Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] New York, the world capital of power and style.

And at its heart, a museum with secrets dark and strange.

A nude statue linked to murder.

(gunshot echoes)

The mysterious power of an Egyptian temple.

The suit of armor that sheds new light

on the blood lust of Henry VIII.

Secrets hidden in plain sight

inside the Metropolitan Museum.

(suspenseful music)

(enchanting music)

New York's Metropolitan Museum

draws five million visitors every year.

For a century and a half, the Met has been the hub

for famous, priceless art from all over the world

in a city that defines American culture.

At the center of this sky lit sculpture court stands Diana.

Many statues depict a naked human form,

but in this case, nudity matters.

Diana's nudity is linked to America's

first tabloid murder sensation.

(gun bangs)

A drug addicted billionaire playboy

(pages crinkle)

and a lascivious, upper crust architect

were both entangled in a love triangle

with America's most famous beauty.

And all had a fateful connection

to the bronze statue of Diana,

ancient goddess of the hunt.

In 1892, Diana was the tallest object

on the Manhattan skyline.

In Victorian America, this was as risque as it got.

Commissioned by architect Stanford White,

she was created by American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

- Diana is bathing by a woodland pool,

and she senses that she's being spied on,

and she stands up nude,

shoots her arrow at the young prince Actaeon,

who is then transformed into the stag,

so because she had to be nude in this story,

sculptors liked this idea of having a veiled reason

for creating a nude figure.

- [Narrator] White placed Diana at the pinnacle

of what was then Madison Square Garden.

Not the sports arena we know today,

but an earlier building surmounted by an ornate tower.

Illuminated by a powerful spotlight,

Diana could be seen by every New Yorker.

- There were newspaper reports that nannies

had to rush their charges through Madison Square Park,

and you might walk into some old gentleman

with his spy glasses who had them preened up on Diana

so he could get a close look at this nude figure.

(contemplative music)

- [Narrator] Diana was a figure from Roman mythology,

but spoke to an America where modesty

was on its way out and overt display was on its way in.

A real woman who embodied this spirit

was an artist's model named Evelyn Nesbit.

Many New Yorkers came to believe her face and figure

were the inspiration for Diana.

Like a supermodel of today,

Evelyn was first famous for her looks,

and then famous for being famous.

Her life became a source of gossip and speculation

in the pages of a new kind of newspaper,

one New York City helped invent.

The celebrity tabloid.

Barry Levine is the executive editor

of the National Enquirer.

- Evelyn was a Marilyn Monroe,

she was a, on the scale of today's actresses,

she would be up there with Angelina Jolie,

a woman that was just the personification

of every man's fantasy at the time.

- [Narrator] Stanford White shared this fantasy.

The famous architect was also an infamous womanizer.

He was rumored to have a secret love life nest

in the penthouse of Madison Square Garden,

where he seduced many young women, like Evelyn Nesbit.

Wonderly White is Standford White's great granddaughter.

- [Wonderly] He met her when she was merely 14 years old,

but she was an absolutely breathtaking beauty.

He saw that in her, and decided

to take her under his wing.

At the turn of the century, the thing to remember is

even though a woman was 14 years old,

that was considered nearly the right age

to get married at and have children.

It was a different society than the one we live in now.

So, even though she was so young,

becoming his mistress wasn't like we would see it today

as practically a case of pedophilia.

- [Narrator] Evelyn Nesbit biographer, Paula Uruburu,

takes a less charitable view of White's sexual preference

and method of seduction.

- [Paula] So Stanford White had this,

he used to call them snuggeries, he had these apartments

apparently, in various places around the city,

and he would invite these young girls in,

and Evelyn in a faithful night

he invites her to this apartment.

(mysterious music)

He's giving her champagne,

and in one end of the apartment,

there's this red velvet swing hanging from the ceiling.

She gets on the red velvet swing that's hanging

from the rafters in the ceiling in one corner

of the apartment and pushing her on the swing,

and telling her to kick her foot

through this Japanese parasol,

this paper parasol that's hung from the ceiling.

And the higher he pushes her,

the closer she comes to piercing the parasol.

Of course, she's already been plied

with a great deal of champagne.

