All language subtitles for Civilisation.04of13.Man.The.Measure.of.all.Things.720p.BluRay.YIFY

The men who made Florence
the richest city in Europe,

the bankers and wool merchants
the pious realists,

lived in grim defensive houses,

strong enough to withstand party feuds
and popular riots.

They don't in any way foreshadow the
extraordinary episode in the history of civilisation

known as the Renaissance.

There seems to be no reason why suddenly,
out of the dark streets

and forbidding stone facades,

there arose a building as light and delicate
as the Pazzi Chapel.

By its rhythms and proportions,
and its open, welcoming character,

it totally contradicts the dark, Gothic style
that preceded it

and, to some extent, still surrounds it.

What has happened?

The answer is contained in one sentence
by the old Greek philosopher Protagoras:

"Man is the measure of all things."

The building in front of which l am standing,
the Pazzi Chapel,

built in about 1430
by the great architect Brunellesco,

has rightly been described
as the architecture of humanism.

His friend, and fellow architect
Leon Battista Alberti

addressed Man in these words:

"To you is given a body more, graceful
than other animals

to you power of apt and various movements,

to you most sharp and delicate senses,

to you wit, reason, memory,
like an immortal god."

Well, it's certainly incorrect to say that
we are more graceful than other animals,

and we don't feel much like immortal gods
at the moment.

But in 1400, the Florentines did.

There's no better instance of how a burst
of civilisation depends on confidence

than the Florentine state of mind
in the early 15th century.

(MUSIC) Gloria

Where did it come from
this light, economical style,

which is unlike anything before or since?

l think that it really was the invention
of an individual - of Brunellesco.

But of course, an architectural style can't take
root unless it satisfies some need of the time.

And Brunellesco's style satisfied the need
of the clear-headed, bright-minded men

who appeared on the Florentine scene

at the moment when the discipline
of trade and banking, in its most austere form,

was beginning to be relaxed,

and life - the full use of the human faculties -
became more important than making money.

People sometimes feel disappointed

the first time they see the famous beginnings
of Renaissance architecture -

the Pazzi Chapel,
the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo -

because they seem so small.

Well, so they are, after the great monuments
of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

They don't try to impress us or crush us
by size and weight,

as all God-directed architecture does.

Everything is adjusted to the scale of
reasonable human necessity.

They're intended to make each individual
more conscious of his powers,

as a complete moral and intellectual being.

"The dignity of man."
Today those words die on our lips.

But in 15th-century Florence, their meaning
was still fresh and invigorating.

One of the second generation, of humanists,
named Manetti

wrote a book entitled
On The Dignity And Excellence Of Man.

And this is the concept that Brunellesco's friends
were making visible.

(MUSIC) In Tempore Passionis

The grandest of all these testimonies
to the dignity of man is by Masaccio

in the series of frescoes he painted
in the church of the Carmine.

Two of them represent the apostles
Peter and Paul performing acts of mercy.

As St Peter moves gravely through t,he streets,
his shadow cures the sick

including this noble old man,
more like a bishop than a beggar.

And in the balancing fresco,
Peter and his disciples give alms

to a poor woman who is
one of the great sculptural creations in painting.

What characters they are.
Morally and intellectually, men of weight -

the least frivolous of men -

infinitely remote from the gay courtiers
of Jean de Berry, who were only 30 years older.

They have that air
of contained vitality and confidence

that one often finds in the founding fathers
of a civilisation.

Those that come first to my mind
are the Egyptians of the first four dynasties.

The most famous group in the series
represents the story of the Tribute Money,

and the heads of the apostles seem to reflect
the high seriousness of the Florentine republic.

It was directed by a group
of the most intelligent individuals

who have ever been elected to power
by a democratic government.

The Florentine chancellors were scholars

believers in the studia humanitatis - in which
learning could be used to achieve a happy life -

believers in the application
of free intelligence to public affairs,

believers, above all, in Florence.

The second and greatest of these
humanist chancellors, Leonardo Bruni

compared the civic virtues of republican
Florence with those of republican Rome.

