All language subtitles for Renaissance The Blood and the Beauty s01e02.eng

BELLS CHIME

At 26, Michelangelo is the rising
star of Renaissance Italy.

For five years,
he's been establishing himself

as a talented sculptor in Rome.

Now he's heading home.

He's desperate to prove
he's the greatest artist

Florence has ever produced.

I'd known since I was a child
that I was destined

for far greater things
than those around me.

I had challenged
the ancients themselves

and conquered Rome with my Pieta.

Michelangelo is a driven artist.

He wants to be the best
that is possible.

He is competitive. He wants to
do better than anybody else.

I was the returning hero.

Florence's favourite son.

Or so I thought.

Also returning is the superstar
artist of the day,

Leonardo da Vinci.

He's been away in Milan,
building a dazzling reputation.

Now he's back in Florence,
determined to secure his legacy.

If Michelangelo wants his name to
go down in history as the greatest,

he must first outshine Leonardo.

I wanted to make my mark,

to eclipse Leonardo...

..and carve my name
into Florentine history.

Rivalry is profoundly embedded
within the Renaissance.

There has to be somebody
that you're competing with

to make you want to up your game.

And I think that
that is one of the things

that makes Renaissance art
so powerful.

Going head-to-head,
these two very different men

will use all their creativity,
ingenuity and skill,

push each other
to extraordinary new heights

and create some of
the most brilliant art

the world has ever seen.

The Renaissance is usually
regarded as this beautiful period

where everything
is golden and shiny.

But there is another side to it.

It's endlessly bloody
and conflicted and violent,

and that's what the art responds to.

The art feeds off that.

Art is propaganda
in the Renaissance.

Images are extraordinarily powerful.

In that respect,
it's actually very modern.

This is really the age where
patrons realise the power of art.

And once you start
to mix art and money,

then it's a lethal cocktail.

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael -

they are really
the first superstar artists.

I am Michelangelo Buonarroti,

artist and an old fool.

He lived for his art,

but it was almost like
his vocation was a sentence.

I've had so many paymasters,

bankers and princes,

cardinals and popes,

but what I did was always
in the service of God

and in the pursuit of perfection.

Two things go hand-in-hand
in the Renaissance -

a ruthlessness in politics and
a true belief in the power of art.

But to really understand
the Renaissance,

you have to tell the whole story.

Florence is returning to normality
after a decade of violent upheaval.

Once the artistic centre
of the Renaissance,

the city has been torn apart

by the puritanical preacher
Girolamo Savonarola.

Under his rule, Florence has fallen
prey to religious extremism.

Art has been burned and artists
and patrons forced to flee.

It's an absolutely
extraordinary shift

from all the art and all the luxury

to this real ground zero
religious zealotry of Savonarola.

But it speaks to a certain
populism that people buy into.

But what happens is,
as you might expect,

there are still things like
famines, plagues and pestilence.

He cannot deliver
salvation on Earth.

After five long years,
the people of Florence are starving

and tired of misery under
the puritanical tyrant.

They turn on Savonarola,
hang him, burn his body,

and throw his remains
into the river.

Free from Savonarola's madness,

Florence is reborn.

A new era had dawned

and hope was restored

to our Florentine soul.

Instead of turning to a charismatic
leader or a powerful family,

the people of Florence look
to forge their own destiny

as an independent republic.

But Florence is in
a perilous position,

surrounded by warring city states
and foreign superpowers.

For the republic to survive,

Florentines must use every tool
at their disposal.

They turn to the great
political minds of their time -

men like Niccolo Machiavelli.

I think he is the first
great political scientist.

He looks at the workings of power

and tells you what you need to do
to hold on to it,

and, I tell you,

that's an extraordinary quality
to have at this moment of history.

Machiavelli creates a citizen army,

but the people need to be inspired
to fight for Florence

and the new republican government
knows just how to do that.

Florence still retains its cachet
as a centre for art

and the usual way in which
the Florentines try and rebuild,

try and develop a new regime,
they turn to art.

The republican government wants to
fill the city with rousing images

and this creates an opportunity
for its two most ambitious artists,

Michelangelo and Leonardo.

It is one of the most amazing
moments in the history

of the Renaissance because
their need to create civic art

to bolster the republic coincides
with them having the services

of the two greatest artists
that are alive at that moment.

