up our vongole, you go home,

-really, in 25 minutes you should be able to eat.

-Yeah.

Look, see? It's going.

They're opening up, one by one.

Any one of them that stays closed, we are going to get rid of it.

With the amount of spaghetti that we have, that's too much shell,

you don't want to serve a plate of shells,

so what we are going to do now, we pick one out.

-Then we hold one of these and we go like that.

-Yeah, yeah.

So you use one clam to disembowel the other one.

Disembowel the other one! I love that!

You have to make it really tragic!

You know, it's only a vongola, Andrew.

I haven't got the hang of it... Ah, there we go, I see.

'After 4-5 minutes, it's time to put the spaghetti into the pan

'with some roughly cut parsley and then toss it together.'

I love that crunching noise, it means it's nearly ready.

OK, here you here, give us the plates.

A bit of the spaghetti.

And a bit of the spaghetti.

I can hear boats coming from the mainland, I think they smelt it.

-Perfect.

-Are you ready?

That garlic is fantastic.

It's not Chinese garlic, it's Italian garlic.

Wow, sir, look at that! I've got myself a little clam there.

-Mm!

-GIORGIO LAUGHS

-My...

-That is so delicious.

Fiery, it's got the sea.

How long have they been cooking this round here, do you think?

This is prehistoric.

When they were eating oyster, they were eating this.

It's time to say goodbye to Chioggia.

Ooh-hoo!

We've planned a route that follows in the footsteps

of the Venetians themselves as they built their inland empire.

From the beginning of the 15th century,

as their supremacy at sea was at first challenged

and then overthrown by the forces of Islam,

the Venetians increasingly annexed territories

and founded colonies on the Italian mainland.

Our first destination is the town of Padova.

In 1405, Padova was conquered by the Venetians and remained

a faithful ally until the end of the Venetian Republic in 1797.

Andrew...

There's that nice Italian phrase... What's that old Italian phrase

-about, you know, the Venetians...

-"Veneziani gran signori,

"Padovani gran dottori." Great doctors.

So the Venetians are great messieurs.

-Messieurs.

-And the Padovani are very learned.

-Very learned.

-And that's presumably in reference...

-The university, of course.

-Yeah, yeah.

Even before the Venetians conquered this land,

Padua was an important cultural centre.

The University of Padua was established in 1222

and still remains one the most prominent universities in the world.

Today, Padua is most famous for the wonderful frescoes

painted by Giotto in the overcrowded Arena Chapel,

but very few people know about another masterpiece -

a cycle of frescoes here,

in the almost empty baptistery of the Duomo,

painted in the 14th century,

27 years before the Venetian invasion.

-Whoa!

-Here we are.

What is this? Look at that!

-Beautiful round...

-I've never seen this, ever!

Isn't it something?

It is incredible.

It's like going to heaven with your eyes.

It's so busy, isn't it?

Look at that beautiful vision of heaven

with Christ Pantocrator in the centre, looking down on us

with those sad, solemn eyes

surrounded by the seraphim, the cherubim,

the circles of the angels, then the blessed.

On the walls, the stories of Christ, who sheds his blood to save us.

I like this scene here, look,

Judas betraying Christ. Judas gives him the kiss of friendship

which is not really the kiss of friendship at all.

Judas has got a black halo.

Sort of an anti-halo, it's almost like a dark star

compared to Christ's sun.

It's created in 1375.

The painter, who is called Menabuoi,

-he's working immediately after the terrible Black Death.

-Right.

-OK.

-When in England, 1.4 million out of 4 million people die.

In Italy it's the same, but in the Veneto, it's even worse.

I read that Venice was much worse hit by that,

obviously because of the trade, the boat bringing in rats and things,

so it killed more than three-quarters of the population of Venice.

-It was really... Exactly.

-It was bad.

-Really bad.

And these pictures were painted

just 28 years after that great outbreak,

but at the time when the sense of emergency

is still absolutely with these people.

