The Romantic North Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe

'My name is Francesco da Mosto,

'and I am about to go on a long journey.'

Si!

'For us Italians, family is everything.'

Ciao, Papa.

'Leaving mine behind is like leaving a part of myself.'

'I have spent most of my life on these canals,

'but I'm something more than just a Venetian.

'My mother is Sicilian, and I have family in almost every part of the country.

'So I have decided to leave home

'and see Italy from top to toe.

'Once, my Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider

'was the most important thing in my life.

'But then I was a carefree bachelor, before I had a family!'

This is a moment most Italian drivers fear,

a Venetian getting into a car.

But I always say, once you've navigated down the Grand Canal,

you can do anything.

'Some of the things I'm going to see will be familiar to you,

'but others will be more surprising,

'little secrets that, for me, are the essence of Italy.'

This is always a strange moment.

As soon as a Venetian arrives on the mainland, he feels like un pesce fuor d'acqua,

a fish out of water, a little intimidated.

'So it's nice to remember that for century after century, all this was part of Venice too.

'Venice was just the heart of a vast empire that stretched through northern Italy.

'Here, away from the confines of the lagoon, we could build

'spectacular country houses to escape the bustle of the city.'

But it is a little too early to relax, don't you think so?

I want to show you first something very special,

something that is behind so much of our modern world.

It lies in the town of Padua.

Most tourists don't come here.

They get too taken by Venice.

But this town can claim something over Venice.

This is the birthplace of Western art.

This is the Capella degli Scrovegni.

It was built around 1305 by Enrico Scrovegni.

He built it to ask God's forgiveness

for the wicked life of his father, a villainous moneylender.

To decorate the chapel, Enrico commissioned the painter Giotto.

He would change the face of religious art.

Giotto was disperato - desperate.

Christ was always shown as a distant figure.

Think of those strange, cold images on church icons.

But Giotto wanted to show Christ as a real person, who feels pain and love.

He wanted to show Christ in a way that the people could understand.

So he turned the Bible into a romance.

In telling the story of Christ, Giotto looks for drama and emotion.

The tears of the distraught mothers at the Massacre of the Innocents

are the first tears in Western art.

We see Christ in a full range of emotions -

anger,

humiliation,

betrayal, suffering.

His death is marked by anguish.

Giotto was the first painter to show us life as we see and feel it.

It seems obvious, but it had never been done before.

From this room comes every painting we see today.

At one end, Giotto shows Enrico Scrovegni offering this chapel

to the Virgin Mary, begging her to forgive his family for their sins.

It's strange to think that the moving force

behind the birth of Western art

was not the quest for beauty or knowledge,

but the most Italian of emotions, "mea culpa" -

guilt!

Let me tell you something about Italy. We are a young country.

We only came together 150 years ago.

Before that we were a collection of cities and states ruled by different people.

Every town is like a capital city of a tiny country...

..each with its own great buildings,

each with its own history and traditions.

This is Vicenza.

There's money here.

Look at these streets, so clean and ordered.

And all these marvellous palaces. It's nice here.

Nearly everything in this town owes its look to one man,

the architect Andrea Palladio.

In the 16th century, he built the great palaces which

would show Italy that Vicenza had become a rich and powerful city.

Palladio came from a poor family.

He was apprenticed to a stonemason at the age of 13.

But his natural genius was noticed very quickly.

He was able to take what was magnificent

from the architecture of ancient Rome,

and apply it tastefully and playfully to his clients' new homes.

BELL RINGS

-Buon giorno.

-Buon giorno.

-Grazie.

-Prego.

'This is the Villa Rotonda, Palladio's most famous creation.

'It was begun around 1556 for a retired Vatican priest, Paolo Almerico.'

You may feel that you've seen this before.

And you have.

This building inspired the houses of Britain's rich for centuries.

This is where the English country house was born.

'It's been so influential that it's easy to forget how radical it was.

'For a start, it didn't look like somebody's home at all, but more like a Roman temple.

'Then there is the way it has no front or back like most houses,

'but is exactly the same on all four sides.

