Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

I'm Christopher Clark, Cambridge historian.

I was born in Australia.

For Europeans, that's practically the other end of the world

but the European continent

and its incredible diversity always fascinated me.

Even in the far off country where I grew up,

I was always aware that so much of our world

has its roots in Europe

and modern Europe is one of the greatest achievements

in human history.

I want to share the grand saga of this continent

and in the process, I hope to rediscover its wonders

for myself.

Europe, the very name conjures up images

of change, unrest and violence

but the continent has also been an incubator of civilization

where wonderful things are created.

Florence in the early 15th century

is one good example.

Florence's ascendency

is reflected in the architecture of its cathedral.

The city fathers are aiming high,

they want an enormous dome to crown this building.

No one has attempted such a feat

since the days of ancient Rome.

They plan to build the largest vaulted stone ceiling

in the world.

This is one of the most distinctive features of this era,

art, religion, politics and science

merged in the great cultural projects of the day.

The Medici financed this crowning feat

of 15th century engineering

not just out of piety

but to celebrate the triumph of their power

and that of the entire city of Florence.

The Medici family supports numerous artists

in this creative environment.

One of them would soon become world famous,

Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Michelangelo creates

what is probably the most famous sculpture

in the history of art.

from a block of the finest Carrara marble,

he carves his David.

The last time such a monumental marble statue

had been sculpted in Italy

was over 1,000 years earlier

in the days of the Roman empire.

A biblical figure naked like a Greek boy.

It was provocative to say the least.

Other Italian cities are also flourishing.

Venice holds trade monopolies for the mediterranean area,

commercial revenues allow the city to grow

into a bustling metropolis.

Everything revolves around money.

The Venetians are among the first bankers in history.

They set up a bunco or a table

where they conduct their business

and they have to make a pledge to the republic

that they will not steal or commit forgery or fraud.

The wealth of the Italian city-states

fuels the development of European culture

and as is so often the case,

the source of that wealth is competition.

In the year 1500,

Italy is just as divided as the rest of Europe.

City-states compete for power and glory

within a very limited geographical era.

In Venice, the Doge's

are the powerful rulers of the republic.

In Florence, the wealthy clan of the Medici

are the ones who call the shots.

They're among the most important patrons

of the great Italian masters.

The house of Sforza commissions Leonardo da Vinci

to paint The Last Supper.

Sandro Botticelli paints his Birth of Venus

to order for the Medici family in Florence.

And Raphael's School of Athens

is created for the Bourgeois in the Vatican.

The largest and most famous work of this era

stems from the hands of the Florentine master Michelangelo

commissioned by the papal court in Rome

in a bid to assert the papacy's cultural authority in Italy.

The ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel.

This commission required Michelangelo

to paint 520 square meters of surface area

all above his head,

an incredible feat.

He placed full scale sketches onto the plaster

and poked the lines through with nails or spatulas.

It took Michelangelo four years

to complete the ceiling fresco.

This is the great era of the image.

In this respect, it resembles our own time.

But these pictures didn't need a textural gloss.

They developed a life of their own.

With gay abandon, the artist Michelangelo

simply tosses the old and the new testament together

in a single painting.

This fresco by Michelangelo

is one of the best known images

in the history of humanity.

You can see it just over there in the Sistine Chapel.

The finger of the creator and his human creation

almost touch.

To depict the relationship between them in this way

was not just courageous,

it was revolutionary.

God and his human creation are depicted here

as embodying an equal dignity.

What an elevation for humankind.

Adam, the first man,

confronts us as a confident autonomous being

and this in a chamber consecrated to the worship of God.

Incidentally, Michelangelo himself

had absolutely no lack of self confidence.

The papal master of ceremonies Biagio da Cesena commented,

"It was most disgraceful that in so sacred a place

"there should've been depicted all those nude figures

"exposing themselves so shamefully

"and that the painting was more suitable

"for public bath houses and taverns."

Da Cesena had every reason to be upset.

Among them, a personal one

because in the panel entitled The Last Judgment,

Michelangelo depicts Da Cesena as Minos,

judge of the underworld being bitten in the genitals

by a snake.

