"'I'm Andrew Graham Dickson and I'm an art historian." "'I'm Giorgio Locatelli and I'm a chef." "'We are both passionate about my homeland, Italy.'" "The smells, the colour, this is what food is all about for me." "'The rich flavours and classic dishes of this land are in my culinary DNA." "'And this country's rich layers of art 'and history have captivated me since childhood.'" "It's meant to make you feel as if you are being whirled up to heaven." "'We're stepping off the tourist track and exploring Italy's" "'Northern regions of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont.'" "'It's part of Italy that's often overlooked, but it drives 'the whole country, and I want to show off its classic dishes." "'Not to mention its hidden legacy 'of artists, designers, intellectuals.'" "One of the world's great builders." "Bellissima." "'This week we are in Emilia-Romagna, 'the birthplace of modern Italian cuisine." "'And home to some of Italy's most fascinating artists 'and powerful dynasties.'" "We are beginning our journey to this wonderful region in Bologna, its capital." "I first came here with my parents when I was about ten years old and we must have visited just about every church in the city and everywhere we went, we bought postcards of the altar pieces, the sculptures, the paintings, and I always remember going home" "and sitting at the kitchen table with my mum for about a week, off and on, we made this scrap book." "Maybe it was my very first lesson in art history." "I'm looking forward to see all these producers, to put some faces on these people that" "I talk to through the telephone, you know, ordering stuff." "Cos, you know, our menu always has something that comes from this place." "Since the Middle Ages, Bologna has been known by three nicknames, la dotta, la grassa e la rossa - the learned, the fat and the red." "'Renowned for its striking red building, militant politics and rich 'cuisine, Bologna represents quality and taste, not to mention power.'" "I love the statue." "And you know, for me, this is really Bologna, these big breasts she's holding there." "Neptune, the abundance." "The abundance." "Oh." "It's a symbol of the fact that Bologna has always thought of itself as a rich city, a powerful city." "You know, we can get Giambologna, the greatest sculptor of his age to come here and create our Neptune Fountain." "You can feel Bologna's sense of its own power as the capital of Emilia-Romagna here." "It's the architecture of power, the scale is enormous." "And it's not only that, it's also that you know the culture," "I mean, the culture of food is incredible." "You know Parma ham is more recognisable than the Italian flag, isn't it?" "It's more representative of Italy than..." "Parma ham and Parmesan cheese." "Parmesan cheese, you know, all produced in a very traditional, artisan way." "Tradition is important in Bologna, a city which likes to remember its past." "At its heart is the oldest university in the world, established in 1088." ""The home of la dotta, the learned."" "'Enrico Brizzi, one of my favourite Italian authors, studied here 'and he's agreed to show us round.'" "This is where you belong, Andrew." "Wow." "It's fantastic." "You just come in off the street like that." "Yeah." "The most influential families, the most wealthy family all around Europe send their children for a tour of the main universities and it was almost compulsory to pass from here." "Have some time in Bologna." "Are these their graduation plaques?" "Yeah." "The graduated students left here the coat of arms of their families." "'In 1562, Bologna began a massive remodelling of the city centre, 'including an expansion of the Cathedral of San Pietro." "'When the Pope realised, with some alarm, that the cathedral was 'destined to become bigger than St Peter's and the Vatican itself, 'the money was diverted to these magnificent university buildings 'and it gave birth to a new type of pilgrim to Bologna - students.'" "You know, Andrew, what I think, as well, is that all the students come here and this is not only important what they bring in and learn, but also what they take away." "Of the colour of the building but..." "'These hallowed halls have seen the likes of Dante, Petrarch 'and Thomas a Beckett pass through them." "'And there's one room which I'm particularly excited about seeing." "'A true example of how art can inspire learning.'" "Wow!" "This is one of the great things, not just to Bologna, this is one of the great things in the world." "It's the only really authentic surviving early, early, anatomy theatre, and that is a Renaissance-coffered ceiling." "And in the middle we've got Apollo with his lyre, pointing down, the God of Medicine pointing straight down, probably to the hand of the anatomy teacher as he demonstrates to his students how to cut up a body." "I feel a bit presumptuous doing this but I think it's the only way to understand the space, which is a theatre of learning." "He loves it up there." "Yeah, because the Professor in ancient times was also an actor." "Right." "Yeah, absolutely." "Who is performing lessons." "Absolutely, teaching was a form of rhetoric and you feel that up here." "My job would have been..." "Giorgio, come up here, Giorgio, come on." "My job would have been to be down here, I'll tell you." "No." "Sweeping up the blood and the entrails left over." "And so now you're on the spot and you've got all the figures of the past, Galen, Hippocrates, they are all caught in a frozen moment of their teaching." "And this canopy on the top of us is an allegorical figure of anatomy but it's supported by these grizzly figures of skinned men." "Yes." "So you can see the tendons." "Yes, and the muscle and everything." "This is incredible." "He's even got a peeled penis." "You don't see many of those in world art." "See that figure at the back?" "Uh-huh." "Do you know what he's holding?" "No." "He is holding a human nose because that is Tagliacozzi, the founding father of cosmetic surgery who apparently..." "He didn't!" "He did, he did the first nose job, so that's why he's holding a nose." "The nose." "Oh, my God." "How many years ago?" "How many ears ago?" "How many noses ago?" "Madonna." "Enrico, I have to say thank you, it's just a masterpiece." "'It's not hard to see how Bologna earned its nickname 'la dotta, the learned." "'Walking through these stunning buildings, 'the sense of them as living places of learning really is striking." "'They give the whole city a sense of life and vivacity." "'But just like an army, students and their teachers march 'on their stomachs and it's time to discover a true Bolognese meal.'" "You know what?" "With all this culture and everything, I think that, you know, now we should just explore the second bit." "Enough dotta, enough intelligentsia, let us work out something about the grassa." "'You can't come to Bologna without eating the king of Italian dishes - 'pasta ragu - a dish that's known worldwide by another name - 'spaghetti Bolognese." "'In Italy, we are famous for our pasta, 'and Bologna is the place to come from fresh egg pasta, 'which artisans here turn into a work of art." "'No wonder this city is known as la grassa, the fat one.'" "So here, the same attention to detail that is paid to art and to music, you know, is paid to food." "And so here you are, look, this is all made by hand." "Look at what it says there," ""Tagliatelle ve le tagliamo su misura."" "They cut the tagliatelle how long you want it, so if you want heavy sauce, short tagliatelle, if you have a light sauce, like a pesto or tomato sauce then long tagliatelle, two fork or one fork they call it, you know." "So this is tailor-made pasta?" "But not only." "Look, it says here, "Tortellini per ingannare i mariti."" "To fool your husband." "Cos you take them home and tell your husband that you made it yourself." "Per ingannare i mariti." "Yeah." "Buona sera, signora Edda." "Buona sera." "Che piacere vedere la." "TRANSLATION" "Ma ciao, come stai?" "You don't come in here just to buy stuff." "It's not like a fuel station that you come in and you fill up the car and go." "You talk to them, they talk to you." "Look, there's a chair, you can sit down if you're tired." "'Food here is a living tradition." "'This shop has been in the same family for 130 years.'" "Andiamo far un po di pasta?" "It's obviously very serious business, this pasta, Giorgio?" "It is very serious." "'This is the perfect place to get the tagliatelle for dinner tonight.'" "This is like a cathedral." "You're entering now the inner chamber." "Prego, prego!" "When you eat spaghetti or when you eat dried pasta, the one that comes from the south, that's durum wheat." "Mm-hm." "OK, so durum wheat contains a lot of protein." "This, because in the north, the type of soil, they just only grow soft wheat." "So the soft wheat hasn't got any protein in it." "So the al dente won't be there, the pasta will be very mushy." "OK, so by putting in the eggs, which contains a lot of protein in the eggs, you're going to achieve that al dente texture." "This is like a...an incredible expression of how, actually, the land determine what you have on the plate." "You know, all the world eats this spaghetti Bolognese." "Here when they make the Bolognese in Bologna, they don't know what spaghetti Bolognese is." "Nobody eats spaghetti Bolognese." "No Bolognese." "Noi solo facciamo." "So how come, the world over, people eat spaghetti Bolognese?" "Because the Americans, you know." "Oh, OK." "Have you seen this?" "This is called mattarello." "Signora Edda, a cosa servi il mattarello?" "Per due cose no?" "Per il marito." "Two things." "To make the pasta and when your husband come back drunk, you wait behind the door and ba-da-boom!" "And apparently they say that if you don't know why you hit him, he knows why you hit him." "Il marito lo conosce." "Yeah, it's the husband knows this one very well apparently." "Is that the right length for your...?" "That's perfect." "No pomodoro, eh." "She said don't use tomatoes." "Don't use tomatoes!" "Buonapetito." "Don't drop it." "'I'm leaving Andrew for a couple of hours to buy some other 'ingredients for dinner tonight.'" "Oh, yes." "Tre o quarto carotti." "Grazie." "'My ragu is based on a classic recipe, 'written by Pellegrino Artusi in 1891.'" "Buongiorno." "Buongiorno." "'His book, Science In The Kitchen And The Art Of Eating Well 'is my Bible." "In fact, here in Italy, it's everybody Bible.'" "Questa e per la ragu antiqua?" "A I'antiqua." "Quello di Artusi." "Esatto." "Fantastico." "Senza pomodoro e!" "Un pocatino?" "E ci vuole e." "Ci la mettiamo?" "Ci la mettiamo un pocatino." "Una punto cosi." "'While Giorgio focuses on the local cuisine," "'I want to find a delicacy of my own, of the artistic type." "'I'm on the hunt for one of Bologna's hidden gems." "'Every major Italian town has a Pinacoteca Nazionale " "'National Art Gallery - which houses the work of local artists." "'Thankfully, there's 25 miles of portico's covering Bologna's 'pavements to keep the sun off my head.'" "'And with their frescoes, even these are artistic as well as functional.'" "Solo stanco?" "I'm exhausted." "Are you OK?" "It's too hot." "Yeah, it's OK, but look at this." "It's difficult to find this place, eh?" "It's not easy to find but this is what I like, you know." "Here we are, it's an unassuming part of Bologna." "Really unassuming." "Really unassuming." "You wouldn't even know that this art gallery was here, it's just a little subtle sign," ""Ministero Per I Bene E Le Attivita Culturali", but I've found a real treat inside for you." "Yeah?" "'This building may not be as impressive as the Uffizi 'in Florence, but inside there are real treasures to be found." "'The pinnacle of Italian art is not restricted to Tuscany and Rome." "'Bologna and Emilia-Romagna also produced some fantastically 'influential artists.'" "The Bolognese do not like this idea that you simply paint what you see." "Realism is not their thing." "Art is about conveying an idea, it's a much more intellectual approach to painting." "Guido Reni was born in Bologna in 1575 and became celebrated throughout Italy." "But his fame dimmed as the Bolognese style of painting fell out of fashion." "That I really like." "This great painting was commissioned for Bologna's San Domenico Church." "And you can just imagine the impact it would have had as you stared at it over Mass." "It certainly draws your eye, it's a drama." "Yeah, it's a drama." "It's the Massacre of the Innocents." "So that's what they are, the little kids?" "This is one of the bloodiest scenes in all of the Bible - a genocide enacted upon children." "Children, yeah." "And yet the idea here in Bologna was that if you actually painted it as if it were real, it would just be so sensational that people wouldn't think about what's really going on." "Whereas if you distance it all, people can bear to look at it and therefore they can think about it in a different way and be affected by it in a different way." "For dinner, Andrew and I will enjoy a Bolognese masterpiece of a different sort." "Pasta ragu." "It's a dish that sits firmly on the local tradition of rich Italian food." "It must be one of the reasons Bologna is also nicknamed la grassa, the fat." "Bologna la Dotta would not exist without Bologna la grassa - la grassa, the fat one." "'For my ragu sauce, I'm following Pellegrino Artusi's classic recipe." "'Artusi was obsessed by the idea of compiling comprehensive lists of recipes, 'from every Italian region.'" "Artusi, he's one of your heroes, right?" "He's definitely my hero." "He was the first writer that actually sort of put together in the book, a concept of Italian cuisine." "You know, because we have so many different regions with so many different microclimatic conditions and so many different ingredients." "So obviously the diet is a little bit different." "So it's believed it was not just to give you a recipe, he'd give you the whole history of the recipe and the meaning of the recipe." "So it's kind of a culinary portrait of Italy?" "Garibaldi unified Italy politically, but he kind of unified Italy gastronomically." "Do you know what I mean?" "I'm going to add a little nice slap of butter." "You said you were going to put some heart in it?" "Was it a lamb's heart?" "Yeah, the butcher that we went this morning to get the thing, he says, "Oh, you want two hearts as well?"" "I'm, like, "Yeah, I'll have the hearts as well."" "I thought it was really good." "So you must have liked Othello, if you've allowed Othello to alter the great Artusi's recipe, eh?" "That's true, you're right." "If you get some good advice on the market or it just seems right, you follow it, yeah." "So my meat is now kind of browning." "I'm going to put the vegetables in it that I already cooked." "Today when I went to the butcher, Othello he said," ""It's true that Artusi say not to put the tomato," ""but just a nice, little spoon of tomato," ""per il colore, for the colour."" "But you know what you're doing here?" "I'm doing..." "You know what you're doing." "You're going to get hit on the head with that rolling pin!" "Cos she said whatever you do, if you're making the ragu Bolognese, you don't put the tomato in." "But I really want to put a little bit of tomato in it." "A tiny little bit." "You're a heretic!" "Heretic." "You're a heretic." "I'll tell you what Artusi has to say to you." "Artusi had a very nosy priest." "Right." "Who lived near him." "Right." "And he called him Don Pomodoro." "Don Pomodoro." "Do you know why, because this priest got his nose into everyone's business." "Everyone business, every sauce." "He's like the tomato, he gets in everywhere." "In everywhere, yeah." "Look, I just put in literally like, a spoonful." "Maybe two." "You should give some leftovers to her and see if she notices?" "Senora Edda, you mean?" "Perfect." "GLASSES CLINK" "To the success of your heretical pasta sauce recipe." "'While my sauce is cooking, 'we've got time to take in the sunset over Bologna." "'That's if we can make it up all the 280 steps.'" "I mean, what are you...?" "Working up