It must have been the equivalent
of having your own army,

but you have your own army
in terms of art.

Both artists want to contribute
to the new regime,

so this is an incredible stage.

They have a sense of the historical
moment that they are living

and, of course,
both being ambitious,

they both want to be
interpreters of this moment

and possibly the key interpreter
of this moment in Florence.

This must have fuelled
the competition between them

and this really pushed them to show
everything that they are capable of.

It was my chance to return and
to create great things for my city.

I wanted to make my mark.

The first major commission
is to be a public sculpture...

..showing off Florence's strength
in the face of its larger,

more aggressive neighbours.

The new republican regime

work out that what's required here
is a David.

David is a young man with no power
who takes on a giant.

It could not be a greater metaphor

for a small, little city state
punching above its weight

in a huge country, where there is
violence and horror all around.

For 40 years,

the city has had an enormous block
of Carrara marble sitting idle.

It is legendary in Florence.

It towers over 17 feet tall
and is dangerously brittle.

No-one has dared to sculpt it.

Now, one artist has the chance
to take it on

and make his name.

This giant block of marble,
this "gigante", as it's called,

this block of marble, in fact,
had been around for quite some time.

Many artists were vying
for this particular commission

because it is quite
a prestigious one

and many, of course,
submit proposals for it.

Whoever takes this on,
it's the most monumental thing

that they'll take on
in their entire career.

It's going to define them

or it could lead to them
being completely ruined.

I mean, it's that big a task.
It's all or nothing.

Take it on, succeed,
Florence is yours.

Fail, you're out.

There were other contenders,
of course,

and a few excellent artisans
who'd attempted to scale

this mountain of marble.

Nobody had the courage to put
their hands to the block,

nor the experience,

nor the engineering know-how
to do something worthy.

I had the courage...

..and I wanted it.

So they chose me.

Of course.

Michelangelo has a reputation
for being a difficult person.

Ambitious as hell and willing to
take on any project in the world

in order to prove
that he's the best.

Michelangelo was very aware
of Florence's need

to reassert and reassure itself

of its strength, its beauty,

its right to a future.

This is the most cultured city
in Europe.

This is the city in which sculpture
is shared with every citizen.

Michelangelo is a young man
proving himself not just to himself

but to the powers that be
in Florence.

But Leonardo is not to be outdone.

He takes the unprecedented step

of opening his workshop
to the public.

He knows he can't beat
Michelangelo's David for scale.

Instead, he wants to showcase
his intellectual

and technical brilliance
by inviting people to examine

his studies and sketches
in meticulous detail.

There are a lot of great artists
during the Renaissance,

but nobody quite gets to the orbit
of Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo wove together art
and engineering and science

and everything else.

He was always trying different
things, to experiment,

and that's the way he tries to
integrate his science into his art.

He was the essence
of the Renaissance man.

He was probably
the person in history

who knew the most
you could possibly know

about everything
that was then knowable.

Renaissance art manifests

the incredible ambition
of human beings

to know and command nature,

to penetrate its mysteries

and to look for a degree of beauty

and harmony and understanding.

For Leonardo,
he is pushing the boundaries

of what art can represent.

Centre stage
in Leonardo's open house

is a spectacular and ground-breaking
preparatory drawing,

known as a cartoon,

of the Virgin, Jesus, St Anne
and John the Baptist.

Having worked at the National
Gallery for over 18 years,

I have had the privilege
to be in that room

and it is an extraordinary
experience every time.

Leonardo is using this technique
that he's now become synonymous with

called "sfumato",
and this translates to smoke.

In other words,
the actual transition

between light and dark
is almost imperceptible.

It's as though these people

are coming out of the mist
towards you.

It is an extraordinary work
to look at.

It seems vital. It seems alive.

Leonardo plays with quite
a traditional iconography

and transforms it into
a study of human emotions,

human interactions and a study
of the dynamism of the figures.

People flock there
to see this composition.

Despite himself,

even Michelangelo can't stay away.

Leonardo and Michelangelo

are polar opposites.

Leonardo is gregarious.

He has a posse around him,
he likes to perform in public.

Michelangelo is a bit of a recluse.

Leonardo loves painting.

Michelangelo prefers sculpture.

And Leonardo starts making fun
of Michelangelo's sculptures.