For his David and the figures

in his Sistine Chapel frescoes,

Michelangelo devises his measurements

from real people.

But he wants to do more than just reproduce actual beauty.

He strives for perfection

like his role models the ancient Greek sculptors.

They also aspire to achieve perfect proportionality

in their lifelike statues.

The Greeks were perfectionists.

They were sharp observers.

The precision of their art

bears witness to an obsession with mimesis,

the precise imitation of nature.

The ripples in the dress,

the detail of the human hand.

But they also strove towards an ideal.

In contrast to modern conceptions,

they did not think in terms of standardized sizes.

Proportionality was the key,

how big or tall someone was mattered little

as long as the rest of their body was in proportion.

Their aesthetics were mathematical.

The ideal face had to conform to specific ratios.

The small penis we see on classical figures

symbolized masculine self control.

And for women, a well formed and voluminous bottom

was deemed especially attractive.

The golden ratio applied to humans and architecture

in equal measure.

It's as evident in the Parthenon Temple

here on the Acropolis

as it is in the Venus of Milo,

the famous statue of Aphrodite,

goddess of beauty, love and sensual desire.

Europe has never abandoned this ideal of beauty.

You can trace it like a red thread

through the entire history of European art.

Michelangelo's era takes its name

from this rediscovery of ancient art

and its celebration of the naked human form,

the Renaissance.

Renaissance means rebirth

but what exactly was reborn?

In part it was the cultural heritage of the ancient world,

the essence of what had defined Europe

at the beginning of our story.

The conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans

had triggered a wave of refugees

and among these refugees were scholars

who carried with them ancient manuscripts.

A wave of enthusiasm for the ancient world

rolled across Europe.

Scholars from many lands scoured the continent

for manuscripts by Greek and Roman authors.

Some of these works had quietly spent the Middle Ages

sequestered in monasteries.

Others had come to Spain via the Islamic academies.

And now, they triggered a profound sea change in culture.

Humanist and researcher Paolo Boccalini,

also joins in the search.

Come, follow me.

He is determined to find a book

from the first century before Christ, De rerum natura

by the Roman philosopher Lucretius.

This book, a didactic summary of Greek epicurean thought,

presents a dynamic analysis of the natural world

completely decoupled from any concept of God.

Maybe here you'll find what you're looking for.

Boccalini eventually tracks down

his quarry in a benedictine abbey

in the German city of Fulda.

Lucretius had created a compendium

of what we would today describe as natural science.

His book comprises no fewer than 7,800 verses

in which he explains the nature of the world

and how people can subsist happily within it

without the need to fear gods of any kind.

The book addresses profound existential questions

and that's why Boccalini wants to find it.

(dramatic music)

What an interesting and characteristically European

synergy between old and new.

By shining a fresh light onto the past,

one brings into view a new future.

Of course, this is only possible

because traces of antiquity

can still be found all over Europe

only when you study them more closely

as the men and women of the Renaissance did,

does the breathtaking extent

of ancient philosophy and knowledge come to light,

knowledge of those hidden forces

that hold the world together from inside

as the German poet Goethe would later put it.

Writing in Rome 50 years before the birth of Christ,

Lucretius described in euphoric terms

the fearless inquisitive spirit

of the old Greeks.

"The Greek philosopher Epicurus," Lucretius Wrote,

"explored with spirit and sense

"the endless realms of the universe

"returned as a victor

"to teach us what can be and what cannot."

Already for Lucretius then,

this was a moment of rediscovery

and 1,500 years later,

Lucretius himself would be rediscovered

and with him the entire intellectual dynamics

of ancient knowledge.

It was a typically European interplay of old and new.

Only through the illumination of the past

did a new future become visible.

For those caught in the cultural vortex of the Renaissance

this really was a rebirth

and yet the question still remains,

how was all this possible?

Lucretius' book played a role of course

but another precondition was necessary,

one that has always featured prominently

in great cultural transformations,

a critical mass of talented people

among whom ideas,

including some that had been conceived 1,500 years before

could fall on fertile ground and germinate.