Later, he went even further and compared her

to Athens in the age of Pericles,
which wasn't far wrong.

As l have said before
all the great ages of civilisation

have seen themselves as part of history,
both as heirs and as transmitters.

And on Bruni's tomb
in the church of Santa Croce

are inscribed the words:

"History is in mourning."

Bruni and his friends had derived these ideals
from the authors of Greece and Rome.

Now, much as one would like to say
something new about the Renaissance,

the old belief that it was largely based
on the study of antique literature remains true.

Of course, the Middle Ages derived much more

from classical antiquity
than used to be supposed,

but their sources were limited, their texts corrupt,
and their interpretations often fanciful.

Almost the first man to read classical authors
with real insight was the poet Petrarch,

that complex figure of the 14th century,
that false dawn of humanism

whose love of opposites -

of fame and solitude, of nature and politics,
of rhetoric and self-revelation -

makes us think of him as the first modern man
until we begin to read his works.

Petrarch never learnt Greek
but his younger contemporary Boccaccio did,

and so there entered into Florentine thought
a new, regenerative force and a new example.

The first 30 years of the 15th century
was the heroic age of scholarship,

when unknown works
by the greatest writers of antiquity -

Tacitus, Plato, Cicero and a dozen others -

were discovered in monastic libraries

where they had lain since they were copied
in the Dark Ages.

And it was to house these precious texts, any
one of which might contain some new revelation,

that Cosimo de Medici built
the library of San Marco.

It looks to us peaceful and remote,

but the first studies that took place there
were not remote from life at all.

It was the humanist equivalent
of the Cavendish Laboratory.

The manuscripts unpacked and studied
under these harmonious vaults

could alter the course of history,
with an explosion not of matter but of mind.

(MUSIC) Ave Verum Corpus Natum

Next to the Pazzi Chapel
are the cloisters of Santa Croce

also built by Brunellesco some years later.

l said that the Gothic cathedrals
were hymns to divine light.

These cloisters with their round arches
"running races in their mirth",

happily celebrate the light of human intelligence.

And sitting in them,
l found it quite easy to believe in man.

When l first came here, nearly 50 years ago,

l felt "this is my true centre".

Well, twice it seemed that they were lost.

Once, at the end of the German occupation,

and once when the floods came

and there were fishes swimming
where my feet are, in the ambulatory.

But so far, the forces of destruction
have been defeated.

Clarity, economy, elegance.

These are the qualities that give distinction
to a mathematical theorem.

And no doubt, early Renaissance architecture

is based on a passion for mathematics,
particularly for geometry.

Of course, Gothic architects had designed
on a geometrical basis,

but it had been of immense complexity,

as elaborate and as logical
as scholastic philosophy.

Nothing could be more geometrical
than the Florentine Baptistry,

which is one of the earliest buildings in the city.

But the Renaissance added to this tradition of
design all sorts of philosophical notions,

including the idea that these forms
must be applicable to the human body -

that each, so to say,
guaranteed the perfection of the other.

There are dozens of drawings and engravings
to demonstrate this proposition,

of which the most famous
is by Leonardo da Vinci.

Mathematically, I'm afraid it's really a cheat,

but aesthetically, it has some meaning,

because the symmetry of the human body,
and the relation of one part of it to another,

do influence our sense of normal proportion.

And philosophically,
it contains the germ of an idea

which might save us if we could really believe it:

that through proportion, we can reconcile
the two parts of our being -

the physical and the intellectual.

The same approach was applied to painting,
in the system known as perspective,

by which it was thought
that by mathematical calculation,

one could render on a flat surface
the precise position of a figure in space.

And this too seems to have been invented
by Brunellesco.

But we can see it best in the works
of his two friends Ghiberti and Donatello

whose low-relief sculpture
is really a kind of painting.

Ghiberti's Jacob and Esau
on the famous Baptistry doors

shows perspective used to achieve a spatial
harmony that has almost a musical effect.