There are regular outbreaks of plague, thousands of people die.

That fear, that terror, that sense of desire

that God should come to save you,

I think this whole space vibrates with it,

absolutely pullulates with it.

Look at that massacre of the innocents!

Pap-pap-pap!

Stabbing of these babies, I mean, it's a terrible scene

and I wonder if it isn't a kind of allegory of what Giusto de' Menaboui

and his patrons thought the plague was doing to the people of Padova.

-Stabbing them, killing them, just...no mercy, no pity.

-Hm.

And very tellingly, if you look at that scene there -

Christ healing the sick - he is being watched.

Do you see there are three faces up there in the crowd

who are particularly individuated?

Well, that is the patron, her husband and Petrarch the poet.

And the scene is set in a square very much like the central square

of Padova, so it's as if they are willing Christ to come to Padova

and save those suffering from the plague.

Beautiful colour. I find the colour absolutely amazing.

At the first glance, as soon as you look around,

you can always tell which one Jesus is

-because he is wearing this beautiful blue...

-Yeah.

..mantel that you can just spot out in the picture...

Here he is, him.

I like the thought of it as an act of patronage,

that this lady, Fina, as she was called,

she wanted all of the children of Padova

to be baptised under the eye of that image of God.

If you're going to be baptised here, you're going to be blessed

and maybe you are going to be saved.

So, I don't know about you,

but we got up here quite early, so I fancy a coffee.

-It's usually you that says that.

-You always fancy a coffee.

No, it's usually you that says that.

Grazie.

Padua's most famous coffee house is the Caffe Pedrocchi,

erected in 1831 by coffee entrepreneur Antonio Pedrocchi.

He chose the architect Giuseppe Jappelli,

who would build one of the most beautiful cafes in the world

in the neoclassic style.

It's been a favourite meeting place of the Paduan intelligentsia

for nearly two centuries.

You are looking very mischievous, what have you ordered?

No, I ordered... Buongiorno.

I order you a coffee

because we are in a cafe, which is, you know, a very important place.

-Grazie.

-This is, you know, possibly

one of the most well-known Italian desserts and it's called tiramisu.

Everybody knows tiramisu all over the world, isn't it?

-Pick me up.

-Pick me up.

That's right, and it shouldn't be eaten after dinner,

it's too much after dinner, it's too much after lunch.

This should be eaten in the morning. That's what it was made for.

-So it's literally a pick-me-up.

-Yeah.

-Like an elevenses, really.

It's got coffee, it's got eggs, it's got sugar -

what picks you up more than that?

So can I have a go?

No, you have to wait.

For the explication?

No, please, have a go, have a taste.

I like the idea of serving it in a cup like that.

It's certainly substantial.

-Mm.

-I mean...

It's a good one, tremendously sweet, lots of coffee.

People like to think this is a dessert that's been in Italy forever.

No, it's a very, very modern thing.

-It's been invented in the '70s.

-Oh, really?

It wasn't around before that.

This is a dessert that is born out of the fact we have refrigeration,

things like that, you have raw eggs, you have mascarpone in it.

-Tiramisu was invented in Veneto.

-I didn't know that.

Obviously coffee comes through Venice, you know, all these spices,

all the trade from the East come through Venice,

and drinking hot chocolate and coffee was invented in Venice.

It's where they started doing it.

It's where the English coffee house began

because English milords went to Venice,

had this wonderful stuff and wanted to have that at home.

That's right, and brought it back to London.

It's so ingrained in popular sort of society,

this idea of socialising around something to eat,

something delicious, it's kind of like, you know, it's very Italian.

All these anonymous coffee chains

should go and learn the art of running cafes from Caffe Pedrocchi.

But now, time to say goodbye to Padova.

We're continuing our journey on water,

heading north-east from Padua...

..and following a system of canals

sourced in the River Brenta in the 16th century.

The Venetians used these waterways

to connect their growing inland empire with the lagoon.

Oh, look at that.

But until the Venetians built this network of canals,

-this area was malaria infested.

