Empires: Medici - Godfathers of the Renaissance (2004) s01e04 Episode Script

By the 1530s the Medici family had dominated Florence for a century.
But now the city was in chaos.
The family and Florence needed new leadership.
A prince who would redeem the Medici name and defend the Renaissance itself.
Dangerous enemies were gaining strength.
The enemies of new ideas.
And no one was more radical than their friend and teacher, the greatest scientist in the world, that would declare that the earth travelled around the sun.
His name was Galileo Galilei.
And he would come face to face with the most terrifying weapon of the age l'Inquisizione, the Roman Inquisition.
And the Medici would be forced to choose between allegiance to the Church and loyalty to the values of the Renaissance.
THE MEDICI, GOSFATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE POWER VS TRUTH Florence, 1537.
The Duke of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici, was the illegitimate son of a Medici pope.
Enemies of the Medici saw a chance to cleanse Florence of the family once and for all.
But allies of the Medici were desperate for a saviour no matter how humble or how distant.
Cosimo de' Medici was only 17.
A fourth cousin to the murdered duke.
And he received his summons to Florence.
He was not from the main bloodline of the Medici.
His education was not the typical humanistic education of a prince.
So he lacked a lot of those characteristics which, in the eyes of the contemporaries, would make him someone weak enough to be manipulated.
After years of chaos, the city of Florence was in decline.
Its streets were deserted.
Generations of Medici treasures had been destroyed by violent revolution.
Michelangelo, close to the Medici, had fled the city, leaving behind the broken statue of David.
Young Cosimo bore the name of a now-hated dynasty.
But the city was on the brink of anarchy and needed someone to fill the dangerous role of the figurehead of Florence.
And for now, Cosimo the teenager would have to do.
Most of the people who counted in Florence at the time were fairly aware that the choice of a man raised in the country was a way to have a ruler that they could, you know, control fairly easily.
Within 48 hours, Cosimo was elected the new Duke of Florence.
Cosimo the First was an upstart.
He had not been born to a noble family at all.
He was from a minor branch of the Medici who got lucky in terms of political alliances and suddenly found himself sitting on the throne of this new duchy.
And he was always very insecure because he knew that the rest of the European royalty looked at him as some kind of, uh you know, "Who cares about this fellow? Who is he, anyway? " Alone and isolated, he was haunted by his sense of illegitimacy.
With the constant threat of assassination, it seemed just a matter of time before his enemies caught up with Cosimo.
But one man believed Cosimo had potential.
As a child, this man had rescued the broken arm of David and for years he had kept the pieces safely hidden.
He had studied under the great Michelangelo himself.
This man's name was Giorgio Vasari.
Vasari had waited patiently through the chaos to repair his master's sculpture.
All he needed was a patron.
And Vasari knew that Cosimo's survival depended on good publicity.
He strikes this alliance with Vasari, who invents the culture of a dynasty that wanted to present itself as coming from the Greek gods.
But clearly, you know, they were selling cloth until 20 years before.
So they really started almost from scratch.
The Medici always had patronised the arts, but with Cosimo I, the arts really become part of political PR.
Cosimo began to fight a battle for survival on two fronts.
Behind the walls of his palace, he pursued a rigorous training regime.
And, under Cosimo's personal instruction, Florence's neglected Renaissance found new life.
But the young duke's growing confidence was beginning to cause concern.
Some openly worried where it might lead.
"They had mounted a young man on a splendid horse, "then told him he must not ride beyond certain boundaries.
"Now, tell me, who is going to restrain him when he wants to ride beyond them? "You can't impose laws on a man who is your master".
By 1543, repairs to David, authorised by Cosimo, were complete.
This great symbol of civic independence had risen from the ashes but only on the orders of a Medici prince.
Not for the first time, Michelangelo's art had been co-opted in the pursuit of power.
Michelangelo was the greatest artist of the age and his art was often used by others for political gain.
At the pope's command, over the altar of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo had created the finest fresco of his career.
The Last Judgment.
But his masterpiece was greeted with shock.
Michelangelo had filled his fresco with nudes.
Church conservatives were appalled.