Renovation in intellectual and economic life,

the patriotism of flourishing city-states

and fierce competition for the best tradespeople and artists

fueled this tumultuous epoch.

Ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

had generated a remarkable fabric

of thoughts and arguments,

a special kind of mindset.

Their reasoning had little to do with sacred scripture.

It was founded on the observation of human affairs

and the natural world.

Men like Archimedes discover that complex phenomena

can be accounted for through simple general rules,

rules that apply universally in all places and all times

without exception.

Geometry invented by the Greeks

sparks a revolution in thinking.

Galileo Galilee,

the father of modern physics,

also follows in the tradition of the Greeks.

"The universe, that great book, is ever before our eyes,"

writes Galileo,

"but the book is written in the language of mathematics."

Only through the careful quantification of his observations

is Galileo able to discern consistent patterns

and to develop his law of falling bodies.

This is also the period

when the European universities begin their unstoppable rise,

each researcher builds on the work of others

across the diverse regions of Europe

creating healthy and exciting competition.

Universities like Cambridge lead the way.

Once a year, it's possible to experience

what a healthy competition between universities

looks like

at the great boat race between Cambridge and Oxford.

It's quite tough and it's taken very seriously.

The two universities regard each other

as peer institutions

but they also want to outperform each other

and even today, the race remains a potent symbol

of the pursuit of excellence,

not just in sport

but in the intellectual arena as well.

From the beginning,

competition has been one of the driving motors

of European history.

Life on this continent has been marked

by constant rivalry between dynasties, countries

and cities

and soon also between universities and researchers

who strove with all their might

to discover what held the world together.

And here in England,

another decisive element came into play,

the joy of experimentation,

of observing and interpreting

the processes at work in the natural world.

Italian mathematician Galileo Galilee

laid the groundwork

but it's an Englishman who finally identifies

and theorizes the mysterious force

that brings everything falling to the ground,

Isaac Newton, the discoverer of gravity.

Was it really the apple that lead to Newton's breakthrough?

Even today it seems,

centuries after his death,

poor Newton can't shake that myth.

Here under the walls of Trinity College

there's an apple tree that stems from the original tree

from which the apple is supposed to have fallen

on Newton's head.

In reality of course, Newton's revolutionary discoveries

have less to do with falling apples

than with the bible

which he read everyday.

Newton owned 30 bible editions

in a variety of languages.

That might seem strange to us today

but back then it was anything but.

As a scientist,

Newton was deeply rooted in the Christian faith

and in the conviction that faith and reason

do not and indeed cannot contradict each other.

Why should it not be God

who infused objects with gravity?

By studying the bible,

Newton also comes to believe

that God is not a trinity

but rather an unified force

that encompasses the entire world

and this in turn, leads him to the idea

that time and space are the sensorium of God,

theology becomes physics and vice versa.

But Newton's rejection of the trinity

made him a heretic.

To the church, God was composed of three persons.

For Newton, there was no fundamental tension

between faith and science.

They formed a unity,

observation was the highest form of prayer.

And so it seems appropriate

that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey,

arguably the most important church

in the kingdom of Britain.

The inscription on his tomb reads,

"Nature and nature's laws

"lay hidden night,

"and God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light."

This captures something real about Newton's era,

an era in which great achievements

were still associated with the fulfillment

of god's will.

This would soon change

and 200 years later,

Charles Darwin also from Cambridge,

would shake and remake the world of knowledge.

Here he lies directly beside Newton.

Only over millions of years, Darwin proposed,

did life on Earth develop into what it is today.

The species as we know them were not created by God

but were rather the result

of an evolution, a development.

It followed that the high apes were our closest relatives.

These were scandalous claims.

In Darwin's case,

it was not scientific observation as such

that rocked the foundations of traditional religion

but the displacement of divine revelation by history.

It was Darwin, the natural historian,

whose thinking transformed the modern world.

Since then,

Darwin's theory has been confirmed many times over

even if it has failed to convince those

who see in the bible a literal description of the creation.

Since the ancient Greeks,

the search for a rational explanation for worldly phenomena

and their induction to simple formulae,

has been the basis of scientific thought in Europe.

And so it remains today.