The way Evelyn described it in her own memoir, she said,

"when I went into that room I was a virgin,

"when I came out I was not."

When she becomes conscious, White is next to her

and he's naked and she's almost naked,

and he says "Now you belong to me."

- [Narrator] Evelyn kept the liaison secret from everyone,

including a new man who entered her life,

millionaire playboy Harry Thaw.

- [Paula] Harry Thaw was born into this wealthy family,

the 1890s we're talking about

there's no income tax or anything,

but the minute that he's 18, his mother,

she ups his allowance to $80,000 a month,

which is an insane amount of money.

Harry was probably a cocaine fiend,

that was the term that they used at the time.

He always had this, sort of,

manic glazed look in his eyes and almost every picture

you see of him, I mean, he looks crazy.

Harry was clearly indulging in everything there

was possible to indulge in.

- [Narrator] Stanford White used his considerable influence

in New York society to shut Thaw out.

The two men hated each other. (paper tears)

- [Wonderly] Thaw had a tremendous cocaine problem

and would go into cocaine rages

and throw around 15th century furniture

that my great grandparents had brought back from Europe.

Stanford White had blackballed him

from joining any of the clubs.

Thaw took a tremendous affront to this,

and in response married Stanford White's mistress.

- [Narrator] On their wedding night, Evelyn revealed

that White had taken her virginity.

(sinister music)

Thaw flew into a violent rage

and over time came to assault his bride with a dog whip.

- When Thaw realized that Stanford White

wasn't heartbroken or crushed or infuriated by this,

it made him even more incensed.

And he started on the notion that Stanford White

had ruined his wife, and not only that,

had used her as the model for a statue that was

at the top of the original Madison Square Garden.

- [Narrator] Thaw's anger, fueled by righteous indignation

and cocaine, coalesced into a plan of action.

He decided White must pay with his life.

(dramatic music)

June 25th 1906, in an open air theater

beneath the statue of Diana, Harry Thaw

and Evelyn Nesbit attend a musical performance.

Seeing Stanford White, Thaw takes out a pistol,

approaches to point blank range,

and shoots him in the face.

(gun bangs)

(crowd screaming)

- White fell to the ground, people started screaming,

people started rushing away from this man

who was holding up the gun.

Harry was holding up the gun,

saying, "I did it because he ruined my wife!"

(stressed orchestral music)

- [Narrator] Beneath the statue that helped

trigger Thaw's rage, Stanford White dies in a pool of blood.

The arrest and trial that follow

ignite a media frenzy in New York and beyond.

- [Barry] This was the granddaddy of all tabloid stories.

The trial that we kids consider the trial

of the century was O.J. Simpson.

This, at the time, probably was bigger.

It had all the elements.

It had a love triangle, it had violence, it had betrayal.

I think this is the type of story, if this

had occurred today, this would wipe Brad and Angelina,

and the Tom Cruise type stories off the map.

And this would be the story that would

be talked about day in and day out.

- [Narrator] The trial results in a hung jury.

At Thaw's second trial, Evelyn Nesbit takes the stand

as the prosecution's star witness.

All of America hangs on her tale of seduction

at the hands of Stanford White.

Many felt her husband was within his rights

to defend her honor with a gun.

Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

(sinister music)

Evelyn Nesbit, America's first supermodel,

faded into obscurity,

dying alone after a long struggle with drugs and alcohol.

And as it turns out, the statue that sparked a murder

wasn't really Evelyn after all.

When Diana was created, Evelyn was just seven years old.

But as they say in the tabloids,

never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

(gentle music)

Diana may be made of bronze,

but as tabloid stories go, she's solid gold.

(noble music)

Next, a suit of armor sheds new light

on the blood lust of Henry VIII.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(noble music)

The Metropolitan Museum in New York

has over 15,000 pieces in its arms and armor collection.

(horses snorting)

(horses whinnying)

One piece in particular has been at the center of mystery.

For many years this suit of armor was thought

to belong to a minor 16th century French nobleman.

(calm music)

But recently discovered documents and forensic evidence

have led to a startling revelation.

This is actually the last battle armor

of a king of England, Henry VIII.

Armed with this knowledge we hope

to reveal an elusive secret.

Why did a monarch who was once athletic and popular

end his reign as an obese tyrant?