Still reeling from Martin Luther's attack on their authority, they now cracked down on artistic freedom and Michelangelo's fresco was declared indecent.
"It was a most dishonest act to have painted so many naked figures, "revealing their shameful parts.
"It is not a work for a papal chapel, "but for a bathhouse or a brothel".
The Church demanded "corrections", hiring a new artist to add modesty to Michelangelo's masterpiece.
The artist was nicknamed 'Braghettone' "large underpants man".
Michelangelo was not impressed.
"Let His Holiness attend to the reform of the world.
"Reforming a painting is too easily done".
Meanwhile, Medici enemies all over Tuscany were plotting to bring down the arrogant young duke because Cosimo was developing regal aspirations.
But he outwitted his foes by courting a Spanish princess.
A woman who shared his ambitious nature.
A friend of the rich young lady observed "She always wanted to win and she always played for high stakes".
Bella, Eleonora, eh? She is beautiful.
She was the daughter of Pedro di Toledo, Spanish viceroy of Naples, and, definitely, her rank was superior to Cosimo's rank.
Their wedding was, for Cosimo, a guarantee of the Spanish protection and approval of his regime.
His bride brought Cosimo a handsome dowry and, more importantly, an army.
Cosimo I was a warrior and a politician.
And, like all members of the family, he was primarily ambitious to build up the reputation of the family and the wealth of the state.
And he would do anything necessary for that.
He's different from the earlier Medici because he realises that power has to come from military strength.
One of the great things he does is he builds up a navy for the first time in Florence's history.
He gets the point that the Medici cannot keep in power without a military force.
And it's Cosimo who works it out.
Cosimo planned to spread his duchy from the coastline to the hills.
And he went for a knockout punch.
In one decisive battle, the Republic of Siena fell.
The rest of Tuscany followed, in capitulation to the Medici.
Cosimo wasn't slow to publicise his success.
Across the walls of the old government building, he ordered monumental frescoes from Vasari.
Vasari was a sculptor, Vasari was a painter, Vasari was an architect.
But more than all of these three arts combined, he supervised everything that was produced in the arts in function of the Medici ideology.
Vasari was coordinating, more than just producing art, at the time.
It is probably one of the first times in Western history in which we have a systematic form of propaganda, of a regime that is in need of legitimising itself and producing a state ideology that is not existent.
Cosimo carefully crafted his image, shaping and editing Vasari's creations.
"The group of counsellors which you have placed around me "is not in the least necessary, as I acted entirely alone.
"You can fill up their places with figures representing silence and other virtues".
Vasari painted on an unprecedented scale.
He supervised an army of workers, filling the walls of the medieval palace with tales of courage and achievement.
Soon, even the ceilings were bursting with heroic display.
And Cosimo made sure that every generation of his family were given their place, turning the headquarters of the old republic into a temple to the Medici dynasty.
It was fit for a king, if not for the new duchess, Eleonora.
When she arrived in Florence, she was quite disappointed because Naples was the largest city of Europe, with roughly 300, 000 inhabitants.
Florence, compared to that, had probably less than 60,000 inhabitants, had been a republic, and she found, for instance, her side of the Palazzo Vecchio as being way too modest for her dignity.
Contradicting all the traditions of the time, she purchased, with her private money, Palazzo Pitti, claiming that she could not raise her children of royal blood in such a humble residence.
Eleonora had bought a fortress for her family.
It was a shrewd move because the couple's regal ambitions had fuelled the envy of their rivals.
Now, those rivals wanted the Medici family dead.
A network of secret police kept the suspicious duke well informed.
Cosimo was always capable of dealing with this risk in a prudent and clever way.
We know that he was paying roughly 300 bodyguards regularly so that is a good way to, you know, cope with that.
Such security measures impressed Cosimo's guests.
"When he goes through the city, his wife and children accompany him, "but with a guard of Germans, "a light cavalry and at least a hundred musketeers".
The Duke's enemies were not easily deterred.
Cosimo was ruthless in revenge.
He had to protect the family, to whom he was deeply devoted.
"Since he became prince, "there is no hint that he has had anything to do with anyone "but the duchess, his wife.
"He lives as an outstanding family man, "eating always with his wife and children at a moderately plain table".