an appetite!" "That's what we're doing, working up an appetite for you." "HE PANTS" "Ci siamo." "We arrive." "Come." "Oh, look at the moon!" "Andrew, look at the moon." "It's so beautiful." "Look, all the Centro Storico is just red, isn't it?" "Now, we really like this in Bologna." "To me, you know the best dish is tagliatelle with ragu, it's the best dish ever." "Can I take some cheese?" "Un po di parmigiano." "Cosi?" "How much?" "As much as you like." "I don't like too much." "As much as you can afford, usually they say." "CUTLERY CLINKS AGAINST THE BOWL" "ANDREW LAUGHS" "Thank you, Artusi." "Thank you, Edda." "I think the pasta is delicious." "The pasta is delicious." "I mean, if that was spaghetti, Giorgio, look." "All of that would fall off right." "That's exactly." "But it's been caught in the knots." "That's exactly." "The spread of the idea of the spaghetti Bolognese with the meat sauce, is very much attached to the immigrants." "The immigrants left Italy because there was not enough food." "And so when they went to America, you know, the only thing they, the only thing they says..." "Oh." "..there was plentiful of meat there, so they put as much meat as you can with every dish of pasta." "So what had been before been the dish you'd eat once in a while when times are good and you've got some meat became..." "Suddenly it was something that, you know." "Oh." "Buongiorno." "Buongiorno." "Buongiorno." "Buongiorno." "GIORGIO SPEAKS IN ITALIAN TO THE BARBER" "'There is nothing like a good shave 'and to freshen up in the morning." "'And I know that Andrew will love this place.'" "But, Giorgio, isn't this another example of how in Bologna, people who do everyday occupations somehow manage to do them in surroundings of such calm and dignity and beauty, you know, like the lady making the pasta," "she's doing it in a shop that's like a palace." "'Beneath the calm and dignity is a volatile political history." "'It's not just the buildings that are red in Bologna, the politics is too." "'The centre of Bologna is full of small, independent business." "'They all thrive because of the socialist policies 'established by Bologna Communist Party in the post war years." "'Small traders pay much lower business rates than large corporations." "'And it's this link to the Communist Party that is in more recent times 'the reason for Bologna's third nickname, la Rossa, the Red.'" "Your face will feel so good all day you know." "Grazie." "Grazie." "Arrivederci." "Buona giornata." "'Bologna's reputation for political militancy is not limited 'to the post-war Communist years." "'As far back as 1506, Bologna saw popular uprising against the ruling classes, 'which led to the city being annexed by the Papal State." "'The Bolognese spirit of rebellion rose again 'during the Second World War." "'Bologna was a centre for the Resistance." "'Over 1,800 Resistance fighters were shot here by the Nazis." "'Bologna la Rossa has also left an artistic legacy." "'The 20th century Bolognese artist, Giorgio Morandi, 'spent his career paying homage to humble, everyday objects, 'right up until his death in 1964." "'Day after day, he sat in this studio rearranging and painting these pots." "'He's revered in Bologna, his studio's preserved as a shrine, 'and his life work is displayed in this new museum.'" "It's a painting of apparently almost nothing." "There is this sort of a flavour of old Italy, it reminds me of, like, grandparents keeping things and never throwing away anything and giving a personality to each of the objects that means something to them." "You hardly ever get in Morandi anything that looks like..." "luxury colour, this is not luxury, this is simplicity." "If you think about it, you have all those colours in the front of you." "It's like the ingredients, you get a lot of ingredients, and most chefs just put them all in the dish, like, you know, it takes of strength and self-assertiveness to make sure that you only pick the right one that will work for you." "I think that's part of his cleverness as an artist, he is very much painting during the rise of global capitalism." "Right." "And if you wanted to find his sort of opposite in world art, it would be Andy Warhol." "That's right." "Who's painting the ordinary objects of American life, but it's Heinz tomatoes and it's..." "Brand names." "Brand names." "Brillo boxes." "I mean, maybe that's Bologna la Rossa." "Maybe this is a kind of counterblast, because he's painting these pictures up until, well, he dies in 1964." "So maybe he's the sort of counterblast to Warhol." "'For me, Bologna definitely lives up to its three nicknames, 'la dotta, la grassa and la rossa." "'And they're all intricately intertwined, 'a fascinating marriage of food, culture and politics.'" "It's quite a comfortable, very bourgeois town that you'd think maybe had forgotten its socialist past, but it's still there, don't you think?" "I think so." "JAUNTY ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC" "'So it's goodbye to Bologna." "'Now we're off to explore the rest of Emilia-Romagna.'" "CAR ENGINE ROARS" "'This is the Po Valley." "'This fertile land has nourished the region's rich history 'and fed the local culture, 'both literally and metaphorically." "'The beautiful River Po is the artery of Emilia-Romagna." "'It has painted the region in a palette of swirling fog, 'deep, dark soil and lush, arable farmland." "'Many of the rich historical traditions of this region 'stems from these waters." "'This river is also the source of my best memory of Emilia-Romagna.'" "They tamed the land to grow what they want, and here they even tamed the sea." "This is, like, something very special about it." "'I wanted to show Andrew one of the great pastimes of the Po Valley, 'with the land and the river as a backdrop.'" "Umberto!" "Oi?" "'The padellone is a traditional way of fishing, 'where friends can get together to share in the peace 'and tranquillity of this land, and get a meal too.'" "Buona sera!" "These are your soci?" "What's soci mean?" "Soci is because they all own this hut together." "It's like going to the bar, isn't it?" "But it's a bit more secluded, it's more calm." "It's like the golf club except with fish." "But what I really want to know, I want to know how it works." "How it works." "If you push that one, the trick is done." "SPEAKS IN ITALIAN" "Press?" "Press, OK." "Oh, it's coming up." "Look at that!" "Look how big it is." "That is fabulous, look at that!" "Oh, look at the crab, can you see the crab?" "Ohhh, that's what we're going to eat." "These are delicious!" "'The name "padellone" refers the shape of the nets, 'which resemble the giant pan the fishermen fry their catch in.'" "This is baby red mullet." "They're all different, you see." "So you deep-fry these little chaps?" "That's it, you put a little bit of flour and you fry it, that's it." "It's not a very difficult kind of fishing, I have to say." "I think it's Italian people spending time together, it's about the drink and the food." "The food always brings them together." "JAUNTY ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS" "'For honest working men, like Umberto and Banana, 'this pause from life is typical of Emilia-Romagna, rooted in the place.'" "Semolino and a little bit of double zero flour, OK." "So one sticks to it, the other one's going make it really, really crispy." "Now the only place they jump is in the pot." "How long do they take to cook, Giorgio?" "Very, very fast, they're going to cook in about maybe one minute." "Very good." "ALL LAUGH" "Attenzioni." "You see, Andrew, I really wanted you to come and see this, because this is really, when we're talking about richness of this land, culture." "And the real power of this land is really all these people and on this river that has brought down for thousand and thousand of years, this goodness from the Alps." "And it's brought it down to them, and they've been here every day taking a little bit, with respect and with love." "And, you know, look at the variety, the colour, the beauty and the abundance." "This is what it's all about, Emilia-Romagna." "MEN CHAT IN ITALIAN" "Andrew, per noi queste sono como le patatine, chips!" "This is like, like fried chips." "Like fried chips!" "THEY LAUGH" "On the padellone, there's no stress, so..." "It's the culture that, you know, this is just a little step towards freedom, isn't it?" "THEY TOAST AND LAUGH" "The brindisi are getting more chaotic!" "'After a strong coffee, we're back on the road 'and heading to the historical city of Ferrara.'" "I'm definitely slightly the worse for wear." "These brindisi." "That's fantastic." "Brindisi!" ""Facciamo un brindisi!"" "'The city of Ferrara was built on the banks of the Po." "'It was the stronghold of the Este dynasty who ruled here 'for over 300 years until the end of the 16th century." "'Like many dynasties, the Este used arts and architecture 'to express their power and wealth.'" "I wanted you to see this arch, Giorgio, that was designed by Alberti, the father of Renaissance architecture." "Yeah?" "And on the top is a statue of Nicolo III d'Este." "GIORGIO SINGS" "I feel like I'm taking a reluctant eight-year-old on a tour round the architectural delights of Ferrara." "Si, yes." "I'll have to find something better for you, eh?" "It's all so nice and fresh." "'Today, Ferrara is a bustling university town, 'full of students and bicycles." "'The university was established by Alberto V of the Este in 1391." "'The Este invited artists, architects and scholars 'from all over Europe." "'Jewish bankers, persecuted elsewhere, were welcomed here - 'in fact, the doors were flung open to all who could contribute 'to making Ferrara powerful and successful.'" "If you came from anywhere else in Italy and you arrived here, you'd be like stumbling out of the Dark Ages into this new Renaissance idea of what is a city, you know, these wide streets." "This was really the first emphatic expression of a very particular Renaissance idea which was...a planned town." "You know, town planning." "The medieval town just grows like an organism, and you end up with this labyrinth, where poor lives next to rich." "Everything's a kind of chaos." "Here in Ferrara, for the first time, the Este said, "No!" "We're not going to have that kind of city any more." ""We're going to have a planned city - wide streets, but only for the rich."" "It's just lined with palaces in all directions and at the centre of it all, this thumping great expression of Este power, the Palazzo dei Diamanti, with these amazing kind of sharp diamonds of stone all over it," "studded like a kind of piece of chain mail." "I mean, there's nothing else like it in Renaissance architecture, not quite like this." "Right." "It looks very modern, isn't it, somehow?" "Yeah, I think it is - fascist architects looked at this building when they were designing in the '30s and '40s." "They were looking at this kind of symmetry, this architecture of power." "I think it's very beautiful, but I also think there's something slightly sinister about it." "It's telling you if you're one of the Ferrarese poor," ""Don't mess with us or we'll come down on you like a..."" "The fist will squash you?" "Yeah, yeah, absolutely." "'In their heyday, the Este were as dominant as the Medici 'and even married into other powerful dynasties, 'including a notorious union with Lucrezia Borgia." "'But in 1598, with no heir to continue the line," "'Ferrara was claimed by the Papal States." "'Today the Este dynasty is largely forgotten.'" "Because the Este lost the power battle, all of their buildings got stripped of their possessions, got taken to other places, so what we're left with is this beautiful, fantastic, but rather melancholy stage set - it's like the set of a play" "but all the actors have gone." "'We are driving further west along the Po Valley to Modena." "'This city is home to two of my favourite things, 'balsamic vinegar and fast cars." "'But it's also home to a truly heart-stopping work of art - 'one that's rooted in the soil and the blood of this region.'" "I'm going to tell you a story." "I'm going to give you a role in the story as well, if you don't mind?" "I've got a role in the story?" "Yeah." "So you have to imagine that it's 1480, you've done something terrible, maybe you've tried to poison the Duke of the Este Dynasty, but you've been caught, and you've been sentenced to death." "Now they're taking you down this street." "Right." "When you get to the end of the street, they're going to rip pieces of your flesh off with red hot pincers, they're going to hang you by the neck until you're dead." "Right." "But you've got some friends with you and they are the members of the local confraternity of the good death, and it's their job to make sure that you repent before you die." "This is their church, they stop you here, and they bring you in because they want you to see one last thing." "Before I die?" "Before you die." "I would like to have a risotto before I die." "Maybe you've had your last wish already, so assume you've had your risotto." "This object is going to be the last thing that you should hold in your mind's eye if you want to save your soul." "It was created in 1477 by an artist called Guido Mazzoni." "What is it made of?" "It's made of terracotta." "No!" "Yeah, it's made of the same earth of Emilia-Romagna from which all the things that we've been eating grow." "So the idea behind the sculpture is that you are going to your death and I, as a member of the company of the good death, want you to have as good a death as possible." "And that if you look as Christ's dead figure lying while Mary the Madonna grieves over him, while Mary Magdalene twists her face into this scream of anguish, somehow this emotion will transmit from that sculpture into you," "and that you will feel these things in your heart... and you will be moved to turn to the priest who accompanies you on the scaffold, you will confess." "And maybe, just maybe, this sculpture may help to save your soul." "I think it does achieve what it set out for, doesn't it?" "'These sculptures are refined and sophisticated, 'yet unashamedly proud of their roots, 'having grown out of the humblest of materials - the Emilia-Romagna clay itself.'" "Andiamo." "Andiamo." "Well, you can step out of character now." "'What draws me most to this region 'is the beautiful produce that grows out of this soil." "'For 25 years, I've been buying balsamic vinegar tradizionale 'from the Aggazzotti family, 'but until now, I've never met my supplier, Ettore Aggazzotti.'" "This is the place where it all happens." "The produce transforms itself and becomes balsamic vinegar tradizionale." "The real deal." "The real deal." "'The Aggazzotti family has been making vinegar since 1714." "'The family has perfected the art of creating a symphony of flavour 'out of the most modest of ingredients." "'Grapes, patience and a colony of bacteria that vinegar producers call "the mother".'" "The mother is a colony of bacteria." "They keep on reforming itself." "Right, so what does the mother do to this liquid?" "The natural sugar that there is inside, the mother transform the sugar into vinegar." "Bacteria does that by sort of eating it." "That's right." "So the mother bacteria colony that you still use in every batch..." "Every years." "..was actually first sort of created and it's still the same bacteria family that's doing it?" "Exactly, and this is..." "That's exactly what the value would be." "The value of the acetaia is on the value of the mother." "If you start tomorrow, you're going to have to wait quite a long time before..." "Right." "'Balsamic vinegar is often swept aside as a simple condiment 'that you use to dip your bread in or throw over a salad." "'But balsamic vinegar tradizionale is very different to normal balsamic vinegar." "'And that's why this tiny bottle of 25-year-old vinegar costs 250 euros.'" "The aging factor, I think, is a typical expression of this land - this patience, this idea of, "I can wait to have something fantastic."" "Hmm, that is fantastic, the sweet with the salt, it's even