'This was because it was on a hill,

'and Palladio wanted it to look beautiful from every vantage point.

'It is difficult to film inside,

'but luckily, the Villa Rotonda belongs to a friend of my father's.'

Ciao.

MUSIC: "Una Rotonda sul Mare" by Fred Bongusto

The day is coming to an end.

I'm going to spend the night in romantica Verona.

When I was a teenager, a friend a few years older brought me here for crazy parties.

It was here in Verona that I discovered wine, cigarettes and girls.

So I felt a little similar to the hero of Shakespeare's great play,

Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers

who find their love destroyed by the hatred between their families

is the greatest tragedy about young love ever written.

Thousands of people come each year to this,

the house that Juliet is supposed to have lived in.

On the walls of the entrance,

people record their own experiences in love.

"I need love".

"Dino loves Steffi".

'We are asked to imagine that this balcony, built in 1935,

'was the setting for the famous love scene

'where Romeo serenades his beloved Juliet.

'But if you close your eyes and let your imagination play,

'anything is possible.'

Shakespeare never came to Verona,

and yet he set his greatest love story here.

It is because Italy was, and is, the country of love.

MUSIC: "That's Amore" by Dean Martin

# When the moon hits your eye

# Like a big pizza pie That's amore... #

'Here in Italy, we suffer none of your English shyness about our passione d'amore.

'We express what we feel.'

-Ciao.

-Ciao!

'We even have a daily ritual devoted to love.

'Around eight o'clock, we dress in our finest clothes and walk up and down the main street for an hour.

'It is called the passeggiata.'

# When the stars make you drool Just like pasta fazool

# That's amore... #

We are out to show ourselves, and most of all, to look.

We are a nation of voyeurs.

And when we see something we like, we say so.

-Ciao.

-Ciao.

And if doesn't work, pazienza. No matter,

we try again.

# Amore, that's amore... #

Ciao!

RADIO CRACKLES

# Dimmi quando tu verrai... #

# Dimmi quando, quando, quando

# E baciandomi dirai

# Non ci lasceremo mai! #

MUSIC CONTINUES

Here there is a ferry.

Let's try to see if with this ferry, we can arrive to Ferrara.

Could be useful.

# ..Non ci lasceremo mai!

# Non ci lasceremo mai!

# Non ci lasceremo mai! #

'Ferrara is a town famous for its bicycles and grey weather, just like your England.

'I've come here in pursuit

'of one of the most beautiful but infamous women who ever lived,

'Lucrezia Borgia.

'Lucrezia was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI.

'It was rumoured she was the lover of both her father and her brother.

'She became known as "the greatest whore in Rome".

'But her story would inspire painters, composers and writers through the ages.'

DOOR BUZZES

'After marrying the Duke of Ferrara in 1501, Lucrezia changed.

'She became a loyal wife and a caring mother.

'She came here to pray and find salvation.

'Today, the closed order of Clarissa nuns

'live in the convent as they have done for 600 years.'

Buon giorno, madre.

Grazie.

Grazie.

'Lucrezia Borgia asked to be buried here modestly, with the rest of her family.

'To Alfonso, duke of Ferrara.

'To Lucrezia Borgia, his wife.

'To Alexandro and Isabelle, their children.'

'Bologna is a city of ochre brick, quarried from nearby.

'It gives the place a warmth, even in rainy weather.

'This is one of Italy's most vibrant cities.

'It is because of the university at the heart of it.

'Bologna University was founded in 1088.

'It is the oldest university in the world.

'And yes, it is much older than your Oxford and Cambridge!'

This was the first university to practise human dissection.

They were trying to reveal the secrets of life.

It was a journey of discovery as great as putting man on the moon.

'This dissection theatre was built in 1637.

'It is made entirely from wood.

'Built next door to a hospital, the students were never short of bodies.

'Here, corpses were cut open and analysed,

'divine mysteries revealed.'

The church worried that these doctors were trying to play God.

From behind those doors, the Inquisition watched,

and often they stopped the dissections.

'It became difficult for medical students

'to get first-hand experience of the human body.