There I was,

listening to the great Leonardo...

..playing host to his admirers.

SUPPRESSED LAUGH

What does he announce?

"The gifted painter
will produce few works,

"but they will be of a kind
to make men stop

"and contemplate their perfection
with admiration.

"Sculpture? Oh, a manual exercise,

"often accompanied
by profuse sweating.

"His face is plastered and powdered
with the dust of his marble

"so he has the appearance
of a baker."

Only one person in the room
can be the best of the best

and what Leonardo does,
he uses this opportunity

to get one over on Michelangelo.

When Leonardo denigrates sculpture,
Michelangelo is furious.

I think, in 1501, it definitely
feels like he's the underdog.

And now I had the chance
to prove him wrong with my David.

I would silence all those who
doubted the pre-eminence of my art.

In carving the David, Michelangelo
is absolutely making the statement

that sculpture is the equal to
painting and maybe the superior.

And so Michelangelo
is identifying with David.

David, who was able to
slay Goliath, conquer all.

Michelangelo
is conquering all of art,

maybe even conquering Leonardo and
showing that he's the best of all.

I know as an artist myself,
you're always striving

to do things that maybe
people think you can't do.

The way that he looked at a piece
of marble, he could already see

something in it.

A figure,
what he was going to create -

he could already picture that.

All sculptors of that age drill
in from the outside of the block

to a series of points
that have been predetermined

on a model.

The amazing thing about how
Michelangelo evolved as a sculptor

is that he rejected that entirely.

He recognised that
you start with, as it were,

a given block of material,

and you reduce it to find the form
that is hidden in the block.

This idea of direct carving,

that came completely
from Michelangelo.

He wants that challenge of...

..I suppose, revelation.

In the David, Michelangelo is
working entirely by himself.

It's hard work. If you've never
tried carving marble,

first of all, this hammer
weighs more than five pounds.

This man must have been
unbelievably strong.

And he knows exactly how to
hit the chisels precisely.

It's a terrifying thing to take on.

You make one mistake when you
attack that block and it's done.

I mean, every chisel,
you're thinking, do you screw it up?

And if you do, it's over.
It's terrifying.

I mean, how do you sleep?
How do you carry on that work?

It's breathtakingly brave and
dangerous. It's a real tightrope.

Michelangelo
starts work on his David

early in the morning
of September the 13th, 1501.

He toils for almost
two and a half years

before finally unveiling
his 8.5-tonne masterpiece.

David is so impressive.

It's so realistic.

To have been able to do that out
of a lump of rock is incredible.

The moment that Michelangelo
chose to depict

is not the victorious moment,

where David can stand on top
of Goliath and he's won.

It's the moment just before.

It's the moment where he's not sure
if he's going to win the fight,

where he's scared, and you can
see the tension in his body,

you can see the fact that
he's just starting to twist

and the muscles are bunching up.

David totally changes
the conception of sculpture.

He shows that he is able to make

inert matter live,

and asking it to carry
feeling and thought.

When David was revealed, you know,
people couldn't believe it.

It's not just
this placid, blank face,

there is thought going on.

And to be able to sculpt thought...

..that's incredible.

To be able to sculpt thought
onto someone's face...

HE CHUCKLES

Come on, it's crazy.

So, in a sense,
it's exceeded its commission.

But there's a classic piece
of republican bureaucracy

around the David piece,
because there is a committee

which is set up, and they meet
to discuss both the piece

and where it should be sited,

and Leonardo da Vinci
sits on that committee.

I wanted it placed outside
so it could be seen in close up

and in the round by everybody.

A proud symbol of the city

in defiance of the tyrants
that surrounded it.

But not everybody agreed.

Leonardo senses an opportunity

to keep Michelangelo's sculpture
hidden in the shadows.

He declares that David's nudity
is an offence

to the good people of Florence...

..and sets about persuading
fellow members of the committee

that it's a corrupting influence.

David caused a bit of a scandal

and can still cause scandal
to this very day

because he's very lifelike.

He looks like a very realistic
depiction of a naked man.

David doesn't have to have his
clothes off to fight Goliath,

but he does here.

It's this huge exploration
of male beauty.

Why did David's amazing body
disgust people?

Maybe because they were jealous
and they didn't look like that.

I don't know.

I think nudity is so controversial

because we are still
not comfortable with it.