-Yeah.

-Salt marshes.

-Swamp.

-Nobody lived here.

So we are in a landscape that was created by the Venetians,

not just colonised. But that's not all they built.

The most wonderful monuments to this new Venetian inland empire

are the great classical houses they built on their country estates.

They've come inland, and look, here it is.

-Wow!

-The Villa Malcontenta,

one of the most famous, one of the greatest.

1559, Andrea Palladio - what style does he choose? The classical style.

Classical porticos, Ionic columns,

this grand block of a house

designed to resemble an ancient Roman temple.

He thought Roman houses were like that.

Hey, never mind, he made a mistake.

The aristocracy of Europe for the next 400 years would repeat that mistake.

If you look at English country houses, they've all got temple fronts too.

Isn't that fantastic?

It's so brilliant.

At the top, it says "For the Foscari brothers",

Nicholas and Aloisius Foscari.

So that's one of the very first Venetian country houses,

and yet it's connected to Venice by this system of canals.

They are people of the water, they like travelling by water.

Wow, amazing!

So calm.

Buongiorno.

Buon viaggio.

CHEERING

A very well-fed group of Italian tourists,

eating a nine-course meal while taking in the villas of Palladio.

-Yeah...

-That is a good way to spend the afternoon.

The most important thing is that there is some Prosecco going.

We got this wrong, where is the table groaning?

Hey, don't complain before you know what's coming.

-OK.

-I got something coming as well.

-Oh, we've got a picnic.

I love this - look, they even have a little balcony.

Andrew?

What's this?

I've just been in the cambusa, look what I made for you.

It's called baccala mantecato, a very, very easy recipe.

-Made with fish?

-Made with fish, made with stockfish,

from the northern Atlantic stockfish.

It's delicious, it tastes like it's been preserved in some way.

It's got a Venetian touch to it.

The process is quite long - you take a wind-dried fish,

then you have to soak it for 24 hours,

cook it in milk and then beat it to death, as they add the olive oil.

So it's like a kind of fish puree almost.

That's what it is. This is, I guess, the only way the Venetians,

when they move inland,

they could bring some fish with them, before refrigeration.

This is something that is so well known

because whenever you go to have an aperitivo or something to drink

before dinner when you meet your friends, that's what...

Mind your head!

ANDREW LAUGHS

..that's what they would serve. That was dangerous.

Concentrate on the food.

Ding dong!

Back on terra firma,

our next destination is the town of Vicenza

that reached its golden age

under the Republic of Venice in the 16th century,

home town to the architect Andrea Palladio,

whose villas are also scattered across the surrounding countryside.

None more beautiful than the Villa Rotonda.

It's such a treat to be able to see this masterpiece,

even if only from a car.

It's like an echo from the grandiose palaces of Venice.

Vicenza's merchants would commission many more masterpieces.

As for the church of Santa Corona, where you can still admire

one of the most haunting pictures ever created by human hand.

So this is it, this is what we came to see.

-Andrew!

-I just love this picture so much, it's by Giovanni Bellini,

and the subject is the baptism of Christ.

It's painted in the very first years of the 16th century.

In my own personal kind of grading,

it's one of the top five most beautiful paintings in the world.

Just stunning, it's got everything.

And really special because it's still in the church

for which it's commissioned.

It's still in the huge architectural frame

which the patron, Battista Graziani,

he was so pleased with the painting he got from Bellini

that he commissioned this frame, which Bellini helped to design.

It's beautiful, I never, ever seen...

..a Christ looking so beautifully modern and real, isn't it?

Look at his eyes!

It's one of the most beautiful figures in Western painting,

that figure of Christ.

There is something about the eyes of everyone on the painting,

from Jesus to the girl, especially that girl with the red robe.

I think they're meant to represent faith, hope and charity.

Other people think they're meant to represent angelic figures,

but she looks on the point of speech.

Yes, she's really coming out of it.

And the detail, look at the little stones underneath the feet of Christ.