more intense." "It takes 25 years to get the balsamic out of that barrel, doesn't it?" "After 25 years, we actually managed to meet each other." "Well, here's to both of you - Ettore, Giorgio." "Salute!" "Brindiamo." "Facciamo un brindisi!" "'This trip to Modena is a dream for me." "'First I get to meet Ettore and now I get to satisfy my second love, 'fast cars." "'Modena is the home to Enzo Ferrari, 'and we can't come here without going to visit the new Ferrari museum, 'a testament to his life's work." "'He was obsessed with racing since childhood, and he turned his dream 'into a quest to build the ultimate racing machine." "'Today, Ferrari is famous worldwide." "'Enzo's original workshop and office, founded here in 1929, 'is still standing, 'sheltered by this spectacular museum designed by architect Jan Kaplicky." "'It's a perfect demonstration of how tradition meets modernity 'and technology in this region.'" "It's all white, it's like an art gallery, the cars are on plinths." "So beautiful, aren't they?" "I think cars deserve to be looked at in terms of, you know..." "Especially these cars, look at that beautiful shape... an aeroplane, almost." "Well, it's funny, I mean we're looking at these cars as if they're sculptures, but they do actually look like sculptures of the 1940s." "If you think of Henry Moore if you think of Arc..." "Yes." "That sort of biomorphic that was in the air, so even the cars are like that." "Even if you're ugly, you look good on this one." "Ferrari seems to me to be the man who almost literally gives Italy the engine to drive into the future." "'Emilia-Romagna has also given the world Ducati, Maserati, Lamborghini." "'What a roll call for one fairly small region.'" "This real modern aesthetic and this culture of design." "Why do you think it flourished in Northern Italy?" "I think it's the passion and the drive." "You know, they want to show everybody they could do something really great, they dream about being." "That's what Enzo Ferrari used to say, "I dream about being Ferrari," ""I dreamt to be Ferrari and I become Ferrari, you know, I dreamt it."" "Can you imagine how strong he must have been feeling to dream about it?" "No more Medici, no more..." "No more Medici, no more Este, no more that!" "They took the mantle on, and they took it on through showing something that they could do." "So they went forwards with that." "This is so important." "'But these cars weren't just made to be looked at, 'they were designed to be driven." "'Every aspect of these cars is the product of craftsmanship." "'Even today, every engine is signed by the mechanic who put it together.'" "I'm crying, it was so good!" "Oh, that was so good!" "HE LAUGHS" "You enjoyed it?" "Oh, yes, Giorgio, I enjoyed it(!" ")" "GIORGIO LAUGHS" "I feel my blood is going round!" "'Finally, we arrive in Parma, our last stop in Emilia-Romagna." "'This town is famous for the highest-quality delicacies " "'Parma ham, Parmesan cheese." "'And quality control has become a business, too." "'The EU has based its Food Standards Agency in this tiny town.'" "Baptistry, Archbishops' Palace, Cathedral." "Beautiful Romanesque cathedral." "'It's not just the food that's world class.'" "Giorgio, after you." "One of the world's great buildings." "And how cool is it?" "!" "It's like instant air conditioning, you come out of 40 degrees heat and here, you can relax, you can enjoy, you can see." "'Here in Parma's cathedral is one of the most innovative, 'awe-inspiring works of art of the whole Renaissance.'" "So in the 1520s, Antonio Allegri, detto il Correggio was commissioned to paint the dome of the cathedral." "Right now, you look up to the dome." "Wow!" "And it's showing us the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, she's being whooshed into heaven after her death." "And she's going to meet her son, Jesus Christ, in heaven." "It's so uplifting, isn't it?" "it goes like whoosh." "Like a spiral." "Unbelievable." "It's a painting that's meant to make you feel as if you are being whirled up to heaven." "It does." "It does." "It really feels like it's lifting you up." "Levitation." "But what's amazing about this is that it's ten years after Michelangelo has finished the Sistine Chapel." "And the people in Parma think," ""We're not going to be outdone by those Romans."" "So what they do, this is not a ceiling." "This is not a ceiling, this a dome." "In the past, if they painted a dome, they just painted it blue with gold stars - heaven." "Correggio set himself the challenge to paint the Madonna entering heaven." "Was he really appreciated for this?" "Did people love it?" "Well, this is the terrible paradox." "Titian, supposedly the greatest painter in the history of painting..." "Right." "..he heard about this and he looked at it and said," ""This is incredible." "You couldn't pay Correggio enough for this." ""In fact, if you turned that dome upside-down and made it into a bowl," ""and filled it with gold, it wouldn't be enough money."" "But the tragedy of it is that the patron, the Canon of the Cathedral, who was obviously a very conservative man, he simply said, "It looks like a stew of frog's legs."" "He didn't?" "That was his judgment, and Correggio finished it in 1530, it took him eight years from start to end, he never got another commission in Parma." "No!" "So it was like, "Thank you very much but no thank you." No way." "Bellissima." "Grazie, andiamo." "Prego, prego." "'Just a little way out of Parma 'is my great friend Massimo Spigaroli's farm." "'Parma is famous for its dried ham 'and I think Massimo's Culatello di Zibello is definitely 'some of the best in the world." "'Culatello is a type of Parma ham 'only made with the finest cut of pork rump.'" "So, Massimo, what do we use?" "It's very, very simple." "Salt, pepper..." "Salt and pepper." "..garlic, red wine Fontana, territorio, the bladder." "Pig's bladder." "Pig's bladder, meat pig." "Meat from the pig, which is a rump, it's the culatello." "What makes this recipe is the fog, is the silent." "These are the ingredients as well of this pig, isn't it?" "E tempo - time." "And time, time is what plays, like for the balsamic vinegar, again the master of time, the master of time." "When they make Ferraris, they master time when they make culatello." "They know how to wait for something that gets better and better and better." "'The meat is massaged with garlic, and wine, 'then it's covered with salt." "'Finally, it's wrapped tightly in a pig's bladder." "'It's a technique that hasn't changed for centuries.'" "That's the same way that his grandfather used to make culatello for Giuseppe Verdi." "What?" "Giuseppe Verdi, you know, he used to buy culatello from his grandfather." "This is where, actually, the artisan is king, you know." "Fantastic." "How long will it be hanging?" "It can stay up to two or three years without any problem." "'When it's ready, it's down to the cellar.'" "I can smell it." "The march of the pig leads here." "This is the paradise of the pig." "'This cellar has been used to cure culatello for nearly 700 years.'" "They're like sleeping bats." "Look at that." "Massimo questo e bellissimo." "Questo e il paradiso del maiale, eh?" "Pig paradise." "Have you seen?" "Look, Giorgio." "Are these the names of the clients?" "E qui e Principe Carlo." "That's Prince Charles's one?" "And look at that - Prince Albert of Monaco." "Armani!" "Giorgio Armani has a culatello." "And look at that." "'This cellar is like a perfectly honed machine." "'To work best, Massimo must keep exactly 5,000 culatello 'hanging in here.'" "He decides every day how much to open or close the window." "Depend on the temperature, depend on the humidity." "So the fresh air will come in with the fog, the humidity, and this activates the noble white mould that gives that characteristic flavour to the cured meat." "This is the last ingredients coming naturally through the window, and the man decides how much to expose the culatello to." "Oooh, that's a perfume of history." "Posso." "Smell that." "If a woman smelled like that, would be my lover." "Speak for yourself!" "We're going to eat it before we get back to London," "I'm not letting you away with that." "'How wonderful that something as simple as fog, 'or even silence, can generate such incredible flavour." "'I've been struck for the first time on this trip that 'the features of the landscape are actually just as important 'to the art of the region." "'The fog that swirls through Correggio's fresco 'in Parma Cathedral, just as it swirls around Massimo's cellar.'" "'Centuries-old traditions are vital to this region's livelihood, 'even today." "'So preserving them is important to everyone who lives here." "'Parma's Palatine library contains a rare historical treasure 'that I'm desperate to get a peek at.'" "Wow, that is what I call a library." "That's fantastic." "'This book is one of the earliest existing Italian recipe books, 'written in 1680 by Carlo Nascia, 'who was private chef to the Duke Ranuccio Farnese." "'This 400-year-old manuscript has recently been restored.'" "This book is very important." "It really tells you what the cookery of that time was like." "Obviously, this is not the cookery of the poor people, this is the cookery of the rich." "The recipes are very simply written, but it's a very intelligent book because he has a reference to French food, he has a reference to Far East food." "So it shows you how sophisticated they were on their taste." "Even that long time ago." "Some of these recipes have just caught my eye, look." "Don't touch it..." "Mi dispiace!" "You been to Oxford and you should know that you don't touch a manuscript, I touch it because I got the gloves." "So get your hands off." "For one time, can I look intelligent and you look like a peasant?" "For one time, you know, please, you know." "I got the gloves." "Pasticcio di lombo, pasticcio di carne, le torte diverse." "'The Farnese Dukes of the 17th century 'would use these astounding banquets as political tools, 'demonstrating their power and wealth to visiting dignitaries 'who'd be left in awe and wonder.'" "This is amazing and the smell of this book, it smells of the kitchen." "Smell it." "'For chefs like Carlo Nascia and Pellegrino Artusi, 'food is not just something to fill up your belly.'" "It smells of the kitchen." "'It can also feed the mind and be used to great intellectual ends.'" "This is what modern cookery is all about and this is how we start to learn, when people like that start to write these books." "'This book has been restored by a group of very special ladies 'who call themselves the Fornello Dining Club." "'They want to ensure that these recipes are kept alive." "'And most importantly, enjoyed!" "'For our last meal in Emilia-Romagna they've invited us 'to try out one of Nascia's recipes.'" "I'm going to cook something for you, which is this really special dish, that is the Rosa di Parma." "Si." "Very simple ingredients, the fillet steak." "Filetto." "Filetto." "Aperto." "Open up, butterflied open, then we've got some garlic, some rosemary, some Parma ham, some Parmesan and again..." "Lambrusco." "Lambrusco." "'Without the efforts of these women, 'this recipe and many others would have been lost forever." "'The fillet is stuffed with Parmesan cheese and Parma ham, 'then rolled and tied.'" "Quanto." "Yeah, I love the way the cheese mixes in with the Parma ham and you get this sweet flavour, and then the wine kicks in." "That's right." "With the cream, I mean, this is rich food." "This book proved that the banqueting was something that was not just about food, was about showing your power, your understanding of who was sitting around the table, what they were going to eat, and show them your understanding of the world that surrounds you," "to get things from Genoa, to get things from Venice, from Sicily." "That was a show of power." "Cheers, everybody!" "'These ladies might be just a bit more glamorous 'than our friends at the fishing hut, 'but the sentiment is the same." "'To keep the heritage and traditions of this region alive." "'Emilia-Romagna is where centuries-old traditions 'have met with the modern world." "'The people here know how to appreciate the silence 'with the speed, richness with simplicity, 'and always with an eye to enjoying life.'" "One of the things I was struck by, particularly in Bologna, which for me was a great rediscovery, was the extent to which people doing relatively modest occupations like making pasta or being a barber, managed to carve out for themselves" "this fantastic environment to work in." "They've kept that tradition of the small..." "Respect of the working person." "Yes, there doesn't have to be a multinational company, you can stay small and it will still work." "What do you think your abiding memories will be of this trip through Emilia-Romagna?" "Oh, for me, it was just incredible to see these people and they got such a joy of life on one side, almost like the southern, you know." "And then on the other side, you have this absolutely tough work ethic." "They can wait for their produce." "You mean the joy of the south and the work ethic of the north..." "That's right." "Fused." "This theme of patience or, you know, taking a long time to get something just right, I think it's true of the art as well." "Do you remember that amazing dome painted by Correggio?" "Oh, my favourite thing." "That was my favourite thing ever!" "I never seen anything like that, that's much better than the Sistine Chapel." "You think that's much better than the Sistine Chapel?" "Much better!" "Spoken like a true northern Italian." "So where are we going to go next?" "I'm going to take you to Lombardy." "I'm going to take you to my region, my view of the world started from there." "I want you to have a look at it from that as well." "So Giorgio's going home." "Andiamo." "Andiamo." "Push down on the accelerator!" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "I'm Andrew Graham Dickson and I'm an art historian." "I'm Giorgio Locatelli and I'm a chef." "We are both passionate about my homeland, Italy." "The smells, the colour, this is what food is all about for me." "The rich flavours and classic dishes of this land are in my culinary DNA." "And this country's rich layers of art and history have captivated me since childhood." "It's enough to make you feel as if you are being whirled up to heaven." "We're stepping off the tourist track and exploring Italy's" "Northern regions of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont." "It's part of Italy that's often overlooked, but it drives the whole country and I want to show off its classic dishes." "Not to mention its hidden legacy of artist, designers, intellectuals." "Wow, this is incredible." "This week we are in Lombardy, where I grew up." "I can't wait to introduce Andrew to the hearty Lombardy food of my youth." "We'll also enjoy the ingenious art and thrilling design that reveal how this region really is the motor of Italy." "Lombardy may not be the most exotic region in Italy, but, for me, it's special." "Bordering Switzerland, we are closer here to Zurich than Rome." "There is only one place to start our journey, my home town of Corgeno, by Lake Maggiore." "I've cooked for Andrew many times at my restaurant, but I'm taking him to where it all started, Casa Locatelli." "Mama, Papa." "Oh, ciao, Mama." "Small daddy, he's a small daddy." "He used to be bigger than me, but now he's..." "Ferruccio." "Pinuccia and Ferruccio." "No, I'll remember, I'll remember." "I'm hungry." "'We're here for lunch and polenta's on the menu.'" "You see, what happens here is, my mum runs the kitchen and even when I come home, I'm not allowed to cook." "So she cooks all the time." "An exception is made for polenta." "Polenta is a man thing." "So my dad, as you can see, he's ready with his apron." "So we're going to leave my mum here." "No." "No, no, we do it on the fire on the garden." "So we're going to cook the polenta downstairs." "Let's go." "SHE SPEAKS ITALIAN" "It has to taste of smoke, otherwise, it's not good." "Even though she's the captain of the kitchen, she's still telling you how to do the polenta." "She's got to prepare the mushroom and the thing and we go and do the polenta." "'Polenta, made from ground maize, really is the pasta of the north." "'In fact, the southerners call us Lombards, Polentoni, 'because we eat so much of the stuff.'" "OK, you see, it's the most simple thing." "You know, you just need a fire and a paiolo, which is this like cast iron, and then copper inside." "And so, I remember when I was little I used to see all the shepherds going around with their flocks, and they had the donkey and on the donkey they will have the paiolo on the back." "So that would actually make polenta in the field?" "That's right." "On the open fire?" "That's why you make it on the open fire." "During the war, that was the only thing that they had, polenta and when the partisan, which were striving here, you know it's like lost..." "The heroes?" "The heroes." "That lived in the woods." "Yeah, you know they were living in the woods." "They'll camp, you're duty as a, somebody that didn't like the Fascists, obviously, at that point was to give half of your polenta to them." "A beautiful colour!" "It's like saffron or something." "Beautiful yellow." "This is Roberto This is your..." "This is my brother." "This is your brother." "You look exactly, nothing like you." "No, he's been training how to do polenta for the last 20 years." "Who's the older brother?" "He is." "And he's the one that's getting all the training." "I'm just been around just doing Michelin starred food." "You know, something not very important." "I'm hungry." "Is this the moment of truth?" "This is the most important moment." "The man job is done, now we've got to go upstairs and see what the girls have managed to..." "Fantastic." "..Rustle up." "I like the way, I like the way it's all swaddled up like a baby." "While we were making the polenta, my mum was busy whipping up a meaty brochette and some delicious porcini mushrooms." "Come, sit down." "'This is the kind of food that ignited my love affair with cooking." "'Hearty and simple, just the way I like it.'" "Wow." "Look at the lake." "Eh, and eat the polenta." "Now you are full emersion." "You smell it?" "This woody smell." "Mmm.." "You see how the flavours are so settled, so...?" "Mellow, gentle." "Mellow, gentle." "Almost like it reflects the personality of the people." "Here, the people are a bit more mellow, and the nature determine what the people eat, but it almost looks like you almost determine the character of the people." "Having visited Giorgio's home, it's only reinforced my sense of how strong an influence his earthy Lombard roots have had on him." "But there are still sides to this region he doesn't know." "Lombardy is a treasure trove of surprising little known works of art, and near the town of Bergamo there's a fascinating masterpiece Giorgio has never seen before." "Just a few miles from where you live, there's this chapel attached to a grand house, and inside the chapel is one of the most extraordinary weird fresco cycles of the whole Renaissance." "Right." "By an artist called Lorenzo Lotto." "Right." "It's absolutely bizarre." "He's like the Renaissance version of Magritte or Salvador Dali." "OK." "The frescos he created here in 1524 were commissioned for the private chapel of the Suardi family, one of the oldest and most influential in the region." "The chapel isn't usually opened to the public, but the family have kindly agreed to let us in." "Same." "The same family from the time, so from the time of Lorenzo Lotto, 500 years later, still the same family." "Oh, that's fantastic." "Originally, the Suardis didn't reserve the chapel for their own exclusive use." "Ordinary people who lived locally were encouraged to worship here." "The works of art inside plunge you back to 16th-century Lombardy, a world in the grip of the Reformation." "What do you think of this extraordinary weird image?" "Yeah, it's like this fingers, isn't it?" "It's very weird, surreal isn't it?" "It's absolutely surreal." "Christ in need of a manicure." "He's got these strange...it reminds me of that German story" "Struwwelpeter, the boy who lets his nails grow for ever." "If you look, you see there's a little clue at the top actually to what's going on." "Lorenzo Lotto is the only painter who took that line from the Bible." "Ego sum vitis vos palmites." "I am the vine and you are the branches." "And he turned it into this extraordinary image." "What are all these image up there?" "You've got saints growing in the...the whirls and the curls of this vine as it reaches up." "But although it's so striking as an image, you mustn't think of it as a single scene, cos it's not." "It's actually like a comic book." "And what it tells is this very bloody story of Saint Barbara," "Santa Barbara, and she is the daughter of Dioscoro, this evil pagan." "And he wants to marry her off, but he wants her to be a virgin, so he locks her into this tower." "as he goes off on his travels." "OK." "What he doesn't know, is that when she's in the tower," "Christ visits her, gives her a vision, she converts to Christianity." "There she is kneeling, praying outside the tower, always accompanied by this lovely little white dog with her." "Yeah, the dog is there." "And now this is where the story gets bloody and turns nasty." "Dioscoro, her father, has come back and there he is saying," ""Now's the time for you to get married."" "And she points up to heaven and says," ""No, I'm not going to marry any man, I have become a bride of Christ."" "Now he has her tortured." "He got her." "Look, he's carrying her..." "He's got her hair there." "He's dragging her by her hair." "Dragging her." "And it gets really nasty." "I mean, it's X-rated, isn't it?" "I mean, he doesn't pull his punches." "So they apply burning brands to her breasts and her genitals." "It's very physical, you know." "Lotto's living in this time that's extremely violent." "It really looks terrible, doesn't it?" "And throughout this sort of bloody story, sufferings are punctuated by little rays of hope." "And now an angel comes down from heaven and gives her a white cloak to put around her body." "And as soon as she puts the cloak around her body, her whole body is healed, and then her little dog is accompanying her all the way." "The thing about this fresco cycle is the date." "Hmm." "It's 1524, this is a time of huge crisis in Wittenberg and the north, just over those mountains that he's painted." "Luther is saying," ""We must split the church, we must protest against Rome."" "And this fresco is the Suardi family's way of saying to everybody who lived around here, don't buy into the idea that this church is going to be split, stay true to the old faith." "And also, I think just the picture has these kind of normal people." "So the people kind of sympathise with that." "Yeah, or... ..Can see themselves part of this thing." "Absolutely, it's saying to the people," ""This could happen in your world."" "Hmm, hmm." "Lotto himself is actually represented in that fresco." "Oh, OK." "I think that's almost like his signature." "Looks like that." "And he's looking at us." "And he's got this haunted expression." "He's almost saying, "Got the message?"" "I think, and for such a small chapel and with such a big..." "I like that big message." "I think that's what he's saying." ""Have you got the message?"" "'He's an Italian artist with an Italian message, 'but Lotto's style owes a lot to the art of northern Europe." "'I love it!" "'" "Andrew's right." "Lombardy often has more in common with northern Europe than Mediterranean south." "Progressive and pragmatic, unlike the laidback southerners, the Lombards like to get things moving." "And you don't have to look far for examples from every era." "My favourite is located on the river Adda, one of the greatest arteries of Lombardy." "It may not be a fresco, but I'm pretty sure Andrew will appreciate it." "Andrew this is it, this is the bridge, this is it, we are here!" "Oh, look at the drop!" "It's unbelievable." "Turn, turn right here." "Here you've got a lot of industry and, and, and exchange." "So this bridge was very, very important for the communication." "It is amazing." "Built in 1889, the San Michele bridge was much admired across Europe for its elegant design and cutting edge technology." "It's simple, beautiful, and most importantly functional." "Wow." "It's enormous, isn't it?" "It looks so tiny from the top, now it is just so big." "What I like is, when you see it in the river, it's like an eye staring into the 20th century." "And this is what Lombardy is all about, you know, looking towards the future." "They built this thing in two years." "Two years?" "!" "In two years they built this thing." "Their feet were definitely in Europe." "These guys were there with everybody else with the Industrial Revolution and building and going forwards." "They're kind of the dreamers, but they're also engineers." "Bellisimo." "Well, I think we've had enough wandering around." "It's time to go into the beating heart, the capital of this region, Milan." "Even the road that takes you there, the A8, expresses Lombardy's forward looking spirit." "They say it's the first motorway in the history of roads." "That's right, not the German, not the English, but the Italians built the first." "North Italians." "This was the first road, straight in a very Roman way and went through all these big fat towns and took you to Milan." "This road is also very important at a symbolic level, for what a northern Italy wanted to represent in the earlier 20th century." "Because throughout the 18th and 19th century," "Italy was a byword for a country living in the past, going really nowhere." "And then suddenly this road, this road said no, no, no, we're going somewhere and where are we going, we're going to the future." "Rome may be the capital, but Milan is the real power behind Italy." "Over 2,000 years old, it occupies a key position along the ancient trade route between Rome and northern Europe." "Dynamic and industrious, it remains the most important commercial centre in the country." "For me, there's only one place to start our exploration of the city, the grand Gothic Cathedral." "Dominating the old city centre, it's the heart and soul of Milan." "All roads seem to start and end here." "Construction started in 1386 and it's one of the earliest examples of the great Milanese gift for design and engineering." "Do you know, Giorgio, I think that's the first time..." "Yeah." "..I have ever seen the front of Milan Cathedral without huge amounts of scaffolding on it." "It's the first time I've seen it so white." "Yeah." "Even in the picture on the panettone, the one you buy at Christmas, there's a picture of it and it's much greyer than that." "It's wonderful this cathedral front." "Ruskin loved it, he talked about its frost, crystalline beauty." "He thought it was almost like a snowflake that has come down to Earth." "Yes." "It's got that sort of structure of a snow flake." "It's beautiful." "It is impressive, isn't it?" "Shall we go inside?" "Let's go and have a look." "Built over six centuries, the cathedral is one of the largest in all of Europe." "It's dedicated to the Madonna and is still one of the great pilgrimage sights in all of Italy." "I've visited many times, and always find something new to marvel at." "'This time we're going to explore a very different part of the building.'" "I love this, what a treat." "'We're on our way to the roof of the Duomo, 'the most ingenious part of its design.'" "Oh, yes." "How beautiful is that?" "!" "I think we've arrived." "'We've arranged to meet one of the engineers currently restoring the roof.'" "Hello." "'Benigno Morlin works for the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, 'the 600-year-old workshop that built the cathedral, 'and is still dedicated to its restoration.'" "These are pieces they've remade." "Oh, beautiful." "OK so, they own, they own the quarry where you actually get this stone from." "It is an historic quarry." "It's an historic..." "It's the same." "It's the same quarry..." "It's the same quarry." "..They got the stone from in the first place." "'It was modelled on the Gothic cathedrals of northern Europe." "'But the Lombard builders couldn't resist adding a few 'innovations of their own." "'And the construction of its roof was completely revolutionary.'" "'Talking to Signore Morlin made us 'want to see more of the Duomo's crowning glory." "'I love how what might have been a purely functional feature 'has been made a thing of beauty." "'It's as if there's a whole other cathedral here up in the clouds." "'And it's open to the public too.'" "It's a phenomenon, this building." "It is incredible." "I tell you, it's the only great Gothic cathedral that seems almost designed for you to be able to enjoy and take pleasure in the structure of its making." "Down here, you see, you've got the sort of series of walkways, pathways, it was always made to be walked on, enjoyed." "Right." "So all the different levels, you can see the structure, and as a result of that, you know they've exercised their ingenuity, whereas in other Gothic cathedrals, the spires and the minarets just rise up to the sky pointing to God." "Here they've become plinths for outdoor sculptures." "You could say this is the first outdoor sculpture park." "You know what it reminds me of, it reminds me of this, you know when you wet the sand and you make these things and they just sort of grow underneath your hands." "It has the same kind of fragility to that." "That's what's so beautiful about the Gothic, I think." "This cathedral is actually the engine room of what's made" "Milan a great temple of modern technology and design, because in the Gothic period, the mathematicians, the engineers, the architects, the designers, they were brought into being by the needs of this cathedral." "Solving problems." "So yes, it's kind of a machine that's constantly attracting to Milan, technological innovators." "'Back in the day, every great intellectual who came to" "'Milan seems to have been involved with the cathedral." "'And in the Duomo's archives, there's evidence of one particular 'genius and his small contribution.'" "Roberto." "Buongiorno." "A list of payment for everybody who collaborated to build the Duomo." "A lot of people seem to have collaborated." "Excusi, Roberto." "Si." "This is, you've picked this one out for us and it's actually evidence that Leonardus Florentinus, so Leonardo from Florence..." "Si." "..ie, Leonardo Da Vinci had actually done some work for the cathedral." "How wonderful." "The tiburio is the top..." "The cupola." "That's right." "What a wonderful little detail, cos that's far less than he would be paid for the major commissions." "And yet, a wooden model for a cupola is a very complicated thing to make, so that suggests to me that he really wanted to work on the cathedral, he wanted to leave a mark on Milano." "He understood something." "Yeah." "Well, of course, he didn't, in the end, design the cupola." "Yeah." "The model never got used." "No." "It's been lost." "Grazie, Roberto." "It's a pleasure." "Arrivederci." "Arrivederci." "'It's very revealing that Leonardo sold himself to 'the court of Milan as an engineer rather than an artist." "'He worked for the great Duke Ludovico Sforza for nearly 20 years." "'Designing bridges, boats, weapons or war." "'Design and engineering were the priorities in Milan." "'They're what its success is built on.'" "'That philosophy had a radical impact on the shape of the city." "'Just a short walk from the Duomo, you can visit 'one of the most outstanding examples of technical imagination." "'La Scala is amongst the most prestigious opera houses 'in the world, and we've been allowed to take a look inside.'" "I've never been here before." "This, look at this!" "I think it's the world's first horseshoe shaped theatre." "That's right." "And it's all designed with sound on their mind." "So it's incredible." "You know, you see the shape of each thing and how it's made as well." "You know, to