We think of being naked
as vulnerable

rather than being, you know,
empowered and beautiful.

All that taboo...

..is in your face,
whether you like it or not.

And it's almost like
he shouldn't have been doing that.

The committee votes
using the ancient tradition

of placing beans in jars
to indicate their preference.

Leonardo's attempt to keep David
hidden is narrowly rejected.

Instead, Michelangelo's sculpture
will proudly stand

right outside the seat of government
in Florence's main square.

You can see Leonardo
sneakily voting against

the more public location
of the piece.

He loses out, Michelangelo wins,

but Leonardo does have the last
laugh because one of the issues

is that because of the nakedness,
should the genitals be covered up?

And that's what Leonardo encourages.

And then, led by Leonardo,
utter nonsense followed.

They hammered nails into my David

and attached a copper fig leaf

to conceal what they considered
was his indecency.

Shame on them.

It stayed there for hundreds
of years, until the 19th century,

when we finally took him inside
and took his fig leaf away.

Well, at least at last I'd made
something important for my city.

And even if they
didn't understand it...

SCORNFUL LAUGH
..they all were talking about it.

That solidified him as a master
and made him famous at that time.

That's when he first
became an art star.

David is a symbol
of Florentine strength

and intellectual superiority.

It's such a powerful
political message,

the republican government
wants more.

What better way than to exploit
the intensifying rivalry

between their two leading artists?

What they decide to do
is deliberately commission

Michelangelo and Leonardo
to produce frescoes

in the Grand Council Chamber.

This is the first time that they're
in the same place at the same time

doing works of art.

They're both given substantial
spaces to create paintings

of two key battles
in Florentine history.

Leonardo is given the task of
depicting the Battle of Anghiari.

Michelangelo is then given the task

of depicting another battle
called the Battle of Cascina.

It's a battle of battles
to mythologise Florentine history

and to see what they come up with.

Michelangelo wants to
take on Leonardo

in his own field of expertise -
in making a painting.

This is the very, very competitive
Michelangelo coming to the fore.

It is a remarkable moment
that, just by chance,

you have a Florentine republic

with the two great artists,
Leonardo and Michelangelo.

It's almost like a boxing match.

Now I had the chance to best
Leonardo in front of his eyes.

I knew what I was up against.

Michelangelo and Leonardo
unleashed their creativity,

spurred on by a major
technological advance.

For the first time in history,

artists have access to
an almost endless supply

of that most precious possession...

..paper.

The rise of the printing press
changes absolutely everything.

Paper is suddenly being made
in huge quantities.

It's becoming
more and more available.

What that means is that the artists
can do preparatory drawings.

You don't just say,

"Well, I only have this one
tiny ration piece of paper."

It's the brilliance of what artists
start to do at this point.

You can be more experimental.

The body can evolve, I can change
the direction of the head,

I can change the curve of the neck.

It's pushing the limits
of what you can do.

With no constraints on
their experimental ideas,

Michelangelo and Leonardo
devised very personal

and radically different
compositions.

Leonardo is a painter at heart,

always adding, building up,
experimenting and...

His was to be a teeming mass
of soldiers and horses.

Leonardo chooses to depict a huge
scrummage of men on horseback,

lances going everywhere

and people caught in the middle of
an actual pitched battle itself.

One of the defining things
about Leonardo's life

is he just wants to understand
everything possible about nature.

And you can just see
all the emotions,

both on the faces of the warriors
and the horses

in this climactic moment of battle.

And then Michelangelo realises,
"I'm going to take him on,

"but I'm going to take him on
on my own grounds,

"and my own grounds is the grounds
of the human figure."

Sculptors see what painters do not -

how to portray the true beauty
of the human form.

His battle picture is not
a battle picture at all.

It's a bunch of nudes
coming out of the river

and getting dressed because
they're about to go into battle.

This is a work in which
we see Michelangelo

relying entirely on
the naked human body

and showing all the variety of
things that he can do with it.

Michelangelo is being
very, very smart.

He uses this opportunity, still, to
prove the superiority of sculpture

and to show his own ability to use
sculpture to influence painting.

And we would see which way
would achieve the best results.

With Michelangelo and Leonardo
fixated on fighting each other,

neither notices the arrival
of a new disruptive threat

to their reputations.