It looks like the river bed.

Really important, because that's part of the miracle.

The miracle is that at the moment of Christ's baptism,

the river stops. It's not going to cover his feet

because it pays reverence to God.

What's incredible, as well, is the back, isn't it?

-The landscape.

-The landscape.

Those blue mountains behind.

Well, Leonardo da Vinci uses exactly the same technique in the Mona Lisa.

It's called aerial perspective.

If you stand at the top of a mountain and look into the distance,

because of the refraction of light through the air,

as things get further away, they get bluer.

Blue remembered hills - that's what those are.

It looks a bit like the mountain that we have, you know, we are here

in Northern Europe, behind there is Austria, you know?

Bellini was a Venetian painter and it's very important

that he's from Venice because what he brings to Italian painting

is this aspect of travel and trade and influence and cross-influence,

because on the one hand you've got this technique he's used -

oil paint on wood with bright colours.

Well, that comes from Northern Europe.

He's seen the altarpieces of Van Eyck.

There's the influence of the Florentine Renaissance in his work

and the influence of Byzantium

in that transcendent figure of God the Father.

So he brings all these things together and then he pushes forward.

Without him, no Titian, without him, no Leonardo da Vinci.

He is such an important painter.

You can see that Bellini knew that this was one of his masterpieces.

-Because he signed it.

-He signed it like that. He wanted us to know...

-That he did that.

-..500 years later,

"I, Bellini, painted this picture."

You know, it's 20 years since I came here.

So I say it's one of my favourite paintings in the world

but it's one that I've neglected.

It's just... Oh, it makes me want to jump up and down.

Maybe we should say thank you to Battista Graziani...

-For paying for it!

-For paying for it!

-THEY LAUGH

-Arrivederci.

Throughout history, Venetians never lost their great gift for commerce.

After World War II, their economic recovery

has been one of the fastest in Italy and in Europe.

From the Renaissance to the present day,

Venetians have always been great patrons of the arts.

One of my favourite recent creations is from the 1960s,

commissioned by the Brion family,

and, luckily, it's on the way towards our last destination.

So, this is a rather melancholy, very peaceful place.

It's the communal cemetery of Altivole,

and the reason we're here is that in the late '60s

a very wealthy local industrialist -

a manufacturer of televisions and radios -

and his wife, Giuseppe and Onorina Brion,

approached a modern architect, Carlo Scarpa,

and asked him to make for them a tomb.

But a tomb with a difference. They wanted something new,

something cutting edge, something avant-garde -

they were great followers of the avant garde.

And he thought about it and he said,

"Well, I think I could create something for you that's spiritual,

"something different from these shoe boxes."

What he made is through this arch.

So what did Scarpa create for his clients?

I think he created a kind of Palladian villa for their souls,

surrounded by water...

..all done in this modernist style,

a very aggressively modernist style.

Look at the way he uses the light, the texture.

All the windows and doors

are designed to give you two experiences.

This is also very Venetian, this use of coloured marble.

You find it inside the great cathedral of St Mark's in Venice.

That's right.

It's a real mixture of influences going on here.

Sort of cuts through to the light, this transparency of effects -

it's almost like a Japanese interior.

And then we've got this door which is decorated

with this geometric pattern that evokes the cross

but also suggests...

-This is brilliant!

-..Mondrian.

Oh, it's very heavy.

But here, this is, as it were, the real business end of the mausoleum.

In this sort of courtyard garden area

we've got the tomb of Giuseppe and his wife, Onorina.

Like a sort of sculptural resting place.

But look at this, look at these colours.

So, at this point the bridge, which I think symbolises

the transition from life to death, also becomes a rainbow,

which is the traditional symbol of God's love.

Again, so often the modern Italians,

the modern Venetians, they still languish in the shadow of the past.

Everyone knows the greats of the Renaissance and the Baroque

but I think this is really a modern masterpiece.

There's something of the Zen garden about this death garden.

That's right.