Met curator, Stuart Pyhrr,

helped discover the armor's true owner.

- In 1547, Henry VIII died.

A complete inventory of his collection was made,

including every chair, every piece of bed linen,

all the armors, and there was an armor called Italian,

and described in such a way, it sounded very similar

to the one in our collection.

- [Narrator] The armor sounded similar

but Pyhrr couldn't be sure.

He couldn't even be certain Henry's armor

had survived to the present day.

But he had a clue.

The will of the Earl of Pembroke.

It mentions armor given to him

by his benefactor, Henry VIII.

- [Stuart] The documentation seemed overwhelming.

So we had to look at the armor with fresh eyes.

- [Narrator] A fresh look revealed something no one

had seen before.

- [Stuart] It was only on dismantling the armor

and looking at every detail,

began to realize there were changes in the armor.

That some plates were of a different color.

The etching was slightly different, the gilding brighter.

- [Narrator] Then Pyhrr noticed something one

would only expect to find on an armor

belonging to Henry VIII.

New studs were added, and those studs have Tudor roses.

- [Narrator] The Tudor rose was Henry's symbol,

his favorite decorative design.

- [Stuart] An emblem that was completely

overlooked for the last 400 years.

- [Narrator] The clincher was the armors enormous size.

(ambient music)

It was constructed to accommodate a 51 inch waist.

Clearly, the man who wore this suit

of armor was morbidly obese.

Henry's biographer, Suzannah Lipscomb,

is not surprised the king got so fat.

- The thing about Henry VIII's eating habits

is that he mostly ate meat.

In those days, you ate meat if you could afford it,

so it's probably a very vitamin free diet,

without any fresh vegetables, none of his five a day

that we're recommended to eat.

So he would obviously put on a lot of weight,

taking in all that protein,

and without anything to work it off.

- [Narrator] In his youth Henry, was athletic and slim.

(harpsichord music)

Lipscomb believes that one specific incident

may be the cause of Henry's late onset obesity.

And perhaps a negative personality change.

(crowd chanting)

On January 24th 1536, during a jousting match

Henry suffered a serious accident.

(hoof steps pounding)

(metal scrapes) (horse whinnies)

Head trauma rendered him unconscious for two hours.

From that day forward, he became more erratic and violent.

(metal scrapes) (blood splats)

Within months, he ordered Anne Boleyn beheaded.

During the remainder of his reign, he ordered the execution

of more than 50,000 of his subjects.

(dreary music)

Could head trauma have altered Henry's personality?

- [Suzannah] Maybe he bruised his cerebral cortex

and in the papers over the last few years,

there've been all these references to

American footballers and others who had head accidents

and then have seen a real change

in their character and personality.

And we think maybe that's what happened to Henry.

(harpsichord music)

- [Narrator] If a jousting accident

changed Henry's personality, why did it change it

for the worse?

Doctor Naftali Berrill is a New York neuropsychologist.

He sees cases like this all the time.

- Sometime you hear stories like,

gee, before the head trauma, they were fairly calm.

After the accident, a personality change occurred.

And you hear reports of family and people

that know the individual that they behave

in a way that suggests a level of dyscontrol,

they become irritable, violent, unpredictable,

assaultive, obnoxious, and sometimes,

they commit crimes as a consequence.

(distant chatter)

(soft sinister music)

- [Narrator] It's a textbook description

of Henry VIII's condition.

And this armor, acquired when he

was nearly too fat to walk, let alone go into battle,

suggests that Henry's ambitions were also out of control.

- Later in life, there's one more attempt

to regain his lost glory.

So in the 1540s, he thinks, well, I'll invade France again.

(noble music)

- [Narrator] To lead the invasion,

Henry required his armor to be supersized.

(metal scrapes)

- It turns out, in fact, it was modified for Henry's body

after it was given by the Italian milliner.

It was cut,

(iron clangs)

plates were added at the sides of the arm holes

to perhaps give it more flexibility

and comfort for the king.

The breast and the back were shortened.

(metal clangs)

A plate was taken out in the front,

at least two in the back, which truncated the upper body.

The helmet was modified.

Add two plates to the back to give it more flexibility,

something that only the king would have wanted.