In the early 1500s,

Florence is an extremely
exciting place.

These artists are reinventing art,

pushing it further,
getting better at it.

There is no way that Raphael
is going to miss that.

21-year-old Raphael Santi
is a boy wonder.

He's already built a reputation
as a brilliant, gifted artist

in his home town of Urbino,
and now he arrives in Florence,

determined to prove himself
against the very best.

He knows how to behave.

He is lovely, he is charming,
he is handsome.

But he is also driven.

He makes his name
very, very quickly.

Raphael wastes no time.

He charms Leonardo, who is
captivated by the young artist.

Leonardo introduces him
to several prominent patrons,

but it's a strategic mistake.

Raphael wins work

from the benefactors Leonardo
and Michelangelo depend on.

Now both must compete not just with
each other, but with Raphael, too.

Ah, Raphael.

Talented youth?

I have my doubts.

Michelangelo sees him
as an immediate rival.

Raphael is a prodigy.

He's able to absorb styles

and reproduce them
in his own inimitable fashion.

Raphael spends weeks studying
Michelangelo and Leonardo's sketches

for their battle paintings,

learning all he can
from the two masters.

He was sneaking my ideas
and then roughing up the edges

and making them look like his own.

Michelangelo would have us think
that Raphael is an arch plagiarist

and doesn't know anything

and only copies
other people's works.

But if you want to be an artist,
you go and try to copy the works

of those who came before you.

Don't ever put the name Raphael
together with the word copyist.

Raphael analyses the art
that he sees,

he figures out what he can use
to maybe go the next step.

From Leonardo, Raphael
takes "moti dell'anima",

the motions or the movements
of the spirit,

and those movements will impact
on the way you look,

on the gestures you make,
on your facial expressions,

and that's what makes the figure
look truly breathing and alive.

He saw Michelangelo's great ability

to construct the human body
in a heroic way.

He's thinking of that capability
that Michelangelo has

to show you the rippling muscles
underneath the surface.

There is always
a competitive spirit at work.

Raphael says,
"I'm going to do better

"than Michelangelo and Leonardo."

That's who he's trying to outdo.

The three of us, there in Florence.

A young man, the old...

..and me.

Leonardo realises that
by introducing Raphael

to Florence's wealthy elite,
he has undermined his own position.

It's now more important than ever
that his battle scene is a triumph,

to maintain his reputation,

so he takes a risk
and tries a daring new technique.

He wants to make colour
more brilliant and dazzling

than has ever been seen before.

Rather than painting on wet plaster
in the fresco method,

he paints oils directly
onto the wall surface.

Leonardo is constantly looking
for a better way to do things,

constantly experimenting.

To achieve these complex results,
he feels that he has to explore

different ways of
painting on the wall.

Leonardo has a passion
for innovation,

he has a passion
for experimentation.

He wants to do it better.

And, of course, there are reasons
why people have been doing things

in the same way, sometimes,
when it comes to art,

and so you mess with those
at your peril.

Leonardo was experimenting again...

..and, as always, too much.

Leonardo failed.

Leonardo's secret blend of
oil and pigment fails to dry.

The paint smears
and his work is ruined.

With his technical skill failing
him, his confidence evaporates.

Leonardo packs up his studio
and flees Florence, humiliated.

I cannot imagine what must have been
the kind of sense of frustration

and disappointment for him
at this moment.

He's come back to his hometown in
order to be a great artistic hero

and he's failed.

His new technique hasn't worked.

There must have been a sense in
which he knew that he'd blown it.

Michelangelo is left
as the leading artist.

But without his old rival,
the fire in his belly dissipates.

The whole scheme fell apart,

as did his painting.

I finished my cartoon,
which was of such consummate art

that it was admired by everyone
who saw it, but...

..the battle was over.

With Leonardo gone, Michelangelo
loses his main competition.

Rather than embrace a new rivalry
with an upstart like Raphael,

he looks elsewhere for the struggle
he needs to spur him on.

I think something extraordinary
happens to Michelangelo.

He decides that he's in rivalry
with artists

that just go back way into the past.

The burden doesn't come
any heavier than that

but I think, at this moment of time,
he thinks he's up for it.

Michelangelo wants to prove
he can go further

than any artist has before,

but it becomes clear
he can't do this in Florence.

After six years,
the republican experiment

is a catastrophic failure.