not destroy the echo." "The boxes?" "Yeah, the boxes." "I'd love to come and actually..." "You sing a little bit, can you sing?" "THEY SING A NOTE" "No." "Oh." "Oh, no, I can't." "It is absolutely outstanding to be here." "But we didn't just come here to admire the theatre," "I'm taking Andrew to Il Marchesini, a restaurant in the same building." "It's owned by the most celebrated Italian chef in the world," "Gualtiero Marchesi." "With three Michelin stars, he globalised Italian food and made it the success it is today." "Gualtiero is waiting for us, so come in and see." "It's like a theatre curtain." "That's what it is, we are in the theatre restaurant." "Gualtiero makes this dish, one of his creations." "And to me, it's the dish that really, really represents Milan more than anything else that I have seen before." "What's this dish called?" "Not just Milan!" "Italy." "He says all Italy." "THEY LAUGH" "With gold?" "Yeah, with gold." "Yeah, with gold, saffron and..." "We are rich." "We're rich, I like it." "Yeah." "One of the things that matter is to really concentrate on the flavour." "And very neat and clear flavoured." "So even if there is a lot of creation in what he does, it is always with a great respect for the flavours." "Hmm." "So what is the essential flavour in this risotto?" "The saffron." "The saffron?" "Definitely, yeah." "HE SPEAKS ITALIAN" "So it's turning the procedure upside down." "OK." "Or the risotto." "They also put a lot of cheese." "To give the acidity." "Then you taste only the cheese." "Taste it." "Mmm, wow." "Acidity." "That's like erm..." "Very high acid." "..A beautiful reduction of wine..." "Wine with onions. .." "With butter." "Beautiful thing!" "When he said gold, I thought he meant he was actually going to put some gold leaf in it." "Hold on a minute." "But he means, he means gold as in..." "No, no, no, no, no, there is some gold coming." "..Metaphorical?" "No, no, no, no, wait a minute." "That's amazing." "Go on, you've got to taste it." "I have to taste it." "Oh, what an idea." "I'm just going to eat loads of gold." "HE MOANS HAPPILY" "And the shape of the rice." "Can you feel the rice?" "Yeah, you can get the shape of each of the rice in your mouth, which makes a difference how you flavour it." "Innovation doesn't mean that you have to complicate things or layer it so much." "And this is a clear example of somebody expressing himself..." "Simplicity." "..Without complicating things." "So express yourself in simplicity, this is so important." "Grazie." "Arrivederci." "I will have some more gold." "HE LAUGHS" "'After sampling Marchesi's gold, 'what better way to walk off the richness 'than with a passeggiata through Milan's finest galleria." "'Sophisticated and opulent, 'the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is the oldest shopping mall in Italy." "'Strolling through this luxurious arcade, it's obvious why Milan 'is one of the fashion capitals of the world.'" "Look how elegant they are." "Even the traffic wardens, look at them." "Fantastic." "Those are the cops." "Those are the traffic warden, not the cops." "Only in Italy." "Only in Milan, you know." "It's a bit of a temple of capitalism really, as you can see." "Well, I think it's a cathedral of capitalism." "I think what's amazingly daring about it is that the Duomo is literally there." "And the Scala is there." "And the Scala is there, so you got the temple of art, the temple of religion there and you've got the temple of money here." "Because, yeah, this is what it's all about." "It is and it's so grand!" "1861, so it's, it's just a few years after the Great Exhibition in London, the building of the Crystal Palace." "Because it does look like that, doesn't it?" "It's the same." "A Victorian sort of building." "And it's a great statement from a city to, right in the middle of that, to really show their power." "And you know, the commercial." "You know, they are commercial animals those guys." "I think it's the only place where you can really see and feel that sort of huge pride and self confidence, you know, across Italy in the Industrial Revolution." "Yes." "You only really feel that here." "Yeah." "There is one thing that I want to show you." "Yeah." "And whenever you come to this place, there is this superstitious thing, and if you see any Milanese walking through, they will come along and what they will do is stand on the balls of the toro." "It's called scica i ball al toro." "And you go like that." "Step on the balls of the bull?" "And you turn around and that's it." "Always in Italy there has to be a superstitious..." "OK, is that 'cos you need balls if you're going to pay the prices for some of these clothes?" "THEY LAUGH" "'One of the things I love about the city is how open it is 'to new ideas and innovations." "'Although it cherishes its history, Milan isn't stuck in the past." "'Progressive, forward-thinking, it fostered one of the most 'revolutionary art movements of the early 20th century, Futurism." "'It was dreamed up in 1909 'by an eccentric poet and orator called Marinetti.'" "Fillippo Tomasso Marinetti, in my opinion, wasn't a very nice man." "A lot of things wrong with him, he was a Fascist." "Misogynist." "He glorified war, but he did have a vision." "And I think he's a very interesting character because what he did was, he set out to drag Italy into the 20th century, into the modern world." "The Futurist Manifesto, it's a guide to enjoying modern life." "Everything that an Italian perhaps at the beginning of the 20th century might find disconcerting, that rapid movement of a tram, a crowded street, the sudden sense that everything's moving, it's confusing." "And, Andrew, what was amazing is that when you travel the world and when I went to New York and I went to the MOMA," "I was so shocked to see there is a room only of Futuristic painting." "In Italian museums, very rarely you find a whole room of Futurism." "Maybe you find one of these." "The Italians have kind of refused them this." "I think that's part of the later story, because Futurism turned dark, became associated with Fascism, it got a bad name in Italy." "But here in Milan, it's the one exception." "A home city of Futurism." "They did actually create and build a great collection, which we're going to see and we're..." "Yeah." "And I think we're just about there." "Yeah, we are in Duomo, we have to get out now." "Andiamo, let's go and look at some electric art." "'We're visiting the Novecento Museum, 'home to the best collection of Futurist art in Italy.'" "I really like this." "It's like a little capsule of Futurism, all condensed into just a couple of galleries." "Here they begin, they're in Paris, they're in the cafes, they're reading the papers, they're doing what Picasso had done, they're trying to think, "What would it be like to be a modern artist?"" "And I think, suddenly, on this other wall, bang, you've got the answer." "Hmm." "They turn, this is not a very well-known Futurist, Achille Funi." "But he is turning to Milan, he's not in Paris, he's painting Milan, he's painting a man getting off a tram." "That's what it looks like for real, look at that." "It's like an explosion, isn't it?" "I think what he's trying to, he's trying to capture that, you know when we were on the tram, that sense that the world is not still." "That there's the sound, you can almost hear the shriek of the tram." "They do take their cue, to a certain degree, from Paris." "Because Paris is the great centre of modern art, but they're changing all the time." "Think of someone like Toulouse Lautrec painting the can-can girls." "Well, this is an Italian artist, Gino Severini and this is what he makes of the can-can." "This is very much an artist who's read Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto." "Hmm." "And he's interested in this idea that we are inhabitants of the machine age, and when he looks at the chorus line, it's as if he sees a group of people who've turned themselves into a kind of animated piston engine." "You know, legs kicking." "Yeah, 12 pistons going up." "It's almost like people becoming like the inside of a motor car." "They were setting themselves quite a difficult task, which is to capture in a still frame, a sense of movement." "This picture, once you read the title, you can see the subject." "Girl Running On A Balcony." "It is there, the girls running on a balcony, literally." "Like if it was different frames of a moving image." "Yeah." "The further you get, the more you can actually see the image moving." "It takes really shape." "It is brilliant." "One of the things I like about Futurism is, that they're trying to break up the language of the past." "But the real star of the movement was a man called Umberto Boccioni." "Look at this." "This is, this is Boccioni's sort of masterpiece in sculpture." "And it's called Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space." "It was based, how appropriate for one of the masterpieces of Milan, with its two great football teams, is based on the image of a football player." "What do you think of it, do you like it?" "I really, really like it." "It reminds me more than a footballer, he actually looks like one of those little robo transformers that my children used to have." "Yeah, well, I don't think it's a coincidence." "It's the Futurist man striding into what he thought was the future." "'The Futurists didn't just want to revolutionise art, 'they wanted to transform how Italians ate as well." "'Marinetti even wanted pasta banned." "'And in 1930 he compiled a radical cookbook." "'I can't resist trying out a couple of recipes on Andrew.'" "What is that?" "Look, here you got a sandwich that instead of having the bread on the outside, you have the salami on the outside and the bread is in the inside." "You have got anchovies and you got green apple." "Fantastic, it looks brilliant, doesn't it?" "So it's really like a very Italian version of what they, you know, what they thought the food of the future would be." "Do you expect me to like this?" "Oh, I expect you to taste it!" "You know, you know, I made an effort to make it so you're going to have to taste it at least." "OK." "OK." "Is it delicious or what?" "What is that?" "!" "ANDREW LAUGHS" "I'm trying to be polite, Giorgio." "No." "In deference to Fillippo Tomasso, but..." "No, there is some...it's a quite an interesting taste, isn't it?" "Hmm." "It's sort of a little bit disgusting when you bite into it because you're chewing through vast amounts of thick, fatty salami." "Taste the other one." "It's, do you...?" "It's the other one." "So what...the other one's a strong taste." "OK." "And it has got, shall I tell you what's inside?" "No, let me guess." "OK, bite, go." "Sandwich tasting." "This is..." "Oh." "THEY LAUGH" "That is amazing." "That's amazing." "I have to say, actually, I like this one." "It's got a banana in it." "I know." "And what you have to think about is, you know, this is 100 years ago." "We're talking about certain ingredients that were so far ahead." "These guys were so far out, much more than Heston Blumenthal is with his snail porridge at the moment." "Banana." "Man, they see banana once a year." "And it's got anchovies, banana, and another very important thing." "Mustard, like an English mustard." "So they look again to the outside world, they look to the English, they look to another world, a world more industrialised than they one that they had." "It's seriously weird." "Seriously good as well, I think." "The perfect breakfast sandwich, isn't it?" "It'll be really an energetic food, it's food on the go and it's supposed to inspire you, and make you feel like you are a modern man, that's what it's all about." "Bizarrely, if you told me what you were going to put in there," "I wouldn't have even touched it." "Right." "But it's fantastic." "How many recipes in the Futurist Cookbook did you look at?" "I read them all." "And how many did you think actually could be turned into food you could eat?" "Eh, two." "THEY LAUGH" "So we're eating the only two recipes you thought..." "Yeah." "..And I thought one of them was disgusting anyway, so." "Cheers, man." "I think the only way to toast a banana and anchovy sandwich is with pineapple liqueur champagne cocktail." "What are we doing?" "'For all their exuberance," "'Marinetti and many of the Futurists were politically misguided." "'When Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in 1922, 'they embraced his radical policies to modernise Italy." "'Mussolini would bring Italy to its knees and into the Second World War." "'And there's one artist, Mario Sironi, who I think 'captures the darkness of this time better than anyone else." "'His work in the Novecento is a poignant reminder of how" "'Fascism devastated Italy.'" "These are some of Sironi's pictures in the '20s and '30s." "And here, Sironi seems," "I think, to be painting a kind of dark portrait of Italy as it moves into the Fascist years, as it moves towards totalitarians and..." "It's very difficult to think that this guy was associated with that movement." "Yeah." "I mean, what we see downstairs is this explosion of colour and energy, and things in here are just like monochrome." "There is no hope in this picture isn't there?" "It's like the guy is almost fading away, isn't he?" "And the other one is in desperation completely." "Like there is no future." "Sironi had it from both angles because the Fascists, who he was supposedly working for, didn't like what he produced for them." "And the avant-garde, the rest of Italy, as well, didn't like him because he was Fascist." "And his work became ever increasingly melancholic." "If we look at this picture," "I mean, if anything, it's even darker than the other one." "This melancholy figure, as it were, stranded among the ruins of this new modern Italy by a sort of shattered aqueduct." "A night sky, it's all darkness, it's all despair." "Do you think these pictures do get to the heart of this dark moment in Italian history?" "Definitely." "Definitely, both of them." "They really are very, very sad pictures." "You know, because my family have been through that." "My uncle got shot by the Fascists." "He was a partisan?" "He was a partisan and he got killed." "All the family were involved in the Resistance." "When you hear my father talking about those years, they just, you know, they were really suffering, there was no food." "The Americans were coming and bombing, the Germans were running away, you know, it's just really like a social implosion, the wars." "You know, somewhere along the line you understood that this was what was going to happen." "It's a rollercoaster ride, Italian history." "'Despite the trauma suffered at the hands of the Fascists, 'the country bounced back." "'After the Second World War, Lombardy rolled its sleeves up 'and kick started the economic boom of the '50s and '60s, 'that transformed Italy into a modern country.'" "'Even though they never stand still, 'the people of Lombardy never forget their roots." "'Much of Lombard life is rooted in our food, 'the kind of staple dishes I grew up eating." "'After a busy day, I think it's time for Andrew 'to experience a local classic.'" "We've been poncing around a lot." "Poncing around?" "Yeah, we've been, we've been in the super shops and things like that, I want to show the heart that's really what the people eat, you know." "So you're going to de-poncify us through food." "Yes, that's right." "So we have check out one very important ingredient." "It's very early in the season, see if we've got any cabbage." "If we've got cabbage, I can cook you Cassoeula." "'Hearty and earthy, the Cassoeula is just as representative 'of Lombardy as Marchesi's delicate risotto." "'With the vegetables chosen, it's time to go to the butchers, 'the Macelleria of Roberto Faravelli.'" "See, this is the Macelleria." "This has been here for 50 years, Andrew, you know." "We're going to meet the son." "'The meat is the most important part of the Cassoeula." "'This is real nose-to-tail eating." "'And I know Roberto will sort us out with the best cuts.'" "HE SPEAKS