The Polish mathematician and astronomer,

Nicholas Copernicus,

observes that the Earth revolves around the sun.

The Italian Galileo Galilee

delivers further arguments to support that claim.

The Englishman Isaac Newton,

discovers gravity,

and the German Jew Albert Einstein,

carries on their work

with his theory of relativity.

A European relay race through the centuries.

Since the days of the ancient Greeks,

the search for a simple comprehensive formula

has formed the basis of scientific thought in Europe

and it remains so even today.

(speaking in foreign language)

What is man, what is he not,

and of what stuff is the world made?

Ancient Greece was the theater

of an intellectual revolution.

There were numerous schools of thought,

an archipelago of little academies

whose philosophers competed bitterly with one another.

Some observed and experimented,

others searched for philosophical answers.

One Greek thinker

who stood out for his curiosity and creativity

was Heron.

1,400 years before Leonardo da Vinci,

this engineer and mathematician

was already constructing complex machines

such as a vending apparatus

that could dispense both milk and wine,

a wind powered organ

and an early precursor of the steam engine.

The philosopher Democratus,

hit upon the idea

that he could, in theory,

keep slicing an apple

into ever smaller pieces

as I'm doing just here.

Could you simply continue doing this forever?

Democratus suspected that the answer was no.

He thought that one would eventually arrive

at indestructible little spheres

that could not be subdivided.

He called them atoms

with the Greek work (speaking in foreign language)

indivisible.

2,400 years later,

we're still pushing at this frontier

and we're doing it at the heart of Europe.

And here at the Cern Research center in Geneva

the search inaugurated by Democratus continues.

13,000 scientists from 85 countries

hunt for the smallest particle,

demonstrating in the process

that the ancient principles still apply.

You posit a theory

and then you use experiments to test it.

And in this place, we're dealing with no less a matter

than the basic principles of our universe.

This is fundamental science drive by curiosity alone.

The biggest machine in the world

is used to study the smallest particles of matter

with the aide of an immense particle accelerator

some 27 kilometers in length,

a tunnel into the furthest frontiers of our understanding

and within it, the fastest particle accelerator

in the world.

What are you trying to achieve with all this machinery?

I think what we try to reach

is to answer fundamental question

which mankind ever had,

it's the questions who are we, where do we come from

and where do we go to?

Is there something special

about the architecture of public science in Europe

that makes this kind of work possible?

I think yes, Europe is very special.

So when Cern was founded in 1954,

it was very special that Europeans get together

and fund this research.

And now, with the European Research Council,

this is even more

and even helps fundamental science even more

to do research.

Democratus' apple was a little less expensive.

This particle accelerator

costs as much as 20 football stadiums

and is longer than any Formula One racetrack.

Physicists plan to use this machine,

the biggest in the world,

for just one thing,

to find tiny particles.

Here in Europe, the door is opening

to a new dimension of physics.

Partnerships at the European level

are nothing new, of course.

Galileo Galilee corresponded with his European colleagues

including his young admirer, Johannes Keplar

who was particularly fascinated with the moon

and Galileo draws up the very first map of the moon.

There's an inscription on this famous Berninin elephant

in the center of Rome

that says, "Whoever you are,

"view this monument as a lesson,

"namely, that only a robust spirit

"can sustain a powerful insight."

Which is ironic

because it was just a stone's throw from here

behind these walls in 1633

that Galileo Galilee was forced before the inquisition

to recant his assertion

that the Earth rotated around the sun.

He had demonstrated this quite clearly

in his dialog concerning the two chief world systems,

a book that until 1825 remained on the Vatican's list

of banned texts.

Although science has of course long proved

that indeed the Earth did rotate around the sun

and not the other way around.

The Renaissance changed Europe and the world

in almost every domain.

And in the process, entrenched positions of power

were often called into question.

For a further 300 years,

the Roman church will persist

in considering heliocentrism

to be a heretical doctrine.

The inquisition forces Galileo to recount his theories

and the church doesn't admit its mistake until 1992

when Galileo is ultimately vindicated

by Pope John Paul the Second.

(speaking in foreign language)

Galileo's discoveries

sparks developments

that continue into our modern era.