The city's trade and banking have
been taken over by rival states.

There is no money

and opportunities for artists
are becoming vanishingly rare.

That moment of the republic,

there's a certain romance about it
and the brief flowering of works -

the David,
the battle of the battles,

but I think it's always a mirage,
it can't sustain itself...

..and the tiny Florentine republic,

it's just shrunk down
to almost nothing.

Michelangelo realises that
he's got to look elsewhere,

to bigger and wealthier patrons.

It's just not going to work
any more in Florence.

Luckily for Michelangelo,

as Florence declines, the fortunes
of Rome are on the rise.

BELL CHIMES

Around the turn of the century,
the papacy is resurgent,

and central to this
is the rise of Pope Julius II.

Julius is on a mission
to make the papacy

the most powerful force
in the known world.

He wants to capitalise
on his position

as the spiritual leader
of Christianity

and also shore up his secular power
as ruler of the Papal States -

a vast territory stretching
across the Italian peninsula.

For centuries,
rivals have been encroaching

on the Pope's lands,
undermining his influence.

Julius is determined to get it back.

Julius wants to do nothing less
than make the papacy stronger

than it ever has been.

He's determined, he's resolute
and his ambition is sweeping.

Pope Julius II is a warrior pope.

He takes the name Julius
from Julius Caesar.

Now, that's quite significant
because he's very much seeing

himself as a campaigning
military ruler.

Julius II is a bit of a thug,
really.

When people talk about him,
they say, "Tread carefully."

The man is irascibility incarnate

and you don't want to get
on the wrong side of him.

Julius does not just want to
assert himself on the battlefield.

He has also learnt from Florence
the power of images

and intends to use them
as part of his arsenal.

Julius loves art and,
when he becomes pope,

he's deeply aware
of the power of art

to convey messages
as a means of propaganda.

The architecture of Rome,
the art of Rome

is an opportunity to reflect the
power and authority of his papacy.

The Pope called me to Rome.

I was to sculpt his funerary tomb.

My task was to carve
another mountain of marble

into the most glorious monument,

the like of which
had never been seen.

And with the gifts that
God himself had granted me,

there was no-one else
who could take on such a task.

This was an offer
I could not refuse.

Julius II envisions a tomb for
himself that not only will rival

the tombs and mausoleums
of the past,

but that will surpass every one

and become a wonder of the world.

He devotes something like
10,000 ducats for this project,

and this is a tremendous
amount of money.

My idea was truly monumental,

and Julius is greatly pleased
with these plans.

Nothing on this scale had been
built before...since Roman times,

and maybe 1,000 years.

It was unbelievably large.

It was at least three storeys,

with some 40 life-size
marble figures.

I would build a Christian monument

to rival the ancient wonders
of the world.

It was also a chance for me to
outshine every artist in Rome.

I would write my name into history.

Michelangelo spends almost a year
just sourcing marble

and preparing the design
for the eventual tomb.

And he literally quarries a mountain
of marble and moves it to Rome.

And Michelangelo, of course, is
immediately excited, and he starts

sculpting right away.

But, suddenly, he now needs money

to pay the transport
for all this marble,

he has to pay the marble quarrying,

he has to get paid himself.

But he keeps going to the Pope

and asking for payment

and the Pope keeps putting him off
and putting him off

because, at this point,
the Pope has gone to war.

Determined to reclaim lands
previous popes have lost,

Julius aggressively expands
his campaigns.

He triggers a peninsula-wide war

and is forced to channel
more and more money away from art

and into military conquest.

When I tried to appeal to the Pope,
I realised I'd been sold a lie.

Rome was not a place of devotion
and art in the service

of the glory of God.

It was an ignorant,
backstabbing wilderness of tigers.

When I looked at Rome, I knew
I had to accept a harsh truth

that every road to virtue here
was closed.

Indignant at his treatment,

Michelangelo takes decisive
and reckless action.

I'd never been treated with
such disrespect.

I told him if he wanted me,
he must look for me elsewhere.

So I took my horse and I rode away
from him and from Rome.

Michelangelo was really
declaring himself to be not just

some craftsman for hire, that he is
someone who deserves the respect

of an equal and, up to that moment,

he felt that he had a kind of
mutual respect with the Pope

that was all of a sudden shattered.