ITALIAN" "This is puntina." "Pork, spare ribs." "Spare ribs, yeah." "HE LAUGHS" "Sexy Italia, eh!" "THEY LAUGH" "The nose." "The nose." "Si." "Gelatine." "Gelatine." "So you put the pig's nose in to make, to make it gelatinous?" "That's right." "Ears." "Ears." "Nice and cruchant." "Cruchant." "How do you say in Italian, that's a meal to put hairs on a man's chest?" "GIORGIO TRANSLATES" "THEY LAUGH" "Grazie!" "Arrivederci, grazie." "'Now it's time to get to work, and there's quite a lot of work to do." "'It's ages since I've cooked it.'" "Beautiful, isn't it?" "Yeah, beautiful." "The smells, the colour, you know, this is what food is all about for me." "This is the smell that I used to smell as I came home from school." "As soon as I got to the gate of the house, I knew that my grandmother was cooking this, because you could smell it from outside." "Red wine." "Red wine." "Mmm, it's such a good smell." "It is, isn't it?" "Now it's cooking." "So we're going to add the rest of the pig." "Do you want me to shave the pig's ear?" "That's right." "Well, I want you to take away the hair." "Just like that, yes." "And in the meantime, while you're doing that," "I'm going to add the other pieces." "The tail, the snout." "This feels to me, like a recipe that people have been cooking for many centuries." "The idea is, they're using these parts because they are the parts that are ready to be used straight away when you've killed the pig." "The rest of the meat, if it's hanged for a bit, it's better." "The ham will go and be cured, the back will be back heated and slice." "Oh, cos this is the dish for the day of killing of the pig, right." "That's right, that's right." "OK." "Oh, it all begins to make sense." "Here I've got the cabbage." "Cabbage and pig, it's a classic combination, isn't it?" "Absolutely." "And now all we have to do is wait for a couple of hours." "OK, we are happy." "'Finally, it's ready and time for Andrew to taste Lombardy.'" "Andrew, I introduce you to the Cassoeula." "Mmm." "Smell that." "Mmm, fantastic." "The nose." "It looks lovely." "I'm going to have the ears." "Is there another ear?" "I'll give you half of my ear." "Then, Andrew, what you do..." "You excavate some cabbage." "The cabbage is fantastic, it's completely permeated with the meat juices." "And kind of sweet, you know." "It's a bit of ear." "It's like cutting into jelly, fantastic." "Mmm, it's really good." "Completely melts in your mouth, doesn't it?" "It's fantastic food." "I love food that belongs to somewhere, to a culture." "And this, for me, it's Lombardy." "Fantastic." "Cheers." "Cheers." "And the next two hours eating." "That's OK." "We got time." "Pace yourself." "I know, we've got a lot to get through." "'The Cassoeula was the perfect dish to change gear 'and lead us out of Milan." "'We've come to Mantua, in the Po Valley, 'one of Lombardy's great treasures." "'Tranquil and elegant, it's home to the second great masterpiece" "'I want us to visit." "'The work of art is to be found inside the Palazzo Te, 'a hunting lodge built in 1525 for the powerful Duke Federico Gonzaga." "'I think Giorgio may even like it more than the frescos 'we saw at Villa Suardi.'" "Prego signore." "Cavaliere." "'Inspired by the grand villas of Rome, 'the palace was designed by architect and painter Giulio Romano.'" "So, Giorgio, welcome to the Palazzo Te." "These guys used to live in luxury, didn't they?" "Well, I think of this as the house of fun." "The whole place was once full of jokes." "This courtyard, originally, there was a labyrinth, so even trying to get into this place, you'd get lost." "Unless you were with the Duke, who would take you through." "Oh, right." "It was just full of little games." "So here we are." "Now this palace was not a place for serious thought." "It wasn't a place for the administration of his estates." "It wasn't a place for business." "It was, so to speak, a place for monkey business." "No way!" "And er, I think the theme of this set of illustrations, or decorations, is basically sex and drinking." "'Inside, Giulio combined his skills to create some truly 'sense-stunning illusions.'" "Everything I've shown you so far is a prelude to Giulio Romano's piece de resistance." "Wow!" "Oh, my God!" "Come in the middle, come in the middle." "It's so brilliant." "Oh." "It makes you almost feel sick, doesn't it?" "It's like it's falling down, the whole thing." "Is it not straight or something?" "No, it's not straight at all." "The room's got no corners, you see." "So that's why you feel like you really fell down, doesn't it?" "Wow!" "And originally, the floor was undulating, so when you came in, you would almost stumble and feel like you were taking part in the scene, because the subject, in a sense, is the biggest earthquake in mythological history." "It's called the Sala Dei Giganti." "And the story is, that the giants had tried to rebel against Jupiter in heaven." "And Jupiter punishes the giants by striking them with the thunder and lightning." "Oh, this is incredible!" "Giulio Romano was taught by Raphael, the great master of the High Renaissance." "And master of the calm and tranquillity, order, reason." "And this, so to speak, is the first thing that Giulio Romano does after he gets out of school." "He's rebelling against his teachers." "It's almost as if he's bringing down the great edifice of the High Renaissance." "He's bringing it down with his jokes and his games, poking fun at it, making fun of it." "This style of art is called, Maniera, Mannerism." "It's a reaction against all that purity, all that classicism." "It's incredible." "What a place, eh!" "I'm glad you liked it." "'Palazzo Te certainly packs a punch." "'But it's not just architecture and painting 'that Lombardy does brilliantly." "'A short drive away in Cremona, is another example of 'the perfect marriage of tradition and innovation." "'It's the home of the Stradivari violin." "'Antonio Stradivari perfected the art of violin-making 'here in the 18th century." "'The Lombards have always been proud of their excellent craftsmanship, 'and they are still making instruments 'to the Stradivari standard today." "'We are visiting the International School Of Violin Making.'" "Number five, here we are." "Come, Andrew." "When I was little, I used to go in Varese and there was this shop where these guys made violins." "And I was so fascinated by how they made them." "Signor Daniele, buongiorno." "Buongiorno." "Signor Andrea." "Piacere." "Look at those tools that they have to make it." "I love the precision and it takes..." "..50 days to make a violin. 50!" "50 working days." "So it is a work of love." "I notice that he's..." "One little stroke of that wrong, you can just mess it all up." "So, to me, this is artisan work taken to a different level." "Look at that." "Beautiful!" "Every liutaio goes and chooses his own wood, like an artist would choose his own colours." "Michelangelo going to Carrera to choose his marble." "Or a chef choosing his own ingredients." "Yeah." "You know, the principle ingredient is the wood." "'Stradivari violins are the most valuable in the world." "'In the town's museum, there is an unrivalled collection 'of some of the Master's original instruments." "'To preserve their sound, they must to be played regularly." "'I've arranged for us to have a private audience with Maestro Bosco, 'the person responsible for keeping these precious objects alive.'" "We're going to hear a Stradivarius." "Yes." "And it's called Vesuvius." "Vesuvius." "'I can't quite believe we're going to have our own private concert 'played on an original Stradivarius.'" "Vesuvio." "HE PLAYS THE VIOLIN" "'This is such a treat." "'I never realised that Stradivari was from Lombardy, 'but it all makes sense." "'The attention to detail, the beautiful design, 'the utter fitness for purpose.'" "'There is one last stop for us in Lombardy." "'A place that for me epitomises the spirit of the region, 'the Taccani power station." "'Built in 1904, it was one of a series of hydro electric plants 'on the river Adda, that powered the modern success of Lombardy." "'My father and his father before him were hydraulic engineers, 'so places like this are special to me.'" "Going and seeing my father when he was working," "I spent a lot of time in places like that." "But, you know, it is so important because this is the blood of Lombardy." "They found themselves with a really enormous light industry that needed energy to propel it forward." "They didn't have anything to burn, so they harnessed the power of these mountains and this water coming down." "I love these old machines, I think they are wonderful." "They are incredible, aren't they?" "This is like a...it's really an expression of what the" "Lombards are, which is about movement, energy, going forwards, building, you know, just getting things moving all the time." "They really built them to last, didn't they?" "To think they were made in 1904, and they're still powering Lombardy with electricity." "Still, yeah." "And what is really, really nice as well is, the river makes the motion to get the tram in Milan to work." "And it is lovely to think that energy then propelled that thing all the way through the Futurism to everybody." "Oh, I was going to say without this place," "Futurism wouldn't have been possible." "Absolutely." "They were celebrating the electrical city." "There's so much noise in here." "Yeah, there is." "It makes me feel like I am in a cathedral full of machines!" "Strikes me that this is quite a good place to end our journey, given that we have been banging on about how Lombardy is the motor that drives Italy." "And here we are, at a turbine station that furnishes half of the electricity of the region." "Pretty amazing building." "It's great, it's like a palace." "It's like the Palazzo del Te, except instead of having..." "Palazzo del electricita." "I think it really sums up what I've got from this particular journey, which is a really strong sense of the role that this part of Italy has played in the larger Italian story." "I think really Lombardy has sort of electrically propelled the rest into the 20th century." "Well, that's the reason that I took you here, because I really see the connection between these kind of spaces." "These kind of showpieces like this are very beautiful to see, but, as well, they really show the resilience of the Lombard." "And that meal you cooked, what did you call it, the cass...?" "Cassoeula." "Cassoeula." "Yeah." "I felt that it was a really nice transition." "It helped me understand, as it were, where Lombardy came from, because that, to me, felt like the origins of this place." "I was going back to something that people had eaten almost for ever." "And it wasn't very fancy, it wasn't very posh, it was really rustic." "That's food from the fields, and that, to me, almost was a symbol of how far they rose, you know." "Through that cathedral, bringing all the intellectuals here." "Through that culture of design gradually developing into the 19th century," "It's an amazing evolution from really quite low origins." "This is also based really on an absolutely strong work ethic." "Everybody realised themselves through work." "Work is like a religion for them." "When they get up in the morning and see you in the square, they don't say to you, "How are you?"" "They say, "Come va il lavoro?", which means, "How's the work?"" "How's the work?" "!" "How's the work, yeah, how do you do in the work?" "Do you think I've finally...hey, maybe I've finally understood that's why you're the way you are!" "Why?" "Because you are a Lombard, you never stop working!" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "I'm Andrew Graham-Dixon and I'm an art historian." "I'm Giorgio Locatelli and I'm a chef." "We are both passionate about my homeland, Italy." "The smells, the colour, this is what food is all about for me." "The rich flavours and classic dishes of this land are in my culinary DNA." "And this country's rich layers of art and history have captivated me since childhood." "It's meant to make you feel as if you are being whirled up to heaven." "We're stepping off the tourist track and exploring Italy's Northern regions of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont." "It's part of Italy that's often overlooked, but it drives the whole country and I want to show off its classic dishes." "Not to mention its hidden legacy of artists, designers, intellectuals." "Wow, look at that!" "This week we are in Piedmont, Italy's best kept secret." "Where people's deep connection with the land has created a very special blend of art, food and popular culture." "A winning recipe for modern life!" "Located on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, Piedmont has the most majestic landscapes in Italy." "It was once the gateway to the whole country." "When Hannibal invaded in the 3rd century BC, this was his way in." "With its unspoilt, natural beauty, it's inspired many artists, not least one of my favourites," "England's greatest painter, Turner." "For me, Piedmont is a food lover's paradise." "There is something delectable here to tickle everyone's palate, from sweet to savoury, and always the finest quality." "And this region is home to one of the most prized delicacies, it epitomises the wonderful, healthy food here - the truffle." "'But sometimes in Piedmont, the best things are the hardest to find." "'We are searching for one of these rare fungi with my friend, Sandrino, 'in the forests near Asti.'" "HE SPEAKS ITALIAN" "We'll see if we can find a good truffle for breakfast." "Vigo, guarda bene." "'The pure air, rich soil 'and dense fog in this part of southern Piedmont 'have created the perfect conditions for the best truffle to grow." "'Sandrino's won the prestigious Golden Truffle award ten times 'and if anyone can find one of these prized nuggets, it's him!" "'" "HE SPEAKS ITALIAN" "It always grows where the shadow of the tree is, it's never out of the shadow, it never grows in a sunny place, obviously because it's a fungus." "So what's the dog doing at the moment?" "He's just..." "At the moment he's scouting." "You can smell the ground." "Smell the ground." "You can smell truffle in the air." "There you are." "He's disappointed because it's small." "The next one will be more lucky." "'The finest restaurants from all over the world clamour to secure 'the pick of each year's harvest." "'And with truffle going for as much as £5.000 a kilo, the business 'of finding these precious pearls is taken very seriously.'" "La museruola." "They will put down some, some..." "His competitors will put down poisoned meat?" "Yeah, poisoned meat." "And that takes one more person out of all..." "One less." "Has he found another one?" "There you are, that's a truffle, that's a big one." "Help get it out." "You don't want to break any off." "OK, stop, stop." "Wow, like a potato!" "Wow, that's a..." "This is good for breakfast." "Yeah!" "This is good." "That's really good." "That is something." "He's very happy." "We're all pleased with you 'cos we can have breakfast now." "Sandrino, come on, give us some truffle." "5 euro, 10 euro, 50." "GIORGIO LAUGHS" "It's too thick, it's too thick, Sandrino." "Wow, I'm just going to have to bite off the edge there." "You rip off the little bit at the end." "Tear off the bit at the end." "You use that as a sort of dipper?" "Yeah, that's right." "That's right." "Wow!" "Wow!" "It's just the smell of the ground, the smell of what nature smells like, isn't it?" "It's all in there." "I think when you got the wood smoke it's like you're eating the wood itself." "Wow." "When they say it's a King's food, now you know why." "'According to Sandrino, the best way to get underneath 'the skin of Piedmont is to explore it by foot." "'And since this is historically a land of pilgrimage, 'we're following his advice." "'We're on an ancient track called the Via Francigena." "'1,000 years old, it once linked Canterbury to the eternal city of Rome.'" "So nowadays I suppose the pilgrimage route that leads to" "Santa Maria de Compostela is the most