Now, Cosimo went everywhere with knives down his boots and body armour underneath his clothes.
And his safe passage through the city was secured by building an enclosed, private corridor above the streets.
But Cosimo had a problem.
He was master of a complex administration, managed by myriad offices scattered throughout the city.
For a cautious man like Cosimo, this was far too risky.
"He remembers everyone by name, "and ifhe sees a stranger, "he wants to know who he is and what he does.
"For although he has memoranda concerning income, expenses, troops, "he remembers it all".
It was Cosimo's realisation that you couldn't run the government without a permanent bureaucracy.
And if he was going to organise the government in this systematic way, then they had to have a location.
Such a location had to be safe and, naturally, it had to be grand.
The new buildings were constructed along two sides of a street, with a corridor linking the two wings.
They were known only by the Italian word for 'offices' uffizi.
The original purpose of that palace was to house the government administration of Florence, which was getting bigger at that point.
The Medici realised that if they wanted to run a large, modern state, they needed a systematic and organised civil service government agencies.
From this well-protected base, Cosimo secured his own pre-eminence in Tuscany.
Once again, Vasari covered the ceilings with jubilant frescoes.
Vasari's main trait was that he was a great impresario.
He was a decent painter but, you know, he wasn't great.
But he was a great manager.
He lines up the painters, the sculptors, the architects and the masons.
Finally, Cosimo felt secure.
"I am a ruler who accepts the authority of no one apart from God".
And with Vasari's help, Cosimo funded a new school of art and design so that ambitious young artists would come to study in Florence.
But there was one man who would never grace the school with his presence.
Michelangelo, now in his 70s, resented Cosimo's dictatorial style.
The man who had been discovered, nurtured and bullied by the Medici had finally had enough.
It was a tremendous source of frustration to Cosimo that Michelangelo wouldn't have anything to do with him and remained in Rome for the last 30 years of his life in high moral dudgeon about what the family had done by taking over absolute control of the republic.
And he refused to go back.
Michelangelo was angry, bitter and tired.
Now, he began work on his final sculpture La Pietà.
Upon its completion, he vented a lifetime of fury and frustration on the arm of Christ, attempting to smash it with a hammer.
Michelangelo's own tortured likeness, frozen forever in the face of Nicodemus.
Only death could reconcile Michelangelo with the Medici.
When Michelangelo died in 1564, the Florentine government arranged secretly to sneak the body out of Rome, hidden inside of a hay basket, and bring it back to Florence where they staged this enormous ceremonial funeral for him.
They co-opted him after his death and made him into the greatest of Florentine artists, even though for 30 years he'd been thumbing his nose at the Medici.
In death, Michelangelo was granted immortality by the Medici.
The culmination of Cosimo's cultural campaign would be a book, written by his image-maker, Vasari.
The Lives of the Artists would seal the reputation of the Medici forever.
It was the world's first work of art history.
Vasari is an extraordinary figure because he underwrites everything that Cosimo does.
He puts all the great Florentine artists, right back to Giotto, right through to its culmination with Michelangelo, right at the centre of the story of Western European art.
And they're invariably Medici-sponsored artists.
So he's the great spin doctor.
He's a public relations expert of the first magnitude.
And we've all believed it ever since.
The book was dedicated to Vasari's patron, Cosimo I.
The author argued that the world had been dark for a thousand years until the light of the artists had illuminated it once again.
Vasari needed a word for this outstanding achievement.
And what had, until now, been an ad hoc movement of artists, patrons and protectors finally had a name.
It was called the Rinascimento the 'rebirth' the Renaissance.
This is a crucial book, in my opinion, because it's the first book in which, for the first time, someone addresses the issue of explaining why those years in Florence, under the auspices of the Medici, were, quote, unquote, "a creative age".
This is the first and, in my opinion, most brilliant definition of the Renaissance.
But the ideals of this Renaissance movement now offended the most powerful authority on earth the Catholic Church.
Humiliated by the Protestant revolt, the Church faced a growing clamour for individual freedom.
Determined to impose their authority, they now created an agency of obedience the Roman Inquisition.
The Inquisition could be seriously frightening.
You're not called and they say "Come in with your lawyer "and try to take apart our claims.