In the 1960s, people landed on the moon for the first time

thanks in part to the expertise of European researchers

who developed rocket technology

during the second world war.

9:34 AM,

Apollo 15 lifted from the pad on its way to the moon.

Walking on the moon

would've been impossible for Galileo to imagine

and yet he'd already shown how objects would behave

in a world without an atmosphere.

They all fall at the same rate,

as the astronauts of the Apollo 15 mission demonstrate.

These days, our knowledge of the universe,

is growing ever more precise.

We've inherited a learning process

that began in Europe 500 years ago.

During the Renaissance,

people turned their attention

not only to God and the heavens,

but inward to themselves.

One of the most inquisitive individuals of this era

can be found in Florence.

His name is Leonardo da Vinci.

He's already renowned for his many talents

during his lifetime.

He's a pioneer.

Sigmeud Freud would later say of him,

"He was like a man who woke too early in the darkness

"while everyone else was still asleep."

Leonardo designs countless devices,

diving equipment, submarines, and flying machines.

Most of his inventions

must have seemed like flights of fancy

to his contemporaries,

but in fact he was a man far ahead of his time.

Not only is Leonardo a painter and an inventor,

he's also a trailblazer in modern anatomy.

Leonardo refuses to confine himself

to superficial observations of the human body.

Over the course of his scientific and artistic career,

he dissects a total of 30 corpses.

Leonardo's investigations yield new and precise insights

into the inner workings of the human body

and his exploration of corpses

is a boon to more than just science,

it also benefits the art world.

Like many of the great masters of the age,

Leonardo believes that understanding anatomy

is an important prerequisite

for capturing the human form on canvas.

His most famous work is the painting known as the Mona Lisa

which he starts in 1503

and keeps in his workshop until his death

in May 1519

with the excuse that it's not finished yet.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa

is still the ultimate icon.

When the 19th century critic Walter Payta

contemplated this painting,

he claimed to see in it the whole of European history,

the animalism of Greece,

the lust of Rome,

the mysticism of the Middle Ages,

the return of the pagan world,

the sins of the Bourgeois.

"She is older than the rocks among which she sits

"like the empire she has been dead many times

"and learned the secrets of the grave."

Payta's words, not mine.

But if that really were the case

then the Mona Lisa might well be

the quintessential embodiment of Europe.

And it's probably the most renowned painting

the continent has ever produced.

Every year, millions of people come to the Louvre in Paris

to admire it.

Meanwhile, another capital city

dedicates itself to providing down to Earth entertainment

for the masses,

a tradition that remains alive to this day.

In 1599, London witnesses the birth

of a public entertainment venue of a new type,

the Globe Theater.

In this circular building,

the man who might rightly be called

Europe's greatest playwright

stages his works.

There is a unique artistic synthesis

between this theater and the performances themselves.

This is where the city's pleasure oriented denizens

find exactly what they're looking for.

What counted as entertainment in those days?

Public executions, cock fights and bear baiting,

or mystery and morality plays

with devils, demons and allegorical figures?

And then along came a man

who drew inspiration from these sources,

an uninhibited spirit

whose genius turned this turbulent world

into a work of art.

William Shakespeare's plays

drove audiences wild

and it's impossible to explain

the richness of his imaginary word

without understanding the babylondon of his era,

a sprawling city beside a river

teeming with courtiers, merchants, artisans, navants,

prostitutes, beggars and cutpurses.

In Shakespeare's round Globe Theater,

everything revolved

around the full vibrant emotionally charged lives

of human beings,

and the public stood right in front of the stage.

Shakespeare's theater

encompassed the whole of human existence.

"All the world's a stage,"

says a character in As You Like It,

"And all the men and women merely players."

They have their exits and their entrances

and one man at his time plays many parts.

The ancient Greeks invented theater

as a cult for their Gods.

Their dramas were intended

to educate the citizens of the palace.

Shakespeare learnt from them of course

but his primary goal was to hold a mirror up to society,

to entertain his audiences

with a vision of the world they lived in.

No other dramatist has had such a profound influence

on the evolution of treater across the world.