This is a huge risk
for Michelangelo.

People talk of quaking at being
in the very presence of Julius II.

Julius must have been
absolutely outraged.

This man is in his employ.

This man is his servant.

So he sends out horsemen
to just bring him back.

But my talent was also a curse.

The Pope sent his lackeys after me.

I'd been treated like a slave.

Now I was being hunted
like a rogue for my defiance.

Michelangelo was probably riding
the fastest he's ever ridden

in his life in order
to get across the border

into Florentine territory.

And the soldiers catch up to him,
and he says,

"I'm sorry, I'm under the
jurisdiction now of the Florentines,

"and you have
no jurisdiction over me."

I should have been afraid...

HE CHUCKLES

..but I wasn't.

I told them if they tried anything,
I'd have them murdered.

They begged me to return.

I refused.

Julius brings in
an even bigger show of power.

He goes to the government
of Florence and tells them

to stop harbouring Michelangelo,
like he's a fugitive.

Julius threatens to raise an army.

Everything now hangs
in the balance for Michelangelo.

The Pope could have him
executed for his defiance.

He could even declare war
on Florence.

I could not go on.

I realised my friends in Florence

could only protect me for so long.

I went into a deep melancholy,

thought of all I could lose.

Hmph!

I had no choice.

I was forced to go

with a rope around my neck

to beg his pardon.

As Michelangelo waits anxiously
for the Pope's judgment,

a wily bishop tries to
curry favour with Julius

by belittling the artist,

calling him an ignorant workman.

To the pontiff's credit,

he wouldn't stand for
that kind of insult against me.

Only the Pope could command me.

Not his cardinal,
nor his soldiers, nor anyone.

That meant something.

It showed how greatly he valued me.

This is really a pivotal moment

in the relationship between
an artist and a patron.

The Pope is, in a way,
in front of all of his entourage,

showing there was a mutual respect
between these two individuals.

This is just utterly unprecedented.

It's the result of hundreds
of years, really, of the rivalry

between artists,
and also artists and patrons,

that's been going on in Italy,
where, increasingly, the artist gets

more and more authority, more and
more leeway to do what they want.

The patron suddenly realises
they can push this person,

take their money away,
maybe even kill them,

but they do need them.

Art is a way in which you
represent what's happening

and how politics
is being played out.

Is it propaganda?

To some extent, yes.

They need the art.

Art is central to how messages
are disseminated.

With the Pope's forgiveness,

Michelangelo hopes he can resume
work on the tomb,

but Julius has other ideas.

The Pope instead has thought maybe
a mausoleum is not such a good idea.

It is frivolous,
unnecessary, expensive.

So rather than build
a mausoleum to myself,

I am going to build
a church for God.

With his wars going badly, Julius
needs to reaffirm his position

as God's representative on Earth.

He sets about rebuilding Rome

as the religious centre
of Christianity.

Michelangelo is given
an extraordinary task,

one that will push him
to the limits of his ability

and his sanity.

The artist is to repaint the ceiling

of the most important
church in Rome,

the Sistine Chapel.

This is the site of papal election.

This is the site of the most
prominent papal masses.

This is the most important venue
for the Pope in Rome.

The ceiling was already painted
in the traditional manner

that many chapels are -
painted as a sky with stars.

But Pope Julius imagines that maybe
it lacks the kind of appropriate

decoration for the centre
of Christendom.

It's therefore of huge importance
for Julius II.

He recognises Michelangelo's
ability and genius,

and trusts that he's going to be
able to execute something huge.

But Michelangelo, in his mind,
is just absolutely distraught.

He says, "Painting is not my art."

The Sistine ceiling
is approximately 600 square metres.

So that's, roughly speaking,
three tennis courts worth of paint.

For anyone who has ever
had to paint a ceiling,

that is just a tremendous amount
of physical labour.

But Michelangelo
takes this opportunity.

He's up for the challenge.

This was his chance to prove
that he was better than anyone else.

By attempting this and succeeding,

he would effectively prove
that he was far superior

to any other artist.

We know from Michelangelo's poetry
that struggle is something

that drives him, whether he's
struggling with his spiritual side

or whether he's
struggling in his art.

Michelangelo was always trying
to push himself beyond

what others expected of him.

I think everything he did was,
like, beyond brave.

Michelangelo was striving
to somehow perfect perfection.