It wasn't necessary otherwise.

- [Narrator] Against the advice of his councilors,

Henry dawned his armor and led the English army into France.

The invasion was a complete, unmitigated disaster.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Soon after, Henry died,

a huge man and a huge failure.

His legacy was a needless war and a depleted treasury.

This tragic comic suit of armor protected his beloved body,

but could not save England from his bloated ambition.

(intimidating music)

Next, an Egyptian temple that offers the spiritual power

of the pharaohs to the people of New York.

(triumphant music)

(intimidating music)

Within the walls of the Metropolitan Museum

is a massive temple of ancient Egypt.

The temple of Dendur can be seen

from outside the museum, through a wall of glass.

Twenty-five meters across, eight meters tall,

the temple's gallery is the size of a football field.

It is one of the Met's most popular attractions.

(ancient music)

But visitors are not permitted

to enter the secret chamber at its heart.

This is an exclusive look beyond the forbidden threshold.

- So you move through a temple

and it goes from light to dark

and it goes uphill so that the central part of the temple

the most sacred area, which is the shrine,

sanctuary, which would be here,

is the darkest and the highest point of the temple.

There is behind this wall an empty chamber.

It's a hidden chamber, you can't see it.

- [Narrator] The purpose of this hidden chamber

is a museum secret.

When we scanned the temple walls for clues,

we find nothing about the chamber.

But we do see something else.

Images that have no business in an Egyptian temple.

Images of a Roman Emperor.

Caesar Augustus.

(dramatic music)

Augustus conquered Egypt in 30 B.C.,

famously prompting Queen Cleopatra

and her lover Mark Anthony to commit suicide.

Unlike other empire builders, Augustus did not

force his beliefs on conquered nations.

His genius lay in embracing local customs

for his own benefit.

- [Diana] The Romans built the temple in the Egyptian style

because it was much easier to control

the population that way.

The Romans wanted cooperation from Egypt

because they saw Egypt as an agricultural,

rich country which they needed

to exploit for the Roman world.

(Egyptian music)

- [Narrator] To win Egyptian hearts and minds,

Augustus allowed the temple

to be dedicated to two local boys.

They are Pediese and Pihor,

young sons of a local chieftain,

who was an important ally of Augustus.

- [Diana] They occur several times in the temple.

Pediese is always the fist one,

so he is believed to be more important.

We don't know why they are treated as Gods in this temple.

(water sloshing)

One understanding is that they both drowned in the Nile,

and when humans drown in the Nile,

they were deified immediately.

We just know that they were revered enough,

possibly local saints in some way,

to be given a place in this temple.

- [Narrator] The Egyptians who used the temple would soon

discover that Augustus' love was strictly temporary.

A few years after the temple was finished,

his army invaded in force.

Egypt fell under Rome's boot, never to rise again.

(tense music)

The temple, however, remained standing until the 1960s,

when it became one of many ancient structures

threatened by the construction of the Aswan Dam.

A UN mission largely funded by the United States,

helped save many important monuments.

To thank their benefactors,

Egypt offered America the Temple of Dendur.

The gift had one condition.

The temple must be available to everyone at all times.

The Met responded by providing a gallery with a wall

of glass, so the temple can remain in view 24/7.

For believers in the gods of the pharaohs,

a temple available to everyone retains its spiritual power.

What is this power?

And what of the chamber deep inside the temple walls?

To construct a temple with such a symmetrical plan,

and then dig through the walls to add a hidden chamber,

the builders must've had some important purpose in mind.

- There are two hypotheses.

One is that it was a burial chamber for one

or both of the brothers who were worshiped in this temple.

And the other possibility is that it

was a chamber for oracles.

In other words, someone would stand in there,

a supplicate would come in, or a priest would come in

and ask a question, and the answer would be given to him

from an unknown place, all they would hear is a voice.

(tranquil string music)

This was something that was common in Egypt,

oracles existed, but we just don't know

if that's what it was.

We have no hard answers.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Today, the temple of Dendur offers a glimpse

of ancient Egypt in the heart of Manhattan.

In its own time, it was a monument to the end

of the most enduring civilization the world has ever known.