(MUSIC) Music For Maximilian

Donatello's relief
of St Anthony of Padua curing a boy's leg,

shows the other use of perspective:

to heighten emotion
by a more intense awareness of space.

l don't know why, l always feel there's something
alarming about an empty amphitheatre,

which suits the drama of this particular subject.

The Florentines were extremely proud
of this invention

which they thought, wrongly as it turned out,
was unknown to antiquity.

But has it anything to do with civilisation?

Well, when it was first invented, l think it had.

The belief that one could represent man
in a real setting

and calculate his position and arrange figures
in a demonstrably harmonious order,

this belief expressed symbolically a new idea
about man's place in the scheme of things

and man's control over his own destiny.

As an aid to realism
perspective is of no importance.

The realistic painters of Flanders
got on very well without it.

But as a symbol, it means something,

and it's as a symbol that it passes
into the decorative arts of the early Renaissance

and one finds it as the principal theme of those
wooden inlays in panelled rooms or choir stalls,

which are a repertoire
of Renaissance symbolism.

Perspective was concerned
with the representation of towns,

if only because it was by the paved floor
and receding arcade

that the system could be shown to advantage.

And in the 15th century,
painters did a number of pictures of ideal towns,

which are both architectural harmonies
and the perfect setting for social man.

Alberti describes, in his great book on building,

the necessity of a public square
where young men may be diverted

from the mischievousness and folly
natural to their age,

and, under handsome porticos,
old men may spend the heat of the day

and be mutually serviceable to one another.

l think that Piero della Francesca
who derived so much from Alberti

may well have had this,
and similar passages in mind,

when he painted this,
the most harmonious of all ideal cities.

The early Florentine Renaissance was
an urban culture, bourgeois, properly so-called.

Men spent their time in the streets and squares
and in the shops.

A good Florentine, says one of their moralists,
"sta sempre a bottega" - is always in the shop.

And these shops were completely public.

You can see in this engraving, how a
craftsman's workshop was open to the street

so that passers-by
could see what was being done

and rival artists make scathing comments.

The Renaissance historian of art, Vasari

when he asked himself
why it was in Florence more than elsewhere

that men became perfect in the arts,
gave as his first answer:

"The spirit of criticism, the air of Florence
making minds naturally free

and not content with mediocrity."

And this harsh, outspoken criticism meant that
there was no gap of incomprehension

between the intelligent patron and the artist.

Our contemporary attitude
of pretending to understand works of art

in order not to appear philistines

would have seemed absurd to the Florentines.

They were a tough lot.

Many people since Bruni in 1428 have
compared them with the Athenians,

but the Florentines were more realistic.

Whereas the Athenians loved
philosophical argument,

the Florentines were chiefly interested
in making money

and playing appalling practical jokes
on stupid men.

However, they had a good deal in common
with the Greeks.

They were curious,
they were extremely intelligent,

and they had, to a supreme degree,
the power of making their thoughts visible.

l hesitate to pronounce the much-abused word
"beauty", but l can't think of a substitute.

Like the Athenians
the Florentines loved beauty.

This is a constant source of surprise
to anyone who knows them,

but as Walter Pater said of Michelangelo,

"Out of the strong, came forth sweetness."

Donatello paid an even more direct tribute to the
antique concept of beauty in his bronze David.

The body is almost disturbingly physical

and the head is derived from that
of the great male beauty of the ancient world:

the emperor Hadrian's beloved Antinous,

although with a sharper Florentine accent
that makes it far more attractive.

Donatello's David stands
in the hall of the Bargello,

once a court of justice and a prison,
is now a museum

but still quite a good place
to get the flavour of 15th-century Florence

because it not only contains great works
of the Florentine imagination, like the David,

but also the portraits of famous Florentines.

There were a few likenesses of individuals
of the 14th century -

Dante, Petrarch, Charles V of France
Jean de Berry -

but they were exceptional.

As a rule, medieval people were presented to
the eye as figures that symbolised their status.

