A British Love Affair Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe

There is, in the centre of Italy, a magical region.

It is a land

that takes in part of Tuscany, Umbria and Le Marche.

A land so filled with artistic treasures

and natural beauty that it has become the envy of the world.

No-one has desired this land like you British.

It was here that you learnt how to write, how to paint and sculpt.

How to garden.

How to eat and drink. How to behave.

How to rule, and how to love.

This land is everything you have always wanted.

Le Marche, East of Tuscany,

once a forgotten region, a no-man's land between rival kingdoms.

Then, miraculously, rose the greatest court in all Italy.

This is Urbino,

a fairy-tale city.

In the 15th century,

this was an inspiration to the rest of the world.

Urbino was a town of knights and courtiers,

famous for its love of learning, and it still is.

The university makes this a lively town in an otherwise sleepy part of Italy.

The man who made Urbino great was Duke Federico da Montefeltro.

He came to power in 1444.

His dramatic profile is still recognised all over Italy.

Federico was a scholar, a warrior, a man of the people,

everything the citizens have always wanted from a leader,

but God knows have rarely found.

To proclaim a new age for Urbino, Federico built a marvellous new palace.

This powerful courtyard is the first thing that the visitor sees.

Everything here is designed to show us that Federico is a great man.

Federico's virtues are written on the walls.

He is a man of justice, faith, war,

but also peace.

Before long, the elegance of the court was the envy of Italy.

There was even a book produced here

that would become a bible of manners and etiquette - Il Cortegiano, The Courtier.

This book tells us how to be the perfect courtier.

It became the guide for all courts around the world.

No English knight was ever without one.

First, the perfect courtier must be born an aristocrat.

He must be able to sing in tune, to paint beautifully, to write poetry.

As a lover he must be gentle and devoted.

In manner, the courtier must be always graceful, eloquent and generous.

He mustn't be overdressed like the French.

Or underdressed like Germans.

But dressed simply in dark colours.

Like me!

As for war, the courtier must be a great fighter,

performing well in combat, especially when His Grace is watching.

Come on, it is too much!

Nobody can be like this.

With such high standards,

no wonder Urbino's golden age was short lived.

After Federico died in 1482, Urbino became just another Italian town.

But this palace reminds us of what it once was.

I am in Umbria, one of the most beautiful regions in all Italy.

We think of it as a mystical land,

not only because of the strange haze that seems to cover the landscape,

but because it is la terra dei santi,

the land of the saints.

Umbria has more saints than anywhere else in the world.

Like many Italians, I am named after a saint.

I am not greatly religious

but I can't help associate a little with St Francis of Assisi.

Of course you British think of him only talking to the birds.

But there is so much more to St Francis than this.

For my grandfather.

Because his grandfather was named Francesco.

No. No.

Ciao! ..Assisi.

It was here in Assisi that Francis was born.

His father was a rich merchant.

He called his son Francesco,

only the French way, in honour of the boy's French mother.

As a young man, Francis was a rich kid, a playboy.

He liked wine and women.

In my youth, I must confess I was a little the same.

So this part of Francis I understand perfectly.

But there the similarities must end.

After seeing the way poor people lived, Francis changed.

He dedicated his life to helping them.

His humility shamed the wealthy Catholic Church.

But people still flock to follow him.

Francis's message of poverty was against everything the Catholic Church had become.

So when he died on the floor of a mud hut outside Assisi,

the Pope did a very clever thing.

He claimed him for the Church.

Francis had never been a priest and yet,

within two years of his death, he was made a saint.

The Pope himself laid the foundation stone

of this enormous basilica in memory of Francis.

No expense was spared.

The greatest artists were called in to decorate the walls with frescoes,

showing scenes from Francis's life.

PRIEST LEADS PRAYER

This is the crypt where the body of Francis lies.

It is very moving.

I love the atmosphere here.

The lighting, the setting.

It is magical.

4 million people visit the basilica every year,

testament to the love people still have for Francis.