(anxious piano music)

Next, we explore the relics of Christendom,

to reveal a talisman of hope,

and a harbinger of doom.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(tranquil music)

According to the New Testament,

at the last supper, Jesus raised a cup of wine

to his disciples and said, "This is my blood."

Today, in the Metropolitan Museum in New York,

there is an artifact that looks very much

like a cup form Biblical times.

The ancient name for cup is grail.

In years past, several scholars of early Christianity

argued that this is the cup Christ

drank from at the last supper.

The chalice known as the Holy Grail.

- There are many people trying to prove

that both Christ and old testament figure

like Moses were or were not real human beings.

Were they historical figures

or were they epic heroes like Achilles?

And so this is a huge theological debate there,

and this chalice and what the images on it

represent play into that larger debate.

(tranquil music)

- [Narrator] The artifact was discovered in the early 1900s

in Antioch, hidden in a well

with several other precious religious relics.

Shortly after the crucifixion,

Antioch became a center for Christianity.

Both Peter and Paul preached here.

Is it possible they brought Christ's chalice with them?

Careful examination reveals that the artifact

is comprised of two very different layers.

The outer shell is highly crafted,

decorated with images of Christ and his disciples.

But inside is a simple unadorned cup.

Just the sort of crude drinking vessel

that might have been owned by a poor carpenter like Jesus.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I,

the relic was transported to New York for safekeeping.

A respected expert examined it

and declared it to be the cup of Christ.

(holy music)

- [Helen] And what to be more important

than to find the Holy Grail?

The beginning of the Eucharist,

the Mass of the Christian Church?

- [Narrator] In the 1920s and 30s, the artifact

was exhibited throughout America as the true Holy Grail.

(peaceful piano music)

Armed guards were hired to protect it.

Thousands of Christians lined up to catch a fleeting look.

But when the artifact was gifted to the Met in 1950,

museum experts gave it another hard look.

They saw clear indications it was

made 500 years after Christ.

And though it looks like a cup,

it looks much more like the oil lamps

found in early churches.

(choir music)

While experts felt they had closed the case,

many believers sought a different verdict

from a higher power, the Catholic Church.

- [Helen] When the chalice came to the Met in 1950,

there had been a huge effort to get the Vatican

to declare that this was the Holy Grail.

There'd been huge efforts to get the Vatican over time

to declare many things to be the sacred object.

- [Narrator] The Vatican declined.

And in the years since then, as interest faded,

the artifact was consigned to a quiet corridor.

But even though this is not the Holy Grail,

it still carries the hopes of those who want to believe.

- People want to touch things that are important to them.

You get autographs because you admire this figure,

you want to have Derek Jeter's signature

because you're a Yankee fan

and he's the captain of the team.

(gentle harp music)

And that's what a relic is,

it's something that gives you access

to the holy by being able to touch it.

(anxious music)

- [Narrator] From Christian hope, we turn

to Christian visions of doom.

This is the manuscript of the apocalypse.

A 14th century volume containing dramatic,

frightening illustrations of the end of days.

The manuscript is displayed in the Met's satellite museum

known as The Cloisters.

And if it looks like something from the Middle Ages,

that's because it was constructed

of elements taken from medieval structures.

Doorways, windows, and walls purchased

in Europe and transported to New York.

The building on view today has a tranquil beauty

that is more than the sum of its medieval parts.

Few artifacts capture the dark

and brooding qualities of the era

quite like the manuscript of the apocalypse.

Is is a book of power and secrets.

- All great works of art are reluctant

to give up all their secrets at once. (laughs)

and this is no exception.

It must've been in England, and then it came back to France.

This piece was confiscated by the Nazis,

we don't know where it was exactly

during the second World War.

So it's extraordinary with all

of this difficult past that it's had

that it survived in such remarkable condition.

(page crinkling)

- [Narrator] The manuscript predicts that the world

as we know it is doomed to end.

Christ will return to judge the living and the dead.

And as written in the book of John,

the end will be heralded by four horsemen of the apocalypse,

bringers of pestilence, war, famine, and death.

Bernard McGinn is a retired professor of divinity

from the University of Chicago.

- The literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation

is alive and well at the beginning of the 21st century,

and according to certain polls, a very large proportion,

if not a majority of the American believers,

think that Jesus will come back in their own lifetime.