The painter of the Spanish Chapel
in Santa Maria Novella

although he included so much lively detail,

made his popes, kings and bishops
into stereotypes -

their status would have been recognised
all over the Gothic world.

But these proudly individual characters

wished to record for posterity
exactly what they were like.

In fact, many of these busts are done
from actual death masks

which even great artists like Donatello
didn't hesitate to incorporate in their work.

Of course, this bronze relief
isn't at all a death mask.

It's the self-portrait of that character
who so often flits in and out of the programme,

the architect and universal man
Leon Battista Alberti.

What a face!.

Proud and alert
like a wilful intelligent racehorse.

Among other things,
Alberti wrote an autobiography,

and as we should expect,
he is not inhibited by false modesty.

He tells us how the strongest horses
trembled under him

how he could throw further and jump higher
and work harder than any man.

He describes how he conquered
every weakness because:

"a man can do all things if he will."

It could be the motto of the early Renaissance.

And it's reflected in the heads
of Renaissance heroes

as they have come down to us
in their memorials -

in Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua.

Of course, these heads are so much idealised
as to be, in our sense, scarcely portraits at all.

Realistic portraiture, the use of the accidents
of each individual face to reveal inner life

wasn't a Florentine or even an Italian invention.

It was invented in Flanders

and came to an immediate perfection
in the work of Jan van Eyck.

No-one has looked at a human face
with a more dispassionate eye

and recorded his findings
with a more delicate hand.

But in fact, many of his sitters were Italians -

Albergati, the cardinal who employed
Alberti as secretary,

and Arnolfini, a member
of the international world of the wool trade

banking, papal diplomacy.

And perhaps it was only in such a society

that these evolved and subtle characters

could have accepted
the revelation of their personalities.

Van Eyck's exploration of personality
extended beyond the face.

He shows people in their setting

and lovingly records the details
of Arnolfini's daily life -

his wooden pattens
for walking the muddy streets of Bruges,

his little dog of nameless breed,

his wife's elaborate sleeve

his own fur-lined cloak and convex mirror

and above all, his splendid brass chandelier.

And by a miracle that defies the laws of artistry,

he was able to show them to us
enveloped in daylight,

as real as if it had been observed
by Vermeer of Delft.

This sensibility to atmosphere,
the Florentines never attempted.

They were a sculpture-minded people.

But in their portrait busts,
they came to achieve an almost Flemish realism.

How like these Florentine worthies are

to the confident faces
that we see in Victorian photographs.

This is the professional man, a doctor,
his face lined with the wisdom of experience.

In fact, he was Donatello's doctor
and saved his life.

And this is a businessman called Pietro Mellini.

A character in one of Alberti's dialogues says,

"A man cannot set his hand to more liberal work
than making money,

for what we sell is our labour -
the goods are merely transferred."

Yes, that was really written in 1434, not in 1850.

And, contrariwise, if you dressed Mellini
in 19th-century clothes,

he would look perfectly convincing.

But this atmosphere of liberal materialism
is less than half the story.

After the middle of the 15th century, the
intellectual life of Florence took a new direction

very different from the robust civic humanism
of the 1430s.

Florence had ceased to be a republic
in anything but name,

and for almost 30 years, it was virtually ruled by
that extraordinary character Lorenzo de Medici.

His father and grandfather had prepared the
way for him by their activities as bankers.

He himself was no financier -
he lost a great part of the family fortune -

but he was a politician of genius,

who could distinguish between the reality
of power and its outward trappings.

The frontispiece of his book of poems,
shows him in the streets of Florence

dressed as a simple citizen,
surrounded by girls who are singing his ballads.

What a contrast is this modest printed page
to the rich manuscripts of the Duke of Berry.

In fact, Lorenzo was a good poet
and a most admirable patron of other poets,

also of scholars and philosophers.

But he wasn't much interested in the visual arts

and the paintings by which his period
is remembered

were commissioned by his cousin Lorenzino.

And it was for Lorenzino
that Botticelli painted the works

in which the Florentine sense of beauty
appears in its most evolved and peculiar form -

The Spring and The Birth Of Venus.