The water lilies...

You can come here and contemplate.

Oh, look at that.

I love the way that it's here.

It wouldn't be the same if it was in a city.

Being surrounded by those maize fields with that church

sticking up out of the flat horizon,

and then beyond, the Bellini mountains.

Very spectacular, isn't it? As you leave you really see

the contrast in the scenery, the flat land and then the mountains.

It's almost like we're heading off

into the background of Bellini's painting.

We're searching for those blue mountains we saw, yeah?

I hope we find them.

We will, we can't miss them!

Andrew, they're so big, you don't even need a map,

you can just look at them.

By 1454, Venice had conquered - mostly by diplomacy -

all of the present Veneto up to the Dolomites,

now shared between Austria and Italy.

The Venetians now had everything they needed -

the lagoon, great for trading and fishing,

a fertile farmland,

and, from these forests, the wood they needed to build their fleets.

There's even an area up here called San Marco,

renowned for its strong and straight pines.

It's where the Venetians used to get the tree trunks for their masts.

What I find amazing is how, in such a short time,

you leave the plains of the Veneto and you come up in towards

the mountains as if you've almost flicked a switch,

everything seems totally different yet you're still in the Veneto.

The only thing that's not different is the dialect.

They still speak Veneto.

Can you do it? Can you do it? Do it.

Me son Veneziano, faccio tutto mi, faccio tutto mi!

I'll have to practise!

"Faccio tutto mi" means "I do everything".

Don't worry, I'll do everything.

And what's the food like in this part?

The food is a little bit of that Austrian,

middle European cooking, but with the Italian touch.

So the Knoedel, that the German would make big like that,

they make it small like that.

And they're beautiful, they're light, soft.

-So, hearty but also delicate.

-Very, yes.

Our first stop is in the Comelico valley,

a beautiful and untouched little corner of the Dolomites.

It's not a bad spot, is it?

Hey.

This is a dream.

Can you imagine, in the morning you come up here,

cook lunch, you look out the window and that's what you see?

The whole area has been protected by this amphitheatre

of these beautiful mountains.

They protect these people. They've kept it secret.

It's beautiful.

It's interesting how the architecture's completely different.

No more of that lightness and delicacy, those Venetian palazzi.

Now it's these heavy wooden buildings

with their long eaves to deflect the snow.

You really feel that these villages up there,

it's hunched against the elements, isn't it?

Little bell tower, the houses huddled round...

It's lovely.

That's beautiful. That's a buzzard.

Falco. A falcon.

Look, he's taking the hot air.

I'm jealous. What must it feel like to do that?

This isn't an area renowned for art,

obviously it's so far away from the major cultural centres,

but I've got a good friend called Giuliano who comes from here

and he tells me that in a little village called San Nicolo

there are some really fascinating frescoes.

So that's going to be what I want to take you to see.

OK, let's go and see that,

then I'll take you up the mountain and show you where

the First World War happened.

-It's a deal.

-Let's go.

But art and history will have to wait.

I first want to cook lunch for Andrew.

The locals would normally cook game, but not far from here

there is a speciality that I want Andrew to try.

We need to go to Misurina. 1,754 metres above sea level,

it's one of the largest natural lakes in Italy.

I wanted to come here to walk around the lake.

You've got to think about the beauty of this water. It's fantastic.

It's so clear, the water.

This is Stefano.

-How are you doing, Stefano?

-Ciao.

THEY SPEAK ITALIAN

He's got three trouts.

-Bravo.

-Generous fisherman. Grazie, Stefano.

To go with the trout I want to cook a popular local dish,

an Italian version of German dumpling.

I'm intrigued to see what ingredients

Giorgio will have found to create our meal.

Due to the mountainous landscape and the long, cold winters,

cooks round here have often had to make a little go a long way.

Andrew, I'm going to cook you one of the dishes that to me

represents these mountains more than anything else.

It's called canederli.

The recipe starts like that, so you're using some old bread.