With almost demonic energy,

Shakespeare churns out comedies and tragedies,

his works illuminate all the lights and shadows

of human existence.

His writing gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of power,

a world of regicide, incest and magic.

Plays like A Midsummer Night's Dream,

As You Like It,

Hamlet, Othello and Romeo and Juliet,

still move us, even after 500 years.

Above all, Shakespeare's writing

reflects the upheaval and cultural awakening

taking place in Europe.

His works hold up a mirror to a new age,

an age of restlessness

in which a process of globalization led by Europe

is already in full swing.

And the world around London was in flux.

Shakespeare was born in 1564,

the same year as Galileo Galilee,

the man who discovered

that the Earth was in constant motion,

that it revolved around the sun.

And Shakespeare too was a transformer.

He revolutionized the world of drama,

and the way stories were told on stage.

A miracle,

here's our own hands against our hearts.

Come, I will have thee

but by this light, I take thee for pity.

Shakespeare is a courtly entertainer.

Queen Elizabeth the First

is his first patron

and her successor would continue

to support Shakespeare's work.

Elizabeth the First loved the theater.

Before her, it had been the exclusive domain

of the nobility.

She made it available to everyone.

Members of all social classes come together here.

On the stage, actors portray peasants, the bourgeois

and the nobility,

groups that are also represented in the audience.

This is a new phenomenon.

The new social space of the theater

prefigures the mass entertainment of our own day.

Shakespeare was a hard act to follow

but in the following centuries,

countless European writers and performers

would further refine and expand

the spectrum of public entertainment

sharing their own forms of artistic expression

with the rest of the world.

Berlin's Skladanowsky brothers

announced one of the world's first public film screenings

on November the 1st, 1895.

At around the same time,

the French Lumiere Brothers

astonished Parisian audiences with their moving pictures.

Film begins as a carnival attraction

but this seventh art

soon becomes a respected medium

and in the grand Shakespearean tradition,

the audience experiences the suspension of disbelief

and the rapid alternation of strong emotions.

British performer Charlie Chaplin's meteoric rise

begins in 1914 with his role as the Tramp.

Other European stars like Marlene Dietrich

also enjoy international careers.

It isn't until after World War Two

that Europe is relegated to second place

in the world of the silver screen behind Hollywood.

But Europeans will continue to play a vital role

in Tinsel Town's golden era as well.

Billy Wilder, born in modern day Poland,

Scotsman Sean Connery,

Englishman Cary Grant,

Austrian Christoph Waltz,

and British Kate Winslet

are just a few of Hollywood's legendary Europeans.

The film industry creates imagery and role models

that everyone knows

and many would like to emulate.

Spectacle can be a form of mainstream entertainment,

a mirror in which society gazes at itself,

but it can also be a tool of power

as it was in the Palace of Versailles.

All of this is one enormous stage

with opulent scenery and props.

This was absolutism under Louis the Fourteenth,

refinement was an integral part of the courtly repertoire,

elegance was crucial

in everything from architecture to clothing.

Louis the fourteenth

may be the greatest patron of the arts

the world has ever seen.

Painting and music flourished under hist patronage,

representative and monumental styles

were driven to excess,

and the buildings and gardens of the period.

Power, art and craftsmanship joined hands.

The court became a culture machine.

This is one of the reasons

why even today the very name of France

is associated with beauty and aesthetic refinement.

Versailles was to become the political theater of its time,

the ambitious men and women who jostled for power here

were the players.

In 1682, the enormous palace

replaced the Louvre in Paris

as the seat of government.

And from then on the royal court,

composed of ministers, civil servants, and noble families,

lived and worked in Versailles,

occupying no fewer than 2,000 rooms

which housed up to 20,000 people in all.

Louis the Fourteenth managed to concentrate

his mightiest subjects in a single location

and that's how he controlled them.

The Duke of Saint-Simon

describes the principle as follows,

"the king loved splendor, lavishnous

"and abundance in everything.

"He deliberately encouraged

"those around him to give in to their desire

"to emulate him in every possible way.

"He inculcated his entire court with this desire.