In the earlier of them, The Spring,
the subject is derived from Ovid,

but this classical inspiration is given a new
complexity by memories of the Middle Ages.

The pagan divinities sway
before a background of leaves,

like a Gothic tapestry.

What a marvellous feat of the imagination.

As for the heads, they're a discovery of beauty
that means much more to us

than the full, smooth oval of antiquity.

(MUSIC) Ecca La Primavera

The subject of Botticelli's other great allegory,
The Birth Of Venus

is taken from a contemporary poet, Poliziano.

(MUSIC) Tres Douce Regard

Poliziano was part of a group
of subtle Florentines

who were inspired by the late Greek
philosophers known as neo-Platonists.

It was their hope they might reconcile these
pagan philosophers with Christianity.

And so, Botticelli's Venus

not at all the amorous strumpet of paganism,

is pale and withdrawn,

and dissolves into his image of the Virgin Mary.

The discovery of the individual was made
in early 15th-century Florence.

Nothing call alter that fact.

But in the last quarter of the century,
the Renaissance owed quite as much

to the small courts of northern Italy -
Ferrara, Mantua, and above all Urbino -

this small and rather remote town
on the eastern perimeter of the Apennines.

It could be argued that life in the court of Urbino

was one of the high watermarks
of Western civilisation.

The reason is that this court and its dominions
were protected from the surrounding ruffians

by Frederigo Montefeltro,
the first Duke of Urbino

the greatest general of his day,

who was also a humane and intelligent man.

And the town itself, with its soft pink bricks,

so different from the harsh stones of Florence

seems to reflect the same feeling of humanity.

It's small enough for a good ruler
to know all the inhabitants

and listen to their troubles.

Which, in fact
is exactly what Duke Frederigo did.

His palace began as a fortress,

built on an impregnable rock.

And only when he'd fought his way to security

could he afford to give it
the sweet and delicate details

which make it one of the most beautiful pieces
of architecture in the world.

The Palace of Urbino has a style of its own.

The arcaded courtyard,
where I'm standing now,

isn't speedy and springy
like Brunellesco's cloister

but calm and timeless.

And the rooms are light and airy.

And so perfectly-proportioned
that it exhilarates one to walk through them.

In fact, l think the interior
is the most beautiful in the world

and the only palace that l can go round
without feeling oppressed and exhausted.

(MUSIC) Se Me Grato

Curiously enough,

we don't know the name of the architect
who was responsible for this masterpiece.

A famous fortress builder named Laurana
did the substructure

but he left Urbino long before
the lived-in part of the palace was begun.

But the painter Piero della Francesca was there

at exactly the date when it was being decorated.

And, personally, l believe
that he was responsible for its style.

The architecture in this picture by Piero,
which is in Urbino

shows exactly the same kind of delicate detail

one finds round the doors and windows
of the palace,

and it was painted ten years earlier.

However, l think that the noble proportions
and the whole sense of space

must reflect the character of the Duke himself.

His biographer, named Vespasiano da Bisticci

refers again and again to the Duke's humanity.

He asked the Duke
"What is necessary in ruling a kingdom?"

The Duke replied, "Essere umano."

"To be human."

Whoever invented the style, this is the spirit
that permeates the Palace of Urbino.

As a part of civilisation,

the Palace of Urbino extended
beyond the 15th century.

The great architect of the High Renaissance,
Bramante

was a native of Urbino.

He may even have worked on the palace
when it was being completed.

The court painter was a silly old, creature
named Giovanni Santi

the sort of obliging mediocrity
who's always welcome in courts -

even in the court of Urbino.

No doubt the ladies, when they were
in need of a design for embroidery,

used to say, "Let's send for dear old Mr Santi."

And when he came

he brought with him his beautiful little son...

Raffaello.

And so, Raphael,

one of the civilising forces
of the Western imagination,

found his earliest impressions of harmony
and proportion and good manners

in the court of Urbino.

Good manners.

That was another product of Urbino.