You know, you cannot throw away old bread in Italy.

Especially the old generation that have been through the war,

if you throw away bread they think it's a mortal sin, you know?

So, we've got some milk.

The flavour goes from salty, then we are going to do to sweet.

There are some in the summer that are made with plums in it,

some with cheese...

-And you'd eat it as a pudding?

-As a pudding.

You see the bread now is completely sort of wet.

The most important thing is that when you press it,

it doesn't lose any of the milk that you add to it,

so you know you've got a good mixture then, OK?

This is cuisine out of necessity, you know,

and using the ingredients that you have around.

So, this is a bit of onions that I have pre-cooked

with a little bit of butter that will give a little flavour

without getting them too coloured.

Then some people put cheese inside.

So what's the name of that cheese, Giorgio?

It's called Malga. It's a typical mountain cheese that they make here.

I don't make too much because you don't want it to be too soft.

We can serve this on top after.

You want to taste a little bit?

I can see what you're doing.

HE CHUCKLES

Well, just to check.

And then last...

Speck?

Not too much salt up here so very difficult to cure meat,

so smoking it fast in the old system gives it a very special flavour.

The cheese is lovely. Come si chiama? Malga?

-Malga. It's typical cheese from here.

-Very soft.

It's great with canederli.

Can you eat that raw, as well?

Definitely, it's been cured already, Andrew,

but just keep your fingers off what I'm doing

cos I'm going to cut your fingers off.

I'm going to cut it really nice and fine again.

Put that inside.

To finish off the mixture I'm adding chives,

finely cut sage, rosemary and parsley,

a bit of grated nutmeg and one egg to bind it together.

And now I'm mixing.

We're ready to do the Knoedel, the canederli.

We're going to put a little bit of breadcrumb in there,

and then get a little bit of this in your hands, and then...

How big is a Knoerdeli? Canederli?

Well, I would think this is enough,

and then we roll them a little bit into the breadcrumbs.

Yeah, can you make it?

You want it a bit rounder, maybe.

Terrible!

'Once they're all rolled, - some rounder than the other -

'they need to be gently placed in a simmering stock.'

What kind of stock is it that you're using?

Just normal chicken stock, or whatever,

or vegetable stock if you do the vegetarian.

And how long do you cook them for?

When they come on top, they will be almost ready.

-They actually float?

-Float.

Ah! Well, that's nice and easy.

'I still have to prepare the trout.

'I will keep the canederli warm in a sauce that I made with butter,

'herbs and a couple of spoons of the stock.'

Andrew, one of the most beautiful fishes there are in this area

is this beautiful trout. Look at that.

Unusual colouring.

The colouring is dictated by the fact that the trout are eating

some little prawns, so that's why they get that red.

I've got my butter, I'm getting my trout, which I will season.

At this point, some people would put flour on it or things like that.

I don't want to scare them cooked.

I want to convince them to be cooked for me.

You know what I mean?

I want to make sure that they're happy to be cooked by me.

Are you listening, trout?

What's the name of this variety of trout?

They're called fario.

Obviously, living in such a cold water,

the fish itself has a lot of fat in order to protect himself,

so what I'm trying to do now is to fry off and flush out

all the fat that I have on both sides.

This is going to be part of the beauty of this recipe.

I'm now adding a plate of finely cut carrots,

celery and onions that I have previously cooked in butter.

And the most important and unusual ingredient -

the red wine from Veneto.

This will help to bring out the flavour of the fatty fish.

OK, look, Andrew, one very important trick.

Press there.

-Can you feel it going click?

-Yeah.

That means at the moment the fillet at the top is really cooking.

You pushed and it's come off the bone,

so that means that the thing is cooked.

I have been cooking a lot of very important kind of food

created by chefs and things, but I tell you,

I'm feeling such a privilege to be here,

up in these mountains, cooking this food,

with all these things that come from, you know,

such a culture of the people of up here.

Whoo-hoo!

That's your trout.

And that is your canederli.

-My little Dolomites.