"You could earn his favor

"by spending extravagantly on your table, your clothes,

"your (speaking in foreign language),

"your household and your games.

"Luxury became a matter of honor."

One example of this extravagance

is the daily ritual of watching the king dine.

In this pleasure oriented era,

dining at the court takes on a whole new meaning.

No European court is more important in this regard

than the court of the Sun King in Versailles.

His table manners it must be said,

leave a lot to be desired.

A century earlier,

the Italian noblewoman Catherine de Medici

had tried to teach the French

proper manners and fine dining.

These customs had their roots in Italy.

The style of the Sun King's court

catches on in Europe.

The architecture is especially popular.

Local rulers particularly in Germany

do more than just expand their residential cities,

they also build new palace complexes

with geometrically designed French gardens.

In the later 17th century,

many European princes look towards France

with admiration and envy.

They also imitate French styles of furniture and clothing,

a booming luxury industry springs up

around the French royal court,

an industry where France still leads the way today.

French luxury products

become a top export in the 17th century.

Anything of French origin

is considered the height of elegance.

The latest creations are presented on little dolls,

the fore runner of the mail order catalog

and even back then, items were shipped all around Europe.

Fashion conscious Europeans

were already enchanted by France

in the days of the Sun King.

They adored the refined style

inspired by the vanity fair of Versailles

and found imitators across the continent.

French clothing designs, hairstyles

and even the language were copied throughout Europe

and French terms like (speaking in foreign language)

are still used in the global fashion industry today

and in the 20th century,

geniuses like Coco Chanel and Christian Dior

with their (speaking in foreign language) designs

elevated fashion to an art form.

One thing has not changed

since the days of the Sun King.

Paris is still the undisputed fashion capital of Europe

and the world.

The city is brimming with artisanal skills

and creativity.

Perhaps that's why even today,

Paris produces the hottest new fashion trends

year after year.

Further to the east in Russia,

there's still little trace of this flourishing new culture.

Only a handful of nobles

are even aware of what life is like in other countries.

The opportunity to travel

has given them a perspective

that extends beyond their own backyard.

Peter the Great is one of these privileged few.

In 1697, he goes on a grand tour

and it's hardly a solo journey.

A retenous of no fewer than 300

accompanies him on his trip across Europe.

His journey lasts 18 months

and takes him to Poland, Prussia, Holland, England,

Saxony and Austria.

His goal is to catch up with the Western powers

of the European continent.

From the Dutch, he learns shipbuilding

and the Prussians teach him the art of cannon manufacture.

The English tutor him in finance.

Upon his return,

the czar begins the process of modernizing his country

following the examples set by the European states.

And the first thing he does

is issue an official decree

declaring traditional beards illegal.

Peter views them as a symbol of Russia's backwardness.

To enforce this ban,

he leads by example

and then sends barbers out to shave the masses.

Come in.

There's no escape

unless the bearded man acquires an official license

for his facial hair.

Peter wants to usher in a new era of progress and growth

in his back order empire.

He hopes to create a society

with Western European standards.

He restructures the government,

initiates social reforms,

promotes education and science.

Everything he has seen and learned in the west,

he now wants to apply to his own country.

Russia also moves closer to Europe

in geographical terms,

or at least the Russian capital does.

The czar insists on a capital city

with a port and access to the sea.

So he turns his back on the traditional capital of Moscow

and commissions the construction

of Saint Petersburg,

his window to Europe.

You'd never know it

by looking at Europe's fourth largest city today,

but Saint Petersburg got off to a difficult start.

The construction site was a swamp

and there wasn't enough stone for building.

Peter received hands on support

form Italy, Germany, Holland and France.

Italians, Germans and Dutchmen

entered Russian service

and gave the city its characteristically European face.

We can still admire their work today.

Peter the Great encouraged his people

to look to the west.

There was something theatrical

about the way he forced his Russians

to emulate the fashions and customs of Western Europe.

The objective was a comprehensive transformation

of Russian life,

at least among the upper classes.

Wealthy Russians imported every product imaginable

and along with those goods,

came Western European culture and manners.

German merchants arrived as did Dutch and British engineers,

Italian architects

and French musicians and theater companies.