In common with other Italian courts
Ferrara and Mantua

young men went there to finish their education.

They learnt to read the classics,
to walk gracefully,

speak quietly,

play games without cheating
or kicking each other on the shins -

in short, to behave like gentlemen.

Under Frederigo's son and successor,
Guidobaldo

the notion of a gentleman was given classic
expression in a book called Il Cortigiano -

The Courtier - by Baldassare Castiglione.

It had an immense influence.

The Emperor Charles V had only three books
beside his bed

the Bible, Machiavelli's Prince

and Castiglione's Courtier.

For over a hundred years,
it formed everybody's notion of good manners.

Actually, it's very much more
than a handbook of polite behaviour,

because Castiglione's ideal of a gentleman
is based on real human values.

He mustn't hurt people's feelings,

or make them feel inferior by showing off.

He must be easy and natural.

Just as Castiglione himself appears to be
in his portrait by Raphael.

And he mustn't be a mere worldling.

Il Cortigiano ends with a moving discourse
on the subject of love.

Just as Botticelli's Spring unites
the tapestry world of the Middle Ages

with pagan mythology,

so Castiglione's Courtier unites
the medieval concept of chivalry

with the ideal love of Plato.

(MUSIC) L'amor Donna

There's no doubt that the court of Urbino
under both Frederigo and Guidobaldo,

was a high point in the history of civilisation.

And the same is true, in a lesser degree,
of the court of Mantua.

The palace of Mantua lacks the exhilarating
lightness and lucidity of the palace of Urbino.

But it contains one room

in which more than anywhere else, perhaps,

one can get an idea of civilised life
in an Italian court.

It's the room decorated by the court painter
Andrea Mantegna.

Birds and cherubs...and people

look down from an imaginary hole in the roof.

A new use of perspective.

(MUSIC) Suite No1 pavane

Then come painted busts of Roman emperors.

But the scene below isn't at all archaeological.

It shows the Gonzaga family as large as life.

Also their dogs...

..their courtiers...

their old retainers...

and one of their celebrated dwarves.

In spite of the formidable frontality
of the Marchioness

the spirit of the whole group is extremely natural.

The little girl asks if she may eat an apple,

but her mother's interested to know what news

the Marquess has just received
from his secretary.

In fact it is good news.
Their son has been made a cardinal.

And in another scene, the Marquess
goes to greet him accompanied by his dogs

and his younger sons.

What an agreeably informal reception.

One of the younger children holds his hand,

and the little boy takes the hand
of his elder brother.

It's still without the odious pomposity that was
to grow up in Europe during the next century

and reach its zenith at Versailles.

I'm bound to say that even Mantegna

has not been able to make the newly-created
Cardinal look like a very spiritual type.

Which reminds one of the obvious fact

that this kind of social organisation
depended entirely

on the individual characters of the rulers.

In one state is Sigismondo Malatesta,
the Wolf of Rimini

who did things that
even the most advanced theatrical producer

would hesitate to put on the stage.

In a neighbouring state, Frederigo Montefeltro,

the God-fearing father of his people.

And yet both of them employed Alberti

and both were painted by Piero della Francesca.

Frederigo was a lover of books,

who made the palace of Urbino
into one of the finest libraries in Italy.

But when he read them

he left his armour on.

And he needed to.

This was one of the weaknesses
of Renaissance civilisation.

And the other, no less obviously,

was that it depended on a very small minority.

Even in republican Florence,
the Renaissance touched relatively few people.

And in places like Urbino and Mantua,

it was practically confined to the court.

This is contrary to our modern sense of equality.

But one can't help wondering
how far civilisation would have evolved

if it had been entirely dependent
on the popular will.

WB Yeats actually used the example of Urbino
when he addressed a poem

"to a wealthy man who promised
a subscription to the Dublin gallery

if it were proved
that the people wanted pictures."

He said

"And Guidobaldo, when he made
that mirror school of courtesy

Where wit and beauty learnt their trade

Upon Urbino's windy hill,

Had sent no runners to and fro

That he might learn the shepherds' will."