"There's a jury, and the jury will decide who's right".
You come in and they say "We find you guilty.
"Please confess".
In 1559, l'Inquisizione arrived in Florence.
They had come to enforce the censorship of the Church.
The Index ofForbidden Books was a catalogue of 583 heretical works.
To possess or disseminate any named volume was a punishable crime.
And the Medici owned many of these great works of the Renaissance, from the classics of the ancient world to St Augustine, Erasmus and Machiavelli.
The list was enormous.
And Cosimo had his own legacy and his reputation to protect.
Cosimo haggled with the Inquisition and came to a compromise.
Cosimo organised a token public book burning.
Because even a duke could not afford to alienate the Church.
And Cosimo was desperate to be formally recognised by the most powerful organisation on earth.
In 1569, Cosimo de' Medici was crowned Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by the pope himself.
The Medici had started as merchants and moneylenders.
Over generations, they had climbed the precarious social ladder.
As popes, they had governed all of Christendom.
But Cosimo had taken them to new heights, controlling middle Italy from coast to coast.
All of Tuscany stood in awe, including a young boy who would one day contribute greatly to the Medici legacy.
He would become private tutor to the Medici heirs and the greatest scientist of the age Galileo Galilei.
The world of Cosimo's descendants was the perfect stage for Galileo.
Ifyou're an art buff, it's kind of all over, the juice has gone out ofit by the time that the Medici dukes are installed, by and large, give or take.
But the scientific revolution is just getting going.
Through the eyes of Galileo, a fusion of artist and mathematician, wine became light held together by moisture.
As a courtier, his greatest selling point was his uniqueness.
He was a scientist.
Galileo was one of the many wonders that the Medici court could exhibit.
He was appointed as mentor of the Medici young princes.
So, on one hand, he satisfied the thirst of you know, splendour, by having at court someone who could entertain and wonder people with experiments and, er never-seen instruments, and on the other hand, he fulfilled one of the new requirements of principality, providing the young rulers with a technical education.
Galileo had discovered the uniformity of pendulum vibrations, a critical step in the accurate measurement of time.
He had made a name for himself as a brilliant thinker, and a troublemaker.
But the Medici legitimised his boldness.
In 1610, they appointed Galileo Royal Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy, with a healthy salary of 1000 scudi a year.
There was a certain level of official investment in Galileo, and given the kind of claims he wanted to make, the university would have not been the right institution.
I do believe that he needed a court and, um the Medici provided that.
As Galileo's reputation spread through Italy and Europe, his Medici patrons granted him celebrity and protection.
In return, Galileo ensured that his discoveries emerged first at the court of the Medici.
Galileo is this hybrid between a philosopher, a courtier and a writer.
The patron expects competence, there's no question about that, but also expects the spectacle.
Galileo had that, and most mathematicians did not.
They didn't have the other set of skills you know, how to turn a dry topic into something entertaining.
School vacations became the seasons for experiments, as Galileo's Medici students learned through observation.
People had always assumed that because it was solid, ice was much heavier than water.
But not Galileo.
Galileo managed to turn buoyancy - things floating in water or sinking in water - into a court spectacle.
Now, that takes talent.
Galileo asked whether two balls of different weights would fall at the same speed.
Most people thought the question was absurd.
Of course the lighter one would fall more slowly.
But Galileo was not convinced.
By dropping two balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Galileo proved that all objects fall at the same rate of acceleration.
The Royal Professor had prefigured Newton's theory of gravity by half a century.
He was desperately trying to find simple arguments for complicated you know, for huge phenomena.
That was always his angle.
He was a master at trying to find these little vignettes that could encapsulate a very complex problem.
Galileo's hunger to observe was fed by a magnificent new invention the astronomical telescope.
Most nights, Galileo would point the telescope toward the moon.
And then, you write down or you draw what you see every night.
The way you build a case is by showing what you have seen over, like, 30 or 40 nights.
But what Galileo observed went against everything people had been taught.
The moon was not the pure white heavenly body of Church doctrine.
Galileo was amazed.
"It is like the face of the earth itself, "which is marked here and there with chains of mountains and valleys".