There's a level of masochism
in Michelangelo.

He lived for his art.

I think Michelangelo
thought of himself

as a continuation of God's work.

Part of his greatness is
that he wasn't sure

that he was fulfilling that command,

that internal need,
that internal drive.

HE SIGHS

To fail would have been the end.

But I was no painter.

Yet here was a chance for my work

to adorn the inner sanctum

of God's house.

Even though he's not a painter,
once he starts drawing,

he knows how to draw.

But very quickly,

this is an artist whose projects,
once they begin,

tend to grow and aggrandise,

and Michelangelo begins to think

on a much larger
and more ambitious scale.

Michelangelo's initially asked
to paint the 12 Apostles.

He, however, approaches the Pope

and says, "Perhaps we could do
something more grand."

It really becomes about
the origin of the world

down to the Pope himself.

He has the ambition now
to not make just 12 Apostles,

but how about hundreds of figures?

It's totally insane,

and he does raise the stakes
for himself.

He makes life ever more difficult.

In 1509,
while Michelangelo labours away

on the punishing task
of the Sistine ceiling,

Julius invites a host
of additional artists to Rome

to work on his vision
for rebuilding the city.

Every one of them is a threat
to Michelangelo's status

as the Pope's favourite.

Among them,
the young pretender, Raphael.

Raphael wangled himself
a smaller commission

painting the walls of
the Pope's apartments.

Raphael, originally, would
have been one among the many.

There was so much competition.

He seemed to thrive on that.

He singles himself out.

He puts himself forward

as the leading artist in this group,

and essentially takes over
the commission and ends up painting

the room as the leading artist.

Raphael makes a play to
become the Pope's favourite

by painting a fresco
in his most prized state room,

La Stanza della Segnatura.

This is where Julius holds
his most important meetings

with foreign dignitaries.

In the Disputation,

you have the absolute fundamental
basis of Christianity,

is shown in this
strong, amazing way.

We have the celestial zone
at the top,

and the earthly zone at the bottom.

And this is very important
for a pope like Julius II,

because it is about the authority
that comes from on high

to the earthly sphere.

He is, of course,
God's representative on Earth.

Raphael was a brilliant colourist.

His art seduces the viewer.

And one of the things that makes
the Disputation come alive

is the idea of including
recognisable figures.

Raphael paints Julius
into the Disputation,

emphasising this warrior pope's
devotion and faith.

Raphael is always eager to think
about great ways of making

those thoughts, desires
of his patrons come alive.

For the young Raphael, he obviously
wants to please the Pope.

Of course, as an artist,

he also wants to demonstrate
his own abilities in painting.

This is his big come-out piece.

He's only just arrived in Rome.

What's taking place in the Vatican
during those years

is two very profound elements
needed for great art.

You need the great artists,

who have been trained
within an inch of their life,

who really wanted to get better,

and be better than the other person
they were painting with.

And then you need the great patrons,

men who have vision, possibly even
for quite megalomaniac reasons,

to do something
that hasn't been done before.

That is a pressure cooker

of great work being produced
at this moment.

The applause for Raphael's
flattery irked me.

He is talented, all right,

but only I could see through
his shallow charm.

No doubt he would produce
something graceful.

It would be no match
for my plans, though.

The presence of Raphael in
the near proximity to Michelangelo

absolutely affects how Michelangelo
thinks about his work.

He believes that Raphael
is going to steal his legacy

and steal his ideas.

Michelangelo realises
that he needs to do his bit.

He absolutely needs to be better.

You have two of
the greatest artists,

one already absolutely renowned

and another one
earning his spurs so fast,

and it obviously must have created
an atmosphere of creative intensity.

Everybody knows Michelangelo
as a sculptor,

but not a fresco painter.

He has almost no training
in fresco whatsoever.

He knows that this is the moment
he has to do something in order

to prove himself, to create
the greatest fresco of all time.

And so the potential for him
to fail is very, very high.

I thought I was
creating a masterpiece.

Perhaps that chapel
was going to be my ruin.

A critical mistake on the Sistine
ceiling leaves Michelangelo

facing utter disaster.

He finds himself caught
in the chaos of the Reformation,

witnessing death and destruction

that leaves him questioning
everything he once believed.

What will my legacy be?

What will I bequeath to the world?

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