One may not like courts -
l don't much like them myself-

but at a certain stage, it's only in a court

that a man may do something, extravagant
for its own sake

because he wants to
because it seems worth doing -

something like the extraordinary wooden inlays
in this study.

And it's sometimes through such wilful,
superfluous actions

that men discover their powers.

All the same, as one walks through
these splendidly extravagant rooms,

one can't help thinking,
"What about the people in the fields?"

All those shepherds who Mr Yeats rightly
supposed that Guidobaldo did not consult

on matters of taste and good manners.

Could they not have had
a kind of civilisation of their own?

Well, there is such a thing
as a civilised countryside.

Looking at the Umbrian landscape
with its terraces of vines and olives

and the dark vertical accents of the cypresses,

one has the impression of timeless order.

There must have been a time
when it was all forest and swamp.

Shapeless, formless.

And to bring order out of chaos
is a process of civilisation.

But of this timeless rustic civilisation we have
no record beyond the farmhouses themselves,

whose noble proportions seem to be
the basis of Italian architecture.

When Renaissance artists
looked at the countryside,

it was not as a place of ploughing and digging

but as a kind of earthly paradise.

This is how it appears in the first evolved
landscape in European painting,

the background of van Eyck's
Adoration Of The Lamb.

The foreground is painted with
a medieval sharpness of detail,

but our eye, passing over the towers
and dense greenery of laurels and palms

floats into a gleaming distance.

(MUSIC) La Deploration De Johan Okeghem

Already, awareness of nature is associated
with the desire to escape

and the hope of a better life.

And such it remained in the work of Giovanni
Bellini, the founder of Venetian painting,

who first used his backgrounds
to create a mood

in which the action or story of the picture
can be more vividly felt.

Bellini was a religious painter.

His landscapes intensify
the traditional subjects of Christianity.

His pupil, Giorgione, was to extend the
humanisation of landscape to contemporary life.

And in this picture,

he has discovered
or l suppose one should say rediscovered,

one of the comforting illusions of civilised man -
the myth of Arcadia.

Of course, it is only a myth.

Our country life isn't at all like this.

Even on a picnic, ants attack the sandwiches
and wasps buzz round the wineglass.

But Giorgione has shown us
how fundamentally pagan it is.

This Arcadia is as much a tribute to antiquity

as were the republican virtues
of the Florentine humanists.

And as much part of the rediscovery of man.

But in his sensual
rather than his intellectual nature.

With Giorgione's picnic, the balance
and enjoyment of our human faculties

seems to achieve perfection.

But in history, all points of supposed perfection
have a hint of menace

and Giorgione himself discovers it in that
mysterious picture known as the Tempesta.

What on earth is going on?

What is the meaning of this half-naked woman
suckling a baby,

this flash of lightning,

this broken column?

Nobody knows. Nobody has ever known.

It was described in Giorgione's own time
as "a soldier and a gypsy".

Well, whatever it means

it certainly doesn't show any confidence
in the light of human reason.

"A man can do all things if he will."

How na�ve Alberti's statement seems

when one thinks of that great bundle
offears and memories

that every individual carries around with him,

to say nothing of the external forces
which are totally beyond his control.

Giorgione, the passionate lover
of physical beauty,

painted this picture of an old woman
and inscribed it "col tempo" -"with time".

One can see that she must once
have been a beauty.

It's one of the first masterpieces
of a new pessimism -

new, because without the comfort of religion
that was to be given final expression by Hamlet.

The truth is, l suppose,

that the civilisation of the early Renaissance
was not broadly enough based.

The few had gone too far away from the many,

not only in knowledge and intelligence -
this they always do -

but in basic assumptions.

When the first two generations of humanists
were dead

their movement had no real weight behind it.

And there was a reaction away
from this human scale of values.

Fortunately, they left
in sculpture, painting and architecture

their message to every generation that values
reason, clarity and harmonious proportion,

and believes in the individual.

(MUSIC) La Deploration De Johan Okeghem