'But an artist called Ercole Lelli came up with a solution.'

Ercole Lelli made these two statues,

gli spellati, "the skinned ones", out of wood.

He liked them a lot and wondered if such models could be more than decorative.

'In the 1740s,

'Lelli created eight life-size anatomical models out of wax.

'He even designed the beautiful cabinets they are in.'

The method is a little disturbing.

Although the models are made of wax,

it is wax shaped around real human skeletons.

'For the next 100 years, the Bolognese school of wax modelling

'continued to preserve the afflictions of common people.

'Yes, these are medical tools,

'but they are also portraits of the forgotten.'

BELL CHIMES

MUSIC: "Cuore Matto" by Little Tony

In the province of Lombardy is a beautiful land of lakes and rivers.

'From the waters rises a fairytale city

'that was the domain of a great family of princes, the Gonzaga.'

I feel at home in Mantua, because it is built on a lagoon like Venice.

But it's not to everyone's taste.

When the Pope came here in 1459,

he complained that the town was marshy and malarial.

The Gonzagas never forgot the insult.

'From that time, the Gonzagas called upon Italy's greatest artists

'to make their city as magnificent as Roma.

'It's a great town to drive around, especially as I seem to be the only one on the roads!'

SIREN WAILS

Buon giorno.

'On foot, I make my way to the Palazzo del Te.

'It was begun around 1526 on the orders of Federigo Gonzaga,

'who wanted a pleasure palace to take his mistress.'

The Palazzo del Te

is a building devoted to the senses.

This is un palazzo afrodisiaco.

Ah, look,

up here is written "Honesto ocio post labores",

"Honest fun after hard work".

'The artist was Giulio Romano, a young genius who'd had to leave Rome

'after upsetting the authorities because of his love of erotico.

'He and Federigo were a perfect match.

'But the highlight of the palace is the Room of the Giants.'

It's impossible to describe what I feel being in this room.

I'm in the centre of a terrible disaster.

The giants have tried to go to heaven to defeat the gods,

but Jupiter, the king of the gods,

has sent them crashing back to earth.

In this room, Giulio Romano created a total experience.

Even the sound is epic.

It's like being in a Hollywood disaster movie.

'In his time, Giulio Romano was the most famous artist in Italy,

'the only artist Shakespeare ever praised by name,

'calling him a "rare Italian master".

'I'm driving past Lake Garda,

'the largest of Lombardy's great lakes.

'Its beauty has inspired poets and musicians.

'It's hard to guess from these ugly suburbs that I'm entering a city known for money and glamour.

'Since the economic miracle of Milan in the 1950s,

'this city has been the powerhouse of Italy.'

For me, coming to Milan is like going to New York.

These people are not normal Italians,

and especially not like us laid-back Venetians.

Here everyone is going somewhere.

Everyone seems to be busy.

'Today, Milan is the capital of the fashion world.

'Designer labels are as important to the Milanese as food and water.

'Here, even the policewomen wear high heels!

'Many of Milan's fashion houses have sprung to international fame,

'none more so than Giorgio Armani, renowned for his "Gigolo" style.

'Today, he has 346 stores around the world.'

'Maybe Armani is too smart for me.

'I'm more at home with my old jacket.'

I like the tram.

It's like a little train for kids.

'Milan is not as beautiful as many Italian towns.

'Most of the city was devastated during the Second World War.

'But at its heart, Milan preserves its most precious treasure.

'It is buried inside the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.'

Time has not been kind.

It is only kept alive through many operations and cosmetic surgery.

I have to pass through these air cleaning chambers to see it,

so I don't contaminate it in any way.

This is one of the jewels of Western civilization,

a painting so perfect that from the moment it was completed

it was considered a masterpiece.

Truly, the "miracle of Milan"

is not the fashion industry or the economy, but this painting.

'Leonardo completed it in 1498.

'But within years, due to his mistaken experiment

'with a new process of painting, it had begun to disintegrate.

'We almost lost it for ever.

'In the Second World War, a bomb destroyed most of the room

'but miraculously left The Last Supper standing.