-Dolomites.

Whoa.

Oh! Mm!

Mmm!

What a taste!

Such a fantastic thing.

Full of flavour.

Absolutely, absolutely packed with it.

You can taste the smokiness of the meat.

But above all I taste the herbs.

For some stale bread, it's not that bad, is it?

Can you imagine, when it's really cold that's what you want,

something that will fill you up, something to warm you up.

Should we eat the trout at the same time?

That's exactly what you want to do.

-Just take a whole...?

-Take the whole fish, yeah.

Ahh, come here.

And that sauce. Oh, I love the skin.

ANDREW CHUCKLES

Perfect.

Wow! Isn't that good?

Sometimes trout can be a bit soggy, muddy.

That's fresh and clear.

Mmm! Giorgio!

You're eating a very happy fish.

So this is a trout that's really only ever drunk mineral water.

Better than mineral water.

Perfect water from the mountains springs.

It really is, that's the nicest trout I've ever tasted.

The most pure flavour.

Not bad, eh?

The Venetian demand for wood from this area brought new prosperity.

Little villages in the middle of nowhere had enough money

to pay artists to decorate their local churches,

like this one in San Nicolo.

It's like a little frontier church, 123km from Venice

but only 5km from Austria.

Really lovely church.

Very Gothic.

It was built in the 12th century.

Now, the lovely surprise here is this,

in a little country church in the Veneto

because, for one thing, in the Veneto they don't really do frescoes

in the Renaissance, because it's too damp, the climate isn't good enough.

-It won't stick on the wall.

-Yeah, very few frescoes in Venice.

And it's by a mysterious painter called Gianfrancesco Tolmezzo.

Tolmezzo.

About whom we know almost exactly nothing.

Now, my friend told me that there was a ladder over here,

and, gosh, he was right! There's a ladder over here.

-You have very important friends all over the world, Andrew.

-Pretty amazing.

You see these figures here?

Do you mind if I just get up and have a look?

It's OK, I'll hold the steps for you.

Thank you. Stop it.

-Stop it!

-It is a stabilising technique.

-Yes...

It's not in a great state of preservation,

but this annunciate angel, this is Gabriel...

-Yeah, Gabriele.

-..with the lily,

very feminine, in profile.

He's mysterious, this Gianfrancesco Tolmezzo,

but looking at that he has to have been to Tuscany.

-I think he has to have visited Florence.

-Really?

You don't see angels like this anywhere, really, except in Tuscany.

I mean, this could be straight out of a painting by Filippo Lippi.

It is also such a human face, it's very beautiful, you are right.

But I think there are two other things worth looking at in here.

-This side we've got the adoration of the shepherds.

-The pastori.

So the poor are adoring the newborn Christ,

and on the other side the adoration of the Magi,

the three wise men from the East who arrive laden with riches,

who give gold, frankincense and myrrh to Christ.

There's one thing, look.

-Le Tre Cime di Lavaredo up there.

-Ah, yeah!

Look at the Dolomites at the end, can you see them?

It's as if Joseph, Jesus and Mary have come,

not to Bethlehem, but they've come to this valley,

and the kings have come to this valley, too,

and they've come across the mountains to get here.

But I think the people of here would have been more drawn

to that side because this is their life.

-They've got broken trousers.

-They've got broken trousers, yeah.

Look, holes at the knees, there they are, the shepherds adoring.

It's a strong emphasis on the fact these are the poor people.

Yeah, the colour of the skin, the boys are really dark

and really tough like they've been out in the mountains.

Joseph looks like he's really had a long day, doesn't he?

He had a long night more than a long day.

I like the way he's paid such attention to the timber framework.

-It looks like the timber of a house from here, doesn't it?

-Exactly.

This is the province of San Nicolo.

Yeah, look at those rocks, very vertical rocks.

It's such a beautiful piece of painting.

Look at the drapery, the complexity of that drapery painting.

That's so hard to achieve in fresco.