famous, but..." "Hmm." "...back in the Middle Ages..." "Yeah." "...the Via Francigena was the most popular pilgrimage route." "Yeah." "From north to south." "They used to believe that each mile that you walked was another day off for your eternal soul from purgatory." "So you go to heaven more quickly." "So we would be straight in paradise after this." "ANDREW LAUGHS" "Each blister..." "'We're looking for the exit of the pathway, 'where it opens out to reveal the Susa Valley, 'just about 30 kilometres from the French border.'" "So, Andrew where are we?" "have you got the map?" "We should be at the bottom of the old donkey path." "Oh, La Mulatiera." "Which is where there's the..." "Vista panoramica." "A panoramic view." "Not today." "'Travelling pilgrims needed places to rest, 'and the valley is dotted with beautiful monasteries and abbeys.'" "'One of the oldest, a real hidden gem, is the Abbey of Novalesa.'" "'Home to some fascinating art, it's still open to pilgrims today 'and still home to a community of monks." "This is Father Daniele.'" "So it's almost, seems to me it's a way of purifying yourself of the temptations of life." "GIORGIO SPEAKS ITALIAN" "Si, si." "You can only find it on the road." "The place that you don't know, that's where you can find yourself." "Arrivederci." "Arrivederci, grazie, grazie." "Arrivederci." "I've known for years that there are some wonderful 11th-century frescos in the chapels here, but I've never managed a visit before." "It's not the easiest place to reach." "Look, I love it, it's almost a list of..." ""Silvestre Luigi came here on the 21st June, 1857."" "1857!" "You've got there, somebody called Furla Giusi came in 1960, 1923." "For a lot of people, writing your name on the wall might almost be a way of saying, "I hope my prayers come true."" "OK." "It's almost like a way..." "This is not just graffiti," "It's almost like praying in the form of graffiti." "Look at this!" "How old are these?" "Really, really, really old." "This is very unusual to find paintings as old as this in such good condition up in the mountains with the damp air." "'These paintings have a raw, almost primitive, energy." "'The effect they had on travelling pilgrims can only be imagined.'" "These frescos were painted 960 years ago." "Phew!" "1070, four years after William the Conqueror was invading England, 1066 and all that." "You come in and instantly you're under the eye of Christ." "Christ Pantocrator." "It's this moment when Italian art and Byzantine art are really one and the same thing." "If, all the way from Beirut to Dunfermline," "Christianity is one thing." "Here we've got Saint Eldradus, Saint Eldred." "The story is, he was a very rich person and then he gives everything away and that's when he becomes a pelegrin because he gets given the stick..." "Exactly." "The wooden stick and the bag." "So you know the story?" "No, but it's pretty..." "It does really explain itself, doesn't it?" "And what's nice about this here and also makes it unusual, is that Saint Eldred actually was the head of this monastery." "And he happens to be the patron saint of pilgrimage." "So we have, as it were, a pilgrimage to the origin of pilgrimage." "And that's when he becomes a monk." "I love this, it sort of such, it's such cartoon language." "He drops all his possessions and they place the monk's habit on him." "Don't you think the colours are wonderful?" "Wonderful." "Dyes made from the fruit and the vegetables from round here." "There's probably dye made from, I don't know, blackberry juice or blueberry juice, there'd be dyes made from other vegetable compounds." "It's really simple, made from the earth." "You'd come out of the cold, the brothers would give you something simple to eat, and then you come here and here you get sustenance for your soul." "Yeah, sustenance for your body, and for your soul, ready to carry on the travel." "Ready to carry on to Rome." "Our modern pilgrimage through Piedmont now leads us to a very special location." "It seems to me that everything is connected to purity, spirituality, and responsibility here." "And as so often in Italy, that includes the food." "The Piedmontese defend the purity of the food chain, more than any other people that I can think of." "So it makes sense that this place gives birth to the ethical food movement that's taken the world by storm." "Called Slow Food, it was founded by a good friend of mine." "We're going to meet this guy." "He is called Carlo Petrini, but everybody calls him Il Carlin." "He's the leader maximum of the movement, he's the founder of it." "He's a mercurial character, this guy." "He's like a volcano of ideas." "And it happened here in...we're just coming into the foothills so..." "It's happened in Bra, yes." "We'll be there soon." "Not somebody you think is going to rock the world when you see it." "OK." "Slow Food was founded in 1986 in opposition to the growth of the fast food industry." "It's now a global movement with over 100,000 members, and it's still rooted in the Piedmontese idea of preserving and protecting the tradition of regional food." "We're meeting Carlo at the University Of Gastronomic Science outside Bra, an institute he founded to spread his ideas." "Allora." "Allora." "For example, Bordeaux, wonderful wine made from different grapes." "What we're saying is, take the same attitude maybe to a tomato or an aubergine, maybe the price is less, but we still respect it and we still value it." "He's giving weapons." "It's a sweet revolution." "Cin-cin." "Salute." "Cin!" "I'll see you later." "See you." "Carlo's philosophy makes perfect sense in a region with such amazing producers." "So I want to end the day by putting his principles into practice with a traditional menu." "I need some carrots for the marinade." "These root vegetables are crying out for something rich and earthy to go with them." "Buongiorno." "'Here in Piedmont, they love their hunting." "'So the butcher always has the best game meats." "'I can't think of a better dish to reflect 'the traditional local cuisine than a stew of capriolo.'" "Oh, beautiful." "The capriolo is a mountain deer so the meat tastes similar to venison." "I'm sure Andrew's going to love it." "Ah, fantastic." "Meanwhile, I get on with the much more serious business of choosing wine for dinner." "Piedmont is home to some of Italy's very greatest wines including my favourite red, Barolo." "Perfecto." "Back at our farmhouse, I set to work on our Piedmontese feast." "There is no better way to make a rustic stew than on a real wood fire!" "If we want a little bit more power, there we are." "The more air you allow in..." "The more air I'm letting in..." "The hotter it gets." "The hotter it's going to get." "Brilliant." "So no dials, no knobs." "Is that like an Italio Piedmontese version of an Aga?" "That was actually the same stove that my grandmother used to have." "Really?" "You know, Andrew, this is not the Italian food that is just so famous all over the world, you know." "The kind of...the Mediterranean diet, the olive oil." "Here you've got much more subtle flavours, and you know, and the vegetables are much more root vegetables so they sort of attach more to central Europe than southern Italy." "Do you understand?" "In a sense, maybe it's a kind of Italian food that has more in common with certain aspects of English cooking." "The climate's closer." "Definitely, but a bit better than English cooking, that's for sure." "I'm saying nothing." "It's a pretty good food for some pilgrims that have just come down the hill." "Yes." "OK, so, Andrew, that's our capriolo." "Smells fantastic." "Wow, so that's been marinated not in wine, but in vinegar." "In vinegar." "Here is not balsamic land, this is white wine vinegar land." "It's a great smell." "It's very lean meat." "What cut of the capriolo does this actually come from?" "That would be a back leg, yeah." "It's been up and down the mountain?" "That's what it is, a really powerful animal." "When you see them running..." "I've seen them when you walk in the mountains." "They make you think," ""How on earth did that animal get up there?" That's it absolutely." "And how come it doesn't fall?" "It's almost like a cross between a deer and a cat." "'It's time to pop the cork." "'Barolo's a full bodied wine, it needs time to breathe.'" "HE MOANS HAPPILY" "I'm glad you approve." "I'll tell you, this is the perfect wine for what we are going to eat." "This is a real farmhouse dinner." "Have you got the plates?" "Er, I'll go and get them." "That's what I need, a farmhouse dinner." "I don't think that the farmer would actually serve it to you like that." "I was going to say, this is..." "But, you know, I'm just doing a little bit of the Locatelli twist." "Yeah, you are." "'Stuffed onions, celeriac mash and a hearty portion of capriolo." "'I have been longing for this all day!" "'" "Andrew, after such a long wait, there we are." "Dig in." "Una cena en campane proprio." "You see, what is amazing is, you know, it doesn't look so attractive like the...you see, the colours are much more northern European colour of the food." "It's white and grey." "But how is it?" "It's really good." "Is it?" "Really good, really rich." "I was trying to think what it was, you know, why is it the Slow movement should have been born in northern Italy." "And I was thinking that various things seem to come together in this part." "Right." "In the sense that it's always been a hotbed of intellectual thinkers." "There's a very strong left-wing tradition in northern Italy." "And it's not like Communist type left-wing, but it's..." "No." "It's left wing in a sense of the small against the big." "There is a saying in Piedmont." "Contadino, contadino, scarpe grosse e cervello fino." "ANDREW CHUCKLES Which means..." "I like it." "Farmer, farmer, big shoes but fine brain." "The farmer who thinks." "Hmm." "Which is Piedmontese." "To the Piedmontese farmer." "Piedmontese." "One thing that makes Piedmont so special is its fertile, diverse landscape." "But that's not the whole story." "There's also its rich cultural history and strong industrial heritage." "The best way to uncover this other Piedmont is to take our pilgrimage to its greatest city, Turin." "Turin first flourished in the 16th century when" "Emanuele Filiberto of the powerful Savoy monarchy made it his capital." "And in the 20th century, it became one of the most important industrial centres in Italy, thanks to Fiat and the Agnelli family." "I know the best place to get an overview of the city, its most famous landmark, the Mole Antonelliana." "At 167 metres high, it's Turin's Eiffel Tower." "Wow, look at that!" "What a view!" "I think a lot of people think of Turin because of its association with the automotive industry and Fiat, and factories, thinking of it as an industrial city." "Maybe you forget that actually at the centre, there's this wonderful, almost perfectly preserved Baroque city." "It's actually quite French in feeling, isn't it?" "Absolutely, the whole thing really works." "And it seems to me almost organised as a series of theatrical displays, the buildings are almost like stage sets." "Hmm, squares." "Long avenues." "Yeah." "It's a powerful city for a king, so not that many churches." "Not that many churches." "More outstanding buildings, but less churches than you usually find in Italy." "That's the Palazzo Reale where the Savoy royal family lives, and at the back of their residence in this otherwise crowded, completely built up Baroque town, guess what?" "A huge park, as if to proclaim the fact that they rule the roost here." "You know, we can afford just to have a garden." "And now it's a public park." "Now it's a public park." "The Savoys were ambitious and wanted a city to reflect their power and wealth." "Almost everywhere you turn you're greeted by imposing Baroque architecture." "But for my money, the most impressive of all is the Palazzina di Stupinigi." "'It was designed by Filippo Juvarra in 1729, 'as a hunting lodge for Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy.'" "It's modelled on Versailles, isn't it?" "It feels like Versailles." "'And that's no coincidence." "'Victor Amadeus was married to Louis XIV's niece 'and the Savoys were close to the French court.'" "That looks like Wedgwood, Andrew?" "Wedgewood-style cabinet." "It's sort of an index of everything that was fashionable in the 18th century." "Juvarra was also a talented stage set designer and this place has a real sense of theatre." "Nowhere more so than the grand central hall." "Wow, Andrew, it looks like a cathedral." "Wow." "Like a church." "It is a kind of, well, it's a profane cathedral." "It's a profane cathedral, I love that." "It's a cathedral to the goddess of hunting." "You look up and you think, "Oh, is that the Virgin Mary?" ""Oh, no, it's Diana, it's the triumph of Diana."" "Oh, yes." "Il triumphe di Diana." "There are bows and arrows and dogs and dead animals and hunters and huntresses all over this room." "They weren't great patrons of the arts, they weren't great readers, they weren't great patrons of music, but they loved their hunting." "Also, I love the idea, they have statue underneath here, but then up there they are not, they are painting." "Trompe l'oeil." "It's all about plenty, isn't it?" "It's all about abundance." "That's what it looks like." "You know, "Whatever there is, we've got plenty of it," ""and if we haven't got it, we'll go and catch some."" "And there's one place where their appetite for abundance and ownership is strikingly clear." "It's located in a secret chamber, high up above the impressive cupola." "Isn't it fantastic?" "The smell is absolutely brilliant." "It's like tobacco and wood and..." "HE INHALES Mmm, delicious." ""Who rules?" "We rule."" "It's a statement of power, isn't it?" "It is indeed." "Look at that." "It's so geometrical as well." "There must be an explanation why there is this, like, avenue that's going out like that or is it just a show-off piece?" "I think it's like, er, it's that Louis XIV idea of the Sun King, the king is the sun." "This palace is like the sun, it occupies the centre of Piedmont and its rays..." "..symmetrically stretch to every corner of the land." "You definitely know who's in charge!" "You certainly do!" "By the 19th century, Piedmont, under the Savoys, was one of the most powerful Italian states." "Supported by the monarchy and spearheaded by the Prime Minister, Count Camillo Cavour, the movement to unify Italy was born right here in Turin." "Learned and clever, Cavour loved to discuss ideas, and in the vibrant cafe culture of 19th-century Turin, he found the perfect place." "Fiorio was Cavour's favourite cafe, almost his office." "It was so influential it's said the King himself would ask every morning," ""What are they saying in Fiorio?"" "The cafe was like an informal parliament where Cavour and his followers could speak freely." "HE SPEAKS ITALIAN" "I love this noise." "There you are, Andrew, we are in the place." "There is the picture of the man himself." "Grazie." "What is this?" "This is called Bicerin." "And it's coffee, chocolate and cream." "So very, very dietetic drink." "ANDREW LAUGHS" "Mmm, oh, that is delicious." "Cavour plotted the campaign to unify Italy right here in Fiorio." "It was Cavour and the King who were the power behind Giuseppe Garibaldi's military campaign." "Garibaldi was like the way we see Che Guevara now, that sort of freedom fighter." "They absolutely used his image in order to get that general popular approval." "You know, because themselves they were pretty ascetic people, they didn't have much in common with the common man." "It's a popular uprising in a sense in that the people greet and they welcome Garibaldi's conquering army..." "That's right." "..as it moves south, but essentially this is, this is a movement that is sponsored by the King." "Hmm." "Our man Cavour is a monarchist." "Yeah." "What are the ultimate consequences of this for this region, for Piedmont?" "Piedmont suddenly becomes the most important region of Italy." "It collected taxes from all Italy." "And Rome didn't become