(crowd shouting)

- [Narrator] For some believers, the signs

of the apocalypse are already here.

- [Bernard] Apocalyptic literature is in part a response

to crisis, and the crisis that in some way hopes

for a denouement in the final age of history.

But sometimes that denouement,

that end of scene is far, far away.

Other times it's remarkably close, even predictably close.

(intense music)

(horse whinnies) Medieval Christians had reason

to believe that John the Apostle's end times were at hand.

Famine, war and the pestilence of the Black Death

were part of everyday life.

- And at various points through history,

people are sort of anxiously awaiting the idea

that time is about to come to an end.

The good news is if you play your cards right

and you do what you're supposed to do,

you end up in a very happy place at the end of time.

So even if the story has some

frightening scenes, you can

anticipate that that's not going to involve you,

because you're gonna be on the right side of things.

- [Narrator] Not everyone sees a bright side

to the frightening violence of our age.

But for some believers, the violence

that heralds Christ's return is actually good news

that should be shared.

The book's illustrated form presented a

powerful message then, and it's one

that still resonates today.

(hoof steps pound)

- Well, I think the notion of Revelation as a graphic novel

is extremely powerful notion, and one that fits it

in terms of our cultural milieu, very, very exactly.

The book seems to lend itself to the pictorial imagination

of the particular era within which it is.

So that no book of the Bible had been more illustrated

and had a more powerful effect on art

and literature than the book of the apocalypse.

(sinister orchestral music)

- [Narrator] And there's another mystery

surrounding the book.

There are pages missing.

There is evidence the manuscript is incomplete.

- [Barbara] There's some missing pictures,

and that probably happened at quite a recent date.

If I turn this page, I think you'll see.

Oh this page there's a great illumination,

on this page there's a great illumination,

here's just half a page, you see.

And its been cut out.

- [Narrator] There's no way to know when the pages

were removed or by whom.

But the book was in the hands of the Nazis,

and Hitler was obsessed with the supernatural.

Did he or his followers believe the manuscript

of the Apocalypse had some special power?

- And it's odd in particular with an Apocalypse

because the text itself says that one must be very careful

that the words are in correctly.

What I mean is that you'll end up

in the mouth of hell if you don't get this right.

- [Bernard] This book is the key to the past

and the revelation of the future,

it's a power that's not dead today.

The book can be a dangerous book

when it's read only in a strictly literal sense.

- [Narrator] But no one can control

how books like these are read.

There will be those who interpret the apocalyptic vision

as metaphor or warning,

and there will always be those

who say it's coming, bring it on.

(dramatic music)

(electronic trilling)

Next, medieval technology meets modern combat,

as the Met does its bit to help America

fight two world wars.

(water sloshes)

(dramatic music)

(intimidating music)

In medieval times,

European armorers worked to provide maximum protection

for elite soldiers.

(dramatic music)

By the 20th century, war had become a bloody struggle

between unarmored forces.

Armor making was by then a lost art.

But when America entered World War I in 1917,

the military concerned about potential casualties

turned to the Metropolitan Museum.

Deep below the public galleries

is a room that few ever see,

a room that played a crucial role in saving the lives

of countless soldiers.

Stuart Pyhrr is the curator in charge of arms and armor.

- One of the least well known aspects

of the Metropolitan Museum is its contribution

to the war efforts in World War I and World War II.

In 1917, the war department contacted the museum's curator

of arms and armor, Bashford Dean,

and asked him to apply his historical knowledge

of ancient armor to the development of modern helmets

and body armor for the current conflict.

(easygoing music)

- [Narrator] Bashford Dean had a double challenge,

to design a helmet that would provide protection

and be something soldiers would agree to wear.

- [Stuart] Getting the modern soldier to accept

a steel helmet was an uphill battle.

It couldn't be too heavy,

it couldn't be out sized, one that got in the way.

- [Narrator] For inspiration, Bashford Dean

studied the Met's medieval armor collection.

He found many examples of helmets that

struck a balance between form and function.

He conceived and built several promising prototypes.

But the war ended before his work was complete.

And the prototypes were shelved.