They all blended together

in typical European fashion.

But this demand delivered from above as it were

that they should align themselves with the West

divided the Russians.

"We have two father lands, Russia and Europe,"

wrote Dostoevsky

who also relocated to Saint Petersburg.

On one side, was the enlightened sophisticated west

with its promise, at least of progress.

On the other, (speaking in foreign language),

a little backwards perhaps in some respects,

but homely, familiar

and in tune with the spirit of the people.

A love/hate relationship arose

between Russians and the West,

a mixture of attraction and distrust

that lingers to this day.

(dramatic music)

Russia's autocratic systems also linger today.

First, came the rule of the czars.

Then the October Revolution of 1917

ultimately put an end to that.

And then, came communism.

With unimaginable brutality,

Joseph Stalin implements a dictatorship of the proletariat

and even under Leonid Brezhnev,

the party still determines

what people can read or listen to.

At the same time, in Western Europe, the 1960s,

mainstream popular entertainment

enters a new phase of expansion.

England has been a pop culture powerhouse

since the 16th century

and the days of William Shakespeare's successful plays.

Four young men form Liverpool

also follow in that Shakespearean tradition, the Beatles.

The Fab Four have sold more than one billion records

making them the most successful musicians

in European history.

When the Beatles came to Australia for the first time,

to my hometown of Sydney,

I was four years old

I wasn't really aware of it at the time of course

but the sound and style of the Beatles

left their mark on my generation.

Only later did I become aware

of the Rolling Stones.

These were the two poles

between which pop music evolved in the 60s.

On the one side, the Beatles,

cheerful, nicely dressed, well behaved.

On the other, the Stones,

wild, unpredictable and darkly pessimistic.

♪ Love, love, love ♪

versus

♪ I can't no satisfaction ♪

On the 26th of June, 1966,

the Beatles come to Hamburg on their Blitz Tour

and the fans go wild with excitement.

This event cemented fan culture

as an integral part of European society.

The concert is seated

and an effort is made to maintain decorum

but it isn't long before everyone goes crazy.

The band and the audience

have trouble even hearing the music.

150 years before the Beatles,

another kind of musical revolution sweeps across Europe

and this time it starts in Austria and Germany.

Politically speaking, early 19th century Vienna

is rather conservative.

But musically, it's in the midst of a revolution.

While the delegates at the congress of Vienna in 1815

dance the same waltzes over and over,

Beethoven begins work on his ninth and final symphony.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, a native of Bonn,

finds patrons in Vienna who finance his compositions

and his livelihood.

This monument in Vienna

portrays Beethoven as a sort of demigod.

The angels symbolize his nine symphonies.

Just as Renaissance Florence

had brought forth painters and sculptors,

Vienna became an incubator of musical works

of transcendent value.

(classical music)

The fact that Beethoven is able to finish

what would become his most famous work, his ninth symphony,

after nearly a decade, is a minor miracle.

By this point, Beethoven is almost completely deaf.

He can hardly have imagined

the extraordinary resonance that his works would have

in today's Europe.

(singing in foreign language)

The Berlin Refugee Choir

where refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq

sing together with Germans

have made Beethoven's Ode to Joy their anthem.

(singing in foreign language)

Since 1985, Beethoven's Ode to Joy

has been the official anthem of the European Union.

On Christmas Day, 1989,

a month after the fall of the Berlin wall,

Beethoven's ninth symphony was performed

in the Concert House on the Damenbart

under the direction of Leonard Bernstein

but with a slight change to the wording of the final chorus

which now opened not with the word joy

but with freedom, beautiful spark of the gods.

It was a turning point in the history of Europe.

And many of those who are singing here tonight

have better reason than most

to know the value of freedom.

That's why they came to Europe,

where freedom is a basic right.

The European anthem is sung around the world

in its original language

in Africa, South America, and Japan.

This extraordinary piece of music

is the soundtrack to the world's vision of Europe today

and today it's more important than ever

that Europe unites and recognizing and acting upon

its shared responsibilities to the world.

("Ode to Joy" by Ludwig Van Beethoven)