I said before I never understood very well St Francis.

But now, being in Assisi, I want to try harder.

TWITTERING BIRDSONG

It's difficult to describe to people who are not from Italy

the role that the Church plays in our lives.

The great film director Federico Fellini said,

"I am a prisoner of 2,000 years of the Catholic Church.

"All Italians are."

I want to help you understand why this is so.

I want you to imagine you are a little boy or girl,

500 years ago, and you are about to enter this chapel.

This is the Capella Nuova and it was here that an artist

called Signorelli was given a very difficult task,

to paint in detail the unpaintable -

the end of the world.

Signorelli follows the events

as described in the Book of Revelations.

The world is seduced by the preaching of the Antichrist.

The local henchmen strangle good friars.

They scour the streets for dissenters and drag them away for execution.

Then, apocalypse.

The world is over.

For a while there is silence, nothing.

And then a trumpet sounds from heaven.

Angels summon mankind for the Last Judgement.

Naked and bemused, humanity rises to new life.

They look around them, trying to adjust to this strange place.

But it does not last.

They are divided into two.

The good are sent to heaven.

But the rest are sent to hell.

What a mess.

An orgy of suffering.

So imagine what you, a little boy or girl, 500 years ago, would feel.

You would have been terrified.

This is what happens if you sin.

And whether you grow up a believer or not,

the memory of this, the terror, will always be with you.

# Non dimenticar

# Means don't forget you are

# My darling... #

I'm entering Tuscany, a little corner of Italy that is forever England.

You even call it Chiantishire.

You British have a dream.

And the dream is, you will become rich and move here.

You will buy a little villa,

become an expert in wine, eat wonderful food,

and then, if lucky, find yourself a Latin lover, like me.

The first to live the dream was an English woman called

Iris Cutting.

She married Count Antonio Origo in 1921.

Together they bought the vast estate of La Foce in Val D'Orcia.

When they first came here the land was barren.

But they turned 8,000 acres into fertile farmland,

with a beautiful garden at its heart.

I have come to meet their daughter, Benedetta.

TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN:

-Grazie.

-Thank you.

Start from scratch, as my mother used to say.

I am looking out of my window and I see a mud...

a mud hole in front of the house, which will one day, one hopes, become a fountain.

Tuscany wasn't always a paradise.

In the Middle Ages it was a battleground

where rival towns struggled for land and wealth.

The towns were fortresses first and foremost.

Built on hilltops for defence, with mighty walls and towers.

BELL TOLLS

But the people of San Gimignano were not defending themselves from neighbouring towns

but from each other.

The great families of San Gimignano had become rich from trade.

They were tough business rivals

and sometimes they fought in the streets of the town.

These great towers weren't lived in.

They were symbols of wealth and power.

San Gimignano's families competed to have the tallest tower.

Eventually, to discourage this rivalry,

it was decreed that no tower could exceed 51 metres.

Not even this was enough to stop the Salvucci family.

They built their tower to the full height,

and then they built an identical tower next to it.

These are the twin towers of San Gimignano.

A town of towers is a sad thing.

It is a town at war with itself.

No sense of civic pride.

Everything is for the individual.

Towers are at once beautiful and terrifying.

BIRD OF PREY'S CRY

The neighbouring town of Siena tells a different story.

In the 13th century this was the perfect city,

a place designed to inspire civic pride and prosperity.

When you walk in Siena

you always feel you are being led towards larger streets.

And these larger streets lead into even larger streets.

And then these main streets bring you down and down towards the centre.

Then finally, wherever you started, you arrive in this,

the great Campo of Siena.

Bellissimo!

It is truly amazing here.

Before, the centre of Siena - as in most towns - was around the cathedral.

So by building a new centre around the town hall,

the council was saying that the most sacred thing in Siena

was not God, but the city itself.

Walking the streets of Siena,

a sense of citizenship is never far away.

I am constantly reminded

that I am just one small part of a greater whole.