I'm mystified by this Gianfrancesco Tolmezzo, because

he's not so good at figures but his painting of drapery is fantastic.

I wonder if he didn't...

I'm inventing stories in my head about him now,

but I wonder if he didn't go off to Florence

to try and make his fortune as a painter,

got taken on as an apprentice, he started painting some draperies,

then he got into a few fights and had to run back to the mountains!

That's a possibility as well.

I mean, this is how painters' lives turned out.

In order to have a crumb of bread he painted the church

of the place where he was running away.

I think these are amazing.

They should be in every tourist guide book to the area.

People should come and visit.

No-one comes here except the local congregation, really.

That's what it was made for, for them.

Yeah, but I think it's worth these being a bit better known.

What a little gem you find, Andrew. It's fantastic, this little church.

I didn't expect anything from the outside. So beautiful.

I'm glad you like it.

We're ending our travels as the Venetians ended theirs -

at the very top of the Dolomites.

Here, thousands of men lost their life defending the freedom of Italy.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

You really feel you're in the heart of the Dolomites here.

And it's very peaceful.

But there is one thing I want to tell you about it.

In the First World War, Italy entered the war in 1915,

one year after England,

and they start to fight the Austro-Hungarian.

So the Austro-Hungarian border was actually here,

coming all the way down here.

While in the other places they fought on the trenches on the flat land,

here they fought on the trenches that they built themselves.

You can see those holes on the wall,

-you can actually see people walking up there on the ridge.

-Yeah, yeah.

Those are not natural ridges.

These are all pathways, or, like, tunnels as well,

this is where the Italian army was set.

I can't imagine what it must have been like.

I've been to Flanders and I've seen the trenches in the ground there...

-In the mud.

-..and that's grim. You know, corrugated iron passages,

men just living underground for weeks on end,

sticking their head up only to be shot at.

But here it would've been a different kind of atrocity.

I mean, it would've been...

I mean, imagine spending the night up there

-again and again and again, freezing.

-No fire, no nothing.

You must think it was so important here

because the Austrians were there.

If they go through this that's Italy down there.

That's Veneto down there and that's all Italy.

It opens in front of you.

If you can manage to go over this,

then everything is just a little walk, isn't it?

-You're into the plains.

-When you are down in the valley, that's it.

This is the only place they could stop them,

and they did stop them for two years.

These people lost their life up in the snow,

in the cold, no food...

The strength that made Italy what it is.

It's so difficult to think of it now, isn't it?

You know, on a day like this.

Yeah, we are here, we appreciate the beauty of it,

but deep inside the stones there is a great story of sufferance.

The worst expression of humanity.

I feel like I'm on top of the world, never mind on top of the Veneto.

Isn't that something?

It is an epic end for this journey, isn't it?

It's been a good journey.

One of the things I love about the Veneto is this sense

that the people, on the one hand they're immensely practical -

you know, practical seafaring men, mountain men -

but they've also got this wonderful sense

of spirituality and transcendence,

so you get this beautiful Bellini painting,

or that dome with the vision of heaven.

So you're almost joining la terra e il cielo.

Like the Veneto itself, which begins by the sea and climbs the mountains.

I think a lot of people, when they think of Italy,

they think of pasta, spaghetti,

Rome, Florence, the Amalfi coast,

and I think what we've been trying to do with these journeys

is to perhaps open up the perception of what Italy is

or what Italy can be, to show that there are many,

many more sides to Italy than that.

Italy is so rich of everything.

These people are closer to Austria than they are to Rome,

and, you know, we started our journey in Sicily

where the people are closer to Africa and Tunisia than they are to Rome.

So, what's going to happen next? We've finished Italy.

No, no. Italy's never finished, you know.

Everywhere you go, you turn a little corner,

there will be something special

or somebody who does something in a special way.

Italy needs to be still unpacked.

Never say never.

Shall we go for lunch?

HE LAUGHS

I think that's going to be the last thing you say on this earth.

Thank you, Andrew.