How to Get Ahead – At Renaissance Court: Writer, broadcaster and Newsnight arts correspondent Stephen Smith explores Renaissance Florence under the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo Medici. Cosimo’s fledgling court prized the finer things in life and some of the greatest painters, sculptors and craftsmen in world history came to serve the Grand Duke. But successful courtiers had to have […]
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A Very British Renaissance episode 3: In the final episode, he explores how the tension between two cultures – one courtly, classical and European, the other home-grown, innovative and vital – helped bring the country to civil war. Art historian Dr James Fox continues his exploration of a Renaissance that he believes was as rich and as significant
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A Very British Renaissance episode 2: In this episode, he explores the Elizabethans’ love of secrecy, codes and complexity, and the cultural revolution sparked by an age of discovery and exploration. Art historian Dr James Fox continues his exploration of a Renaissance that he believes was as rich and as significant in Britain as it was in Italy
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A Very British Renaissance episode 1: Documentary series. Dr James Fox traces the story of how the arrival of a few foreign artists in the 16th century sparked a cultural revolution in Britain. We think of the Renaissance as something that happened only in Italy, or in continental Europe. Art historian Dr James Fox believes otherwise – that
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The Story of Science episode 1 – What Is Out There?: Michael Mosley explores how history has shaped science. He looks at how we came to understand that our planet was not at the center of everything in the cosmos. Michael Mosley embarks on an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately
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The Silk Road episode 1 : Dr Sam Willis reveals how the Silk Road was the world’s first global superhighway where people with new ideas, new cultures and new religions made exchanges that shaped humanity. In the first episode of his series tracing the story of the most famous trade route in history, Dr Sam Willis starts in
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Travels with Vasari: Andrew Graham-Dixon searches for the shadowy figure who wrote one of the most important books on art and looks at some dazzling works, including masterpieces of the early Renaissance by Giotto, Masaccio and Donatello. Travels with Vasari part 1 The first part of an exploration of the extraordinary achievement of the chronicler of the
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The story of the Mystic Nativity – Sandro Botticelli’s beautiful image of hope in troubled times. This masterpiece was painted 500 years ago in Florence, at the height of the city’s fame & influence. Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity is a painting that lovers of mystery fiction should like: a Renaissance masterpiece crammed with cryptic symbols disguising a dangerous message.
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Civilisation episode 4 – Man – The Measure of all Things: Kenneth Clark continues his personal reflections on civilisation with a look at Renaissance man. Clark visits Florence, where the resurrection of a classical past first gave a new impetus to European thought, and then journeys to the palaces of Urbino and Mantua, where the Renaissance manifested itself
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Renaissance Revolution episode 3 – Piero Della Francesca – Baptism of Christ: Matthew Collings concludes the series by looking at the invention of Renaissance painting. The Baptism of Christ by Italian master Piero Della Francesca showed the household names of the High Renaissance how to use the big new trick of Renaissance painting – illusionism and perspective. Without
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In Renaissance Revolution episode 2, artist and writer Matthew Collings steps into the mysterious invented world of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, painted c.1505. This imposing work, full of strange and fantastical details, contains one of the most famous images in all of art: a man with a tree for a body, who gazes out
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Piero della Francesca This episode looks at the life and work of the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca. With only 26 surviving works Piero has been seen as one of the mystery men of western art. But his calm, monumental, often enigmatic images mark an important step in the development of Renaissance art. This fascinating film reveals the
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