Inside the town hall sat the Council of Nine,

made up of leading merchants from the town.

This is where the Council of Nine met,

and on the walls there are these marvellous images,

reminding them how they should behave.

These frescos, begun by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1337,

give us a rare insight into daily Sienese life.

Here is the city run by a good government.

The streets clean and ordered.

People going about business.

On the opposite side we see the city run by a bad government.

Buildings crumbling.

Thieves at work. Everything in disorder.

Siena's golden age came to a tragic end in the late-15th century.

A great plague came to the city,

killing two thirds of the population.

BIRDSONG

I'm entering Chianti,

home to the most famous of Italian wines.

This is very Italian.

Stuck for miles behind a tractor.

HORN BEEPS

Come on! Go! Move!

HORN BEEPS

Oh, I hope now he is going in the other direction.

Come on. Go, go.

Thanks God, he's gone.

This is the Castello Brolio,

the ancestral home of the Ricasoli family

who had been producing wine for 300 years.

I have a date with Bettino Ricasoli the 31st Baron of Brolio.

BELL RINGS

-Buon giorno.

-Buon giorno.

TRANSLATED:

The harvest of Chianti's Sangiovese grape happens once a year.

And they are all hand-picked.

Today, the baron's son Francesco runs the day-to-day business of the estate.

Well, it would be rude if I was not taking one box.

In any case...

it's for my family!

BELL TOLLS

FRANCESCO SINGS OPERATIC ARIA IN ITALIAN

Do you know that?

Maybe I'm not singing it well.

It is Giacomo Puccini, the great composer.

Maybe you'll recognise it NOW.

MUSIC: "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot" By Puccini sung by Luciano Pavarotti

This is the walled city of Lucca where Puccini grew up.

Of course, to an Italian, walled city means one thing - no cars!

Permesso?

Ah, buon giorno.

Tosca, La Boheme and Madama Butterfly

have become some of the most popular operas ever.

Nessun Dorma is the only aria to have topped the British hit parade.

But however brilliant his music, Puccini only had one simple story -

a beautiful and vulnerable young woman, falls desperately in love,

then dies.

Puccini may have found his inspiration here,

in the Duomo.

This is the sarcophagus of Hilaria de Carreto.

She was the young bride of the Lord of Lucca at the start of the 15th century.

He had everything - wealth, power -

but he could do nothing to save Hilaria dying while giving birth to a baby boy.

I find this tomb haunting.

The delicate, frozen beauty of Hilaria's face.

And here -

at her feet - a little dog,

a symbol of fidelity.

As a boy, Puccini sang and played the organ here.

I can imagine him passing this every day,

and being captivated, as I am now.

-Ciao!

-Ciao.

-Grazie.

TRANSLATION OF ITALIAN:

SHE SINGS: "O Mio Babbino Caro" from "Gianni Schicchi" by Puccini

-Very good.

-CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

My mother has recommended a good Tuscan trattoria.

But I think she's let me in for a - how do you say - a Fanny Craddock moment.

TRANSLATION FROM ITALIAN:

-Buon giorno.

-Buon giorno.

MUSIC: "Via con Me" by Paolo Conte

# It's wonderful It's wonderful

# It's wonderful Good luck, my baby

# It's wonderful

# It's wonderful, it's wonderful

# I dream of you

# Chips chips... #

SINGER SCATS

I first came to Florence when I was a boy.

And I was sbalordito - astonished.

And historians call it the home of the Renaissance.

But at that time, that word meant nothing to me.

All I knew was that this town was full of treasures.

# ..It's wonderful, it's wonderful

# It's wonderful Good luck, my baby

# It's wonderful

# It's wonderful, I dream of you

# Chips, chips... #

SINGER SCATS

MUSIC ENDS

It was here in Florence

that artists rediscovered the beauty of the human body,

after the centuries of censorship.

This is the David of the great Donatello.

This insolent boy caused a revolution.

He was the first naked statue since Roman times.

It was a little risky,

because for centuries the church had deemed nakedness a thing of shame.