(footsteps pounding)

In retrospect, this may have been short sighted.

(Hitler yells in German)

Bashford Dean died before the start of World War II,

but his protege carried on his work.

- [Stuart] The museum's armorer came up with this design,

very much based on the M1 helmet,

but more compact, with the idea being

a smaller head and more compact helmet

would be more efficient in the battlefield.

- [Narrator] After the helmet,

the Met moved on to body armor.

This 15th century armor, too fragile to display

in the public galleries, was an inspiration.

(gentle foreboding music)

- [Stuart] The textile is is on the outside,

the plates on the inside, and they would've been

covered by another coat of textile.

And then wrapping around, this is the back,

it was wrapped around jacket like, sleeveless jacket,

and tied in the front.

It provided a flexible, armored defense.

(anxious piano music)

This is the Met's revolutionary design.

Medieval technology,

updated for the 20th century battlefield.

(weapons fire)

Once again, the brutal war came to an end

before the Met's design could be tested.

Today's helmets look remarkably

like Bashford Dean's original design.

He saw the future by looking into the past.

(electronic trilling)

The Met's body armor proved even more prophetic.

Some modern soldiers wear armor made

from independent plates held together by flexible material.

(gun bangs)

Such armor can withstand high caliber,

high velocity rifle fire.

This is the body armor of the 21st century,

but the underlying technology was invented

by medieval craftsmen, and updated

by the curators of the Metropolitan Museum.

Unfortunately, no one can know how many lives

might've been spared, had the Met's prototypes

gone into production a century ago.

(energetic music)

(upbeat pop music)

Next, modern science unlocks ancient mysteries

and uncovers new facts.

(dramatic music)

(upbeat music)

Two million square feet,

over two million works of art,

five million visitors per year.

At New York's Metropolitan Museum,

there's a new marvel around every corner.

But there are more marvels the public can't see,

just below their feet.

In the Met's department of scientific research,

scientists use state of the art technology

to solve ancient mysteries.

- The laboratory is essentially

a fully equipped modern analytical chemistry lab.

We're dealing, if you think about our collection,

with 5,000 years of history from five continents

so every possible material that has been used

by humankind in artistic production is represented here.

We have glass, wood, stone, organic material, textiles.

We have natural materials and synthetic materials.

- [Narrator] Recently the lad acquired a new tool.

Used by NASA to study Martian soil samples,

only a handful of the world's museums have one.

This is a Raman Spectrometer.

For important and fragile artifacts,

the Raman Spectrometer offers a non invasive way

to reveal a unique molecular fingerprint.

Here's how it works.

First, a microscopic sample is taken from an artwork,

using an ultra sharp Tungsten needle.

The sample is smaller than the width of a human hair.

Next, it's placed in a solution

containing tiny particles of silver.

Placed under a laser, the shiny silver

amplifies the sample's chemical properties.

The laser scans the sample,

seeking its molecular fingerprint.

The result is a graphic signature of the chemical elements.

- And the result is incredible,

we go from not seeing anything to almost magic,

seeing a very distinct signal that corresponds

to the molecule present in the color

- [Narrator] Using the spectrometer,

Leona made a discovery about world's trade

during the time of the crusades.

The paint on this French Madonna came from Asia.

- So you have to imagine this huge trade chain

that went from India all the way to Southern France

in the Middle Ages, in the 1100s

and if you think about it, to me it's fascinating

'cause we're talking about a global trade connection

at a time where Europe and the Muslim world,

which would've been the intermediary for this type

of commerce, were at war at the time of the crusades.

- [Narrator] The spectrometer provides

a new way to explore the past.

- [Marco] The term that I use is, we're trying

to build a material history of art.

So essentially doing artistry through science.

- [Narrator] This new material history

is changing Leona's view of how artists work.

- [Marco] We're seeing that artists,

instead of being completely disconnected from this art,

supremely aware of that and exploit to their advantage

the properties of materials,

and that's really also the definition of a scientist,

someone who can take a material, knowing the properties

and bring it to some kind of use.

(inspirational music)

- [Narrator] For every mystery science reveals,

far more remain unspoken.

Secrets of the past and of the human heart

hidden in plain sight at the Metropolitan Museum.

(dramatic orchestral music)