All of what people had been believing in regard to astronomy collapsed.
The idea that beyond the celestial vault you get into the world of perfection proved to be wrong, otherwise there wouldn't be all of those imperfections on the moon.
And, through the eyes of the prince, the telescope adds to the court another element of originality and wonder.
Galileo was the first man to discover that the sun had spots, to notice the unusual shape of Saturn and to identify the Milky Way.
And he was the first man to spot the moons of Jupiter.
He named these mysterious objects after his patrons and protectors.
He called them the Medici stars.
"Behold! Four stars reserved for your illustrious name, "which make theirjourneys with marvellous speed, "like children of the same family".
They were the most permanent monument that the Medici could hope for, because statues wear out you know, paintings fade and these the satellites of Jupiter do not fade.
Nothing happens to them.
They're there forever.
I'm sure that watching the Medicean stars was probably a family sport.
Thanks to Galileo, the Medici name was written into the universe.
And thanks to Medici patronage, Galileo was the most famous scientist in the world.
The English ambassador recorded his achievements.
"The professor has discovered four new planets "rolling about the sphere of Jupiter, "the true cause of the Milky Way "and that the moon is not spherical.
"He has overthrown all former astronomy".
The Medici had dominated Florence for over 200 years.
What had started as a local revolution now had spread beyond the borders of Tuscany.
At the royal court of France, the world's first ballet had been presented to Queen Catherine de' Medici.
In England, Shakespeare had thrilled massive audiences with extraordinary new plays.
While in Italy, a radical new art form had been unveiled.
Born in the house of the Medici, opera took the dramatic stories of classical heroes and set them to music.
It had been performed by Galileo's own father.
One by one, three generations of Medici dukes inherited a position of extraordinary power.
And Galileo had taught them all.
He had bestowed on them the gift of education, a rare gift they would never forget.
I think that probably Galileo was more important to the Medici as time went on.
For somebody like Ferdinand II, Galileo was an important image-maker.
The Medici were lucky.
It's a remarkable coincidence to have one ofyour subjects turn out to be, you know, such a scientific star.
But there was still a force in the world more powerful than the benevolent wisdom of an individual thinker the force of religious conformity.
A friend of Galileo had paid the ultimate price for intellectual freedom.
Giordano Bruno was a Dominican friar.
He had devoted his life to the service of God.
But he was also a scientist.
For publishing his theory that the universe was infinite, he was burned alive by the Roman Inquisition.
In exceptional cases, the Inquisition showed mercy.
They placed a bag of gunpowder around their victim's neck.
Galileo knew how powerful and dangerous the truth could be.
And he knew his own ideas were testing the Inquisition's patience.
For over a thousand years, the Church had taught that the sun and all the planets revolved around the earth.
This fundamental truth underpinned the very essence of Christian identity.
But Galileo had observed the universe for himself.
He had come to the radical conclusion that the earth, in fact, revolved around the sun.
His sceptical friends protested.
Surely, if the earth was travelling through space, then they would feel it here on earth.
Galileo argued that, as fish remain inside their bowl, even if the bowl is moved around, so we can happily exist, untroubled by the motions of the planets.
It was a dangerously seductive idea.
I think the revelation that the earth goes round the sun rather than vice versa must have just been shocking.
It must have been earth-shattering, literally, because it threatens the whole notion of the Christian cosmology.
The choice that now faced Galileo was simple - neglect the truth to save his neck or publish and be damned.
"I do not believe "that the same God who has endowed us with the senses, reason and intellect "has intended us to forgo their use".
Galileo believes, completely, that the earth goes around the sun.
He knows that he cannot say that.
So he's walking a thin line.
Galileo was an old man by 17th-century standards, so maybe there was an element of desperation that he Maybe he knew that he was taking a risk.
Galileo prepared a subtle argument in the form of a conversation between three friends.
They just happened to be discussing the structure of the universe.
He says "I'm not publishing a treatise.
This is a philosophical comedy.
"These are fictional characters.
Everything is fictional, right? "So you cannot hold me accountable for what fictional characters say".
Galileo submitted his text to the Church in Florence so that it could be checked for signs of heresy.
The Church insisted on changes.
Galileo agreed.