But Donatello used the biblical account

of David taking off his armour before his fight with Goliath

as justification for showing him naked.

But Donatello's David, radical as it was, was soon to be eclipsed.

In 1504, all Florence was amazed

when a giant statue of David was rolled into this square.

A town committee had agreed to put it outside Palazzo Vecchio -

the town hall - as the symbol of Florence.

It must have been a moment of triumph for the artist -

a young man in his 20s called Michelangelo.

This is a perfect copy, moulded from the original in the 18th century.

The original is in the Museo dell'Accademia.

But for me,

this is the place to see David, defending the town of Florence,

and not imprisoned in a museum.

Here, David is truly at home.

He towers nobly and protectively over the passing crowds.

And his face, focused, determined, ready to do battle,

remains one of the most beguiling portraits in Western art.

But there is another thing - the only way we know this is David is because of his weapon.

How do you say? A sling.

Michelangelo's statue is a celebration of manhood -

he is the essence of macho.

So much for the boys, what about the girls?

For female beauty, I must go behind closed doors.

The Uffizi is just about the best art gallery in the world.

It is also a harem of beautiful women.

This is Botticelli's Venus.

This is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

Apart from my wife, of course!

Venus is the essence of woman - perfect female beauty.

She was painted by Sandro Botticelli

for the powerful Medici family in the 1480s,

to adorn the walls of one of their villas.

Botticelli shows Venus,

the Goddess of Love, rising from the sea in a shell.

We see her captured in that innocent and glorious moment

before being dressed, and blown to shore.

Venus, like all women, is full of contradictions.

Fragile and rebellious.

Innocent and sexual at the same time.

She is a woman made for pleasure.

But she doesn't seem to know it.

The Uffizi has always been a favourite destination for British travellers.

Florence still has a reputation as the only Italian city with an English accent.

SHE SPEAKS ENGLISH, INAUDIBLE BECAUSE OF MUSIC PLAYING

I've got a date with my mother-in-law's best friend.

We are going to see the sights together.

Francesco!

Hello.

It's great to see you.

Are you going to take me to the Brancacci chapel? OK? Adam and Eve.

I feel on holiday!

Why English they love so much here?

-Florence?

-Tuscany.

Well, it's not just the English.

Well, I supposed it started with the Grand Tour when people came here.

And they all decided that they wanted to see

all the art, because everywhere you turn, there's art here.

Also, I fancy they liked to see all the nudes!

Maggie, Dame Maggie Smith to you British, is the Queen of Florence.

She's always filming here - A Room With A View, Tea With Mussolini. She loves it.

It was a wonderful time living here.

The fact that we could clear all the place

and make it look as though it was really that period, it was wonderful.

I remember they all went around painting the graffiti out!

It really looked so ravishing.

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

'This is the Capella Brancacci.

'We've come to see Masaccio's Adam and Eve.'

..Yeah. Let me have a look and see what it says here.

"Here the beauty of the nude was first revealed.

-"And here a calm dignity for the first time..."

-Can you stop,

and we try to feel something about the thing.

Sometimes you English, you read a little too much.

-Quite right. This is out of date anyway.

-Yeah.

No words can express the intensity of emotion

in Masaccio's timeless image of human sorrow.

This chapel is a window back in time

to the streets of Florence in the 15th century.

-So...I've had a lovely day.

-It was marvellous.

Thank you so much.

-Take care.

-One thing I forgot.

-What?

-A little present from Venice.

Oh, darling, how sweet!

Thank you so much!

I hope you like it.

Ah! Oh, it's beautiful! It's beautiful!

-You know those dresses of Fortuni?

-It's a Fortuni fabric. Look at that.

You know, Florence is wonderful, but it is so full of great art and history

that it can feel a little too much.

There is no room for fun.

Well, almost.

In the next leg of my journey, I enter the heart of Italy.

Power, history and faith.

The things that make my country what it is in the eyes of the world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006

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Ciao!