'The scene shows the Last Supper of Christ with his disciples

'before his betrayal and crucifixion.'

Christ has revealed to the disciples that there is a traitor amongst them.

"Who is it?" they are thinking.

"Is it him there? Or is it him next to me?

"Or, God forbid, have I done something to betray my lord?"

'Recently, thanks to The Da Vinci Code,

'people have started to believe

'the disciple to the left of Christ is not John, but Mary Magdalene.

'They say that Christ married Mary before his death, and she bore his son.'

My mother would kill me if she ever heard me talking about such things.

Of course, it's not true.

Yes, the face of John is feminine.

But a woman at the Last Supper?

Blasfemia!

'Before I leave Milan, I have some family duties to attend to.

'My brother is taking his boy to watch the football,

'and my eldest son has come from Venice to go with them.'

Hey! Ciao!

'My brother doesn't like football so much,

'but no cultural tour of Italy would be complete without it.'

Noooo!

'All Italians love football -

'well, almost everybody.

'And yes, Italian football is as much about acting as skill.

'I'm on my way to Turin,

'a city famous for its mountains and winter sports.

'But above all else, it owes its size and wealth to one thing...'

HORNS BEEP

Cars.

Italian men are romantic.

But it's difficult to tell what they like best,

their women, or their cars.

MUSIC: "Vieni Su" by Dean Martin

'The man who introduced the car to Italy was Giovanni Agnelli.

'He started the Fiat company in Turin in 1899.

'It quickly became Italy's prime producer of automobiles.

'Fiat came to mean style and wealth.'

'Everybody wanted one.'

'I've come to the factory that made Fiat famous.'

This is the Lingotto factory.

When it started production in 1919, it was immediately recognized

as one of the iconic buildings of the modern age.

'The Lingotto factory is half a kilometre long.

'It accommodated 20,000 workers in 43,000 square metres of floor space.

'But what impressed people most was the racetrack on the roof, where new cars were tested.

'The daring design of this factory made it admired all over the world.

'Italy, it seemed to say, was much more than a museum.

'We were speeding into the future.'

'By the end of the 20th century, Turin had become known as Fiatville,

'and the Agnelli were the royal family.

'I'm about to meet the new king.'

'John's story is full of sorrow.

'Now he's one of the richest men in Italy, but it wasn't how it was meant to be.

'Nine years ago, he was only fifth in line to the Agnelli throne, and growing up in America.

'But a series of unexpected deaths threw him into the seat of power.'

'Even when it's stormy and out of season, my last destination has a special mood,

'a drama of its own.

'It's everyone's favourite summer place

'and one of the most romantic coastlines in the world.

'Portofino has long been a romantic retreat for the stars -

'Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

'Even today, this place is a paparazzi's paradise.'

My family has a house nearby,

and every year when I was a boy, we would spend the summer here.

And I remember arriving here

and diving from the rocks into the water.

But you couldn't just dive.

You had to wait until there were a lot of girls looking, then dive!

Una bella giornata oggi! Andiamo.

SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY MUSIC

You see, the people of northern Italy come here for pleasure.

They have sailing boats, villas.

This one is that of Dolce Gabbana.

They have an entire garden here, with four villas.

Nice place.

'There is a final thing I want to show you.

'For me, it is a chance to make a childhood dream come true,

'a secret place I have only heard about.'

I was only eight when I heard that Christ lived under the water off the coast here.

Of course, I was astonished.

Christ, under the water?

How strange!

I learned to dive in the hope that one day I might go see him,

but up until now, I have never done so.

'This is the Cristo degli Abissi,

'the Christ of the Abyss, placed here under the water 50 years ago.

'It may not be the oldest or most beautiful Christ,

'but it is for me the most romantic and heroic in all Italy.'

'In the next leg of my journey,

'I travel through Tuscany, a magical region,

'a land so filled with artistic treasures and natural beauty

'that it has become the envy of you British.'

Fabuloso.

Subtitles by Suzanne Macdonald Red Bee Media Ltd 2006