And in 1632, Galileo's pioneering masterpiece was published.
Under normal circumstances - normal being friendly - he would have got away with it.
In a more hostile environment, people will simply say "We do not care that Galileo has used the literary genre "of a dialogue between fictional or dead people.
"He has said this, and we are going to hold him accountable".
Galileo called his book The Dialogue of the Two World Systems and dedicated it to his student and patron, the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
" whose liberal munificence is the means by which it finally reaches publication".
When The Dialogue hit the streets of Florence, it became an instant bestseller.
Galileo had written the first book of popular science.
"I wrote in the colloquial tongue "because everyone must be able to read it".
But when The Dialogue reached the headquarters of the Church in Rome, the pope was furious.
The pope feels the need to put an end to Galileo writing about his scientific theories, because what this produces is essentially a body of knowledge that contradicts the authoritative assertion of the Church, which, according to the common opinion of the time, was the only source of truth.
Galileo was officially summoned to face the Inquisition.
Now more than ever, he needed the protection of the Medici.
The Grand Duke tried to prevent his mentor being hauled to Rome.
But the pope was in no mood for discussion.
"When His Holiness gets something into his head, "that is the end of the matter "since he hardens, and shows no respect to anyone.
"This is really going to be a troublesome affair".
Ifyou are accused by the Inquisition and you manage to stay away from Rome and negotiate things remotely, it's one thing.
If they get you to Rome you're a goner.
In 1633, Galileo arrived in Rome.
The Inquisition had their man at last.
It's really a misnomer to say that Galileo's trial was a trial.
It was a trial in the 17th-century sense of the term but it definitely was not a trial the way, you know, we mean it.
Not only there is no jury, but the suspect has very little access to the case that is being built.
In Galileo's case, the machinery had been going on, without him knowing, for a long time.
They already had a file on him.
It's amazing.
It's actually scary.
If you read the manuscript, the the documents, you see that the machine starts you know, it's set into motion and it's not clear how it can be stopped.
Ordered to dress in the white robes of a penitent, Galileo had been shown the instruments of persuasion.
The Inquisition's reliance on torture is not seen as part of the punishment.
It is seen as a practice to get to the truth.
The belief is that the suspect has seen things, has done things, and he or she does not want to admit that.
And so torture comes in.
They really squeeze the truth out ofyou.
Back in Tuscany, the Medici Grand Duke faced a terrible choice.
For over 200 years, his family had nurtured generations of radical thinkers.
They were far more than financial backers.
The Medici had prided themselves on intimate involvement with the creative process.
As a family, they had recognised great ideas as well as public relations opportunities.
But now, they were a royal dynasty, anxious to retain control of their territory.
And they depended for survival on the benevolence of an even greater power the papacy.
The pope basically says "Look, stop pushing".
He says "Tell the Grand Duke that he's not going to come out looking good, "he's not going to come out well from this, "that his support for Galileo is not going to help him".
It's really a threat.
The Medici Grand Duke Ferdinando II stopped paying Galileo's expenses.
On the 22nd of June 1633, on his knees in the belly of the Vatican, Galileo denied what he knew to be true.
"I still hold, as most true and indisputable, "the stability of the earth and the motion of the sun.
"I am in your hands.
"Do with me what you please".
When the Medici stopped not just patronising but protecting Galileo, they put an end to a certain idea of Renaissance, which consisted in patronising any type of art, no matter which their religious or ideological implications were.
Galileo was sentenced to house arrest in his beloved Tuscany.
It was there that he died, a broken old man.
In a fit of remorse, the Medici planned a public funeral.
But the Church overruled them.
There would be no public mourning for Galileo.
He was the last in a galaxy of Medici stars.
For over 200 years, one family, driven by ambition, had left an extraordinary legacy in their wake.
For they had been the patrons of genius.
Renaissance men who had changed the Western world.
In their name, daring new artists had created the greatest works of the Italian Renaissance.
And what had started in Florence could not be stopped.
A new energy had been unleashed, a spirit of reason and enlightenment that would give rise to the modern world.
Many patrons would try to follow in their footsteps.
But none would ever match the legacy of the Medici, godfathers of the Renaissance.