the capital, but Turin become the capital of Italy." "Or the first capital of Italy." "Let's drink some more chocolate." "To us." "Food for thought." "The city's cafe culture is still alive and well." "I've never seen such an amazing range of pastries and chocolates." "The Turinese really do have a sweet tooth." "They especially love chocolate here, and were once the world's leading producer of the stuff." "Ferrero Rocher and Nutella both hail from Piedmont." "Oh, the smell!" "Unbelievable." "We can't miss a quick visit to one of the best chocolatiers in town, the laboratory of Guido Gobino." "Here, they specialise in a very Turinese style of chocolate, il Giandujotto." "The story goes, that the Giandujotto was created during Napoleon's brief rule, when importing cocoa from South America was almost impossible." "Always resourceful, the Turinese chocolate makers decide to concoct a paste from local hazelnuts and combine it with the cocoa to make their supply last longer." "What might have been a disadvantage was turned into a winning formula!" "We're having a Giandujotto tasting with Guido himself." "His family have been chocolate makers for 50 years." "I remember this, eating this when I was little." "Bellissimo." "The nuts and the chocolate go together very well." "How would you recommend that one has this, with an espresso as well at the same time or...?" "An espresso maybe or a Moscato wine because it's very flavoured, fruity..." "Fruity." "Or Barolo Chinato or red wine." "A spiced red wine." "You think that the Giandujotto success is attached to the fact that it's based on the Nutella flavouring?" "As you say, the grown-up Nutella." "Yeah, no, you still have the memory of your childhood." "The memory of the...it brings you back to that." "We thank Nutella because Nutella is the first flavour that people, young, young boys taste normally in the world." "Because you can find Nutella everywhere." "So you're still making these, these little objects and you make them all here, but you sell them all over the world?" "We export everywhere, in small quantities of course, because we are an artisanal production." "When I am abroad in Japan for example, in Emirates, when people taste Giandujotto, they love it because it's a very, very interesting taste." "And it is not a traditional taste like bitter chocolate or rich chocolate..." "Yes." "This is very different and this is the real chocolate because it's made in Turin." "It is incredible, a place that has such a tradition, where chocolate is part of their life, and they're not the capital of the chocolate." "Or they are, but they don't kind of show it." "It's a philosophy of Turinese people to work hard and to make everything as good as possible." "Technology for example, chocolate, food, it's not important to show off that we are the best." "They are a bit understated, like the English." "ANDREW LAUGHS Understatement, yes." "Understatement." "Understatement is a good word for us." "Yeah." "Maybe we should very quietly..." "Say goodbye." "..Wish Guido good luck." "Grazie, Guido." "Ciao." "Grazie." "Grazie." "Andiamo." "Dedication and hard work really are in the blood of the Turinese." "Turin, like its neighbour Milan, fosters the tradition of a strong work ethic." "It's what the city's success is built on." "And there's one company more than any other responsible for that success." "Fiat." "Founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli, it flourished in the post-war years, when money from the Marshall Plan kick-started Italy's economic boom." "Fiat's enormous Lingotto factory became a nucleus for the city's workers." "In the '50s and '60s, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from southern Italy settled in the surrounding area to work for Fiat." "This is the Lingotto..." "This is the famous Lingotto factory." "This is the Lingotto factory." "So this reminds me of the Palazzo Stupinigi, the Savoy monarch has gone, but now we've got the Fiat family." "Yeah." "They're the kings of the new economic miracle." "And the familia Agnelli were the family at the head of this corporation of industrialists, that really had experience, after travelling to America, to really pick up this American dream and give it to the Italians." "So was Fiat, in a sense, the General Motors of its day in Italy?" "You know, this is the model T. Everyone is going to drive this car." "Everyone can afford to drive this car." "Definitely, and to make something reasonably cheap enough for them to drive around was part of this." "Fiat was right at the heart of that." "And my stand-out favourite of those affordable cars is the Cinquecento." "Cheap and cheerful, it's become an icon!" "Thanks to the passion and dedication of specialist mechanics, these vintage cars are still on the road today." "I have been told the workshop of Michele and Mauro Miola is packed full of Cinquecentos in restoration." "It's a must for a fan like me." "Mauro?" "Michele?" "Buongiorno, Michele." "If you're from a Catholic family where, you know, the mother and the father keep an eye on the children, maybe this is the first place that you're actually private." "I'm sure that a lot of the kids that are in their 50s now were conceived in this car." "THEY ALL LAUGH" "THEY ALL LAUGH" "He remembers which car!" "Andrew, look at this." "No way!" "This is so beautiful." "Oh!" "That is something, isn't it?" "That's like a showpiece." "Bellisimo." "It's a beautiful piece of design, isn't it?" "Yes, definitely." "I can't leave without getting behind the wheel of one of the Miolas' precious 500s!" "Gently." "Yeah, gently." "Convince her, don't, er..." "Convince her." "Yeah, have you...?" "CAR RUMBLES AND GROANS" "Brakes would be nice as well." "You feel like you're driving a piece of history." "ENGINE RUMBLES" "It's more like you're destroying a piece of history." "ANDREW LAUGHS You've got to be more kind." "So you see, it's that the car changed society completely." "At every level." "Because, like, a vet, a doctor, a nurse, you are in a remote village, suddenly you call and they can come to you now." "So it is a part of society." "That, I think, is why the people love it so much." "I can imagine perhaps someone who's come from Sicily, they come to the north." "Yeah." "What a sensation when they go back to their village in their brand new Cinquecento." "And show off they have become a modern man in modern society." "ENGINE ROARS" "I love the sound when you put a bit of gas on." "ENGINE ROARS" "Andiamo." "The economic boom years were also the glory years of a great Italian art movement." "Arte Povera emerged here in Piedmont in the '60s, as a kind of protest against the rapid industrialisation of Italy." "The artists of the movement took the ordinary materials of everyday life and used them to make art." "The Museum Of Contemporary Art in Rivoli, on the outskirts of Turin, has an unrivalled collection of Arte Povera." "A world away from the opulence of the Baroque, it's down to earth, almost homemade!" "I wonder what Giorgio will make of it." "So this is probably the most famous work of Arte Povera." "Venus Of The Rags, it's called." "By Michelangelo Pistoletto." "And I think, being Italian, of course he's thinking about the past, thinking about statues of Venus, but I think what he's saying to us is," ""How do you represent a person, how do you represent a human being?"" "For me, the rags could be a portrait of a person." "Perhaps through all the clothes they ever wore." "All his life." "Yeah." "That's right." "If you imagine like a huge pile of laundry." "That's everything you ever wore, your body was in there, in there, in there, in there, in there, in there." "And this is a kind of accumulation." "So either you are this permanent ideal figure or actually, maybe not." "Maybe you are more imperfect, you are more ragged." "Maybe your life is a process rather than a state." "So I want to know what you think of this." "It's kind of like a portrait of Italy by another member of the Arte Povera generation, he's called Luciano Fabro." "This is a tombino, this is a pothole cover." "I like it." "It's two Italys." "One upside down." "And then Sicily and Sardinia stuck on it." "It's funny." "I mean, here is where they made Italy, so it's almost like..." "ANDREW LAUGHS" "You know, the first concept of Italy was born here, and so now to have an artist do this and turn it upside-down and stick the bits together, I guess it's got to do with that." "So again, it's the ordinary material of working everyday Italian life." "The rust as well I like." "Yeah." "The rust is beautiful, isn't it?" "Look at that." "I mean, how do you make a portrait of Italy?" "I think it's quite a good one." "Hmm." "There's a piece here by my favourite Arte Povera artist, Giuseppe Penone." "Unsurprisingly for a Piedmontese artist, his work focuses on man's relationship with nature." "This room is made entirely of laurel leaves." "It's beautifully quiet." "HE INHALES" "Wow, that smells fantastic!" "What's that?" "Is that a pair of lungs?" "Yeah." "It's a bronze cast of laurel wreaths." "It's like, you know Slow Food?" "I think this is..." "For me, this is slow art." "Slow art." "You just let it work on you." "It's a funny thing..." "We're indoors and we're in an art gallery, but I feel if I close my eyes I'm almost back to the beginning of where we started our trip, that little sort of chapel on the edge of the valley." "It's a room for contemplation." "Maybe this is like a modern artist's version of a pilgrimage chapel." "And the God is nature." "Absolutely." "I also like the idea that you come in here and you're breathing in these things so it stays in your lungs, and you're taking a bit away with you." "I think it's lovely." "So you've become part of it." "You are part of it." "I think that's part of its meaning." "I've seen Penone's work in museums all over the world." "But seeing it here confirms just how deep-rooted his connection is to his homeland." "And that connection is so totally Piedmontese." "Their commitment to the land has produced one of the most fertile territories in Europe, and the rice fields of Vercelli in the plains north of Turin are the most prized." "The locals have worked hard for centuries to cultivate the best conditions to produce rice here." "And now there are more than 100 varieties grown in these paddy fields - the most popular is carnoroli." "For our chefs, it's the king of risotto rice." "I want to show you these guys, because it's so beautiful, come and have a look." "Look at this." "So, this is straight out of the field." "This is what I eat in my risotto?" "Yes." "These are the pearls of the Baragge, the rice from this rice field." "If you came here in the first half of the year this would be almost like a landscape from China, like a paddy field?" "These would be more like Chinese paddy fields, because they would be small paddy fields." "You can see also they are in different levels in order to work with the water, so you have different levels of it, and it's a very small tenement all the time." "And is this a natural microclimate for rice, then?" "The cold air, that makes it just right?" "Just perfect." "And, also, the perfect, beautiful, pure water that comes from the mountains." "I would imagine that cold air's bad for a crop, but for rice it's not bad, is it?" "It strengthens it." "This area has received the DOP, the Denominazione Origine Protetta, so protected denomination of origins, because this has been proved, it is..." "You cannot produce anything equal to that anywhere else." "This rice has been crossbred and made to what it is through years of experience of the people." "The exceptional rice grown here has made the Vercelli the rice trading capital of Europe." "The town's rice market, the Borsa Vercelli, is the Wall Street of the rice world, and the price set here each week becomes standard across all of Europe." "It's a fascinating game of nerve." "The floor is packed with millers and brokers, haggling over prices." "So, here you'll have the broker, and the miller will check out the quality of the rice." "Look, now he's changing the board, and he's going to look on the whiteboard to see." "Oh, I see, so he's looking for slightly discoloured grains?" "That's right." "He says there is a lot of them discoloured, and broken ones, and there's a lot of them slightly grey." "So he's saying to him, "There's quite a lot of grey ones in here," ""I can't give you the top dollar cos it's not best quality."" "And he's saying, "No, no, come on, it's not that bad." That's right." "I love these two boards." "It's almost like a game of chess." "This must have been used for hundreds and hundreds of years, this system." "'The broker, Giacomo, and miller, Giuseppe, are busy haggling." "'But they seem to be struggling to come to a deal.'" "What price do you want from Giuseppe?" "Yes, I want 350 euros per tonne." "Today, our margin is around 330." "Giacomo looks very interested at this point." "Yes, OK, so 330." "You can barter for me, eh?" "For him it's important, because as the rice there dries ready to go, he wants to get rid of it, otherwise he cannot pick up any others, do you understand?" "He knows that, so it's going to be a little bit of a tug there." "So, can you help in some way, Giorgio?" "Maybe you could be a diplomat." "I think that they've been going on like that for the last 1,000 years," "I don't think they need our help, I'm telling you." "These hidden sides of Piedmont, little tales, chance meetings, are showing me a whole new side to a region I've always loved." "Back in the '80s, when I first visited, it was the art that opened my eyes to Piedmont's special character." "And, on that trip, one place in particular caught my imagination." "The UNESCO protected heritage site called the Sacro Monte di Varallo, an hour's drive from Vercelli." "This extraordinary place of pilgrimage is made up of 45 little chapels, each representing a scene from the life of Christ." "First constructed in the late 1400s, it's evolved and expanded over the centuries." "It might not be high art, but for me, it's as fundamental as the great masterpieces of the Renaissance in creating the culture of this land." "There's one chapel in particular I want to show Giorgio." "It's stayed with me since my first visit here - a gory, violent interpretation of the Massacre of the Innocents." "I think you really understand what the effect these sculptures were meant to have on people when you look at this one." "The appeal is not to the head, the appeal is to the heart, and this horrible scene of children being massacred." "It is a real..." "It's a real..." "It's hard to look at." "I think it makes you feel really sad, and really worried." "I'm sure if you were here with your kids, you'd just grasp them and walk away." "I think it takes you to the scene almost too well." "The attention to detail is stunning, down to the sword, and really you can see it entering the body." "Look at the sufferance of the mother trying to save the baby." "Screaming, you can almost hear them screaming." "Well, I think it's there to put..." "The fear." "..the fear of God into you." "I mean, it's definitely, this place, this whole sacred mountain... ..is a kind of machine, made to ingrain faith in the people who came here, to really make them believe." "In a very spectacular way." "Yes, if you don't pray to God, if you don't behave like a good, devout Christian, you know, maybe these things will happen to you." "Each chapel is like one scene in an unfolding story." "Yes, like a modern film, almost." "You're going through, you've got to know there is going to be the final thing, the resurrection, but you still have to go through all the thought and the pain and everything else." "The chapel I want to take a look at is the one representing the Last Supper." "Quite a spread." "It is quite a spread." "And what is amazing, look, they don't have just bread and wine, like in the Bible, but they've got all the produce from this area." "Look, there's freshwater fish, like trout and things like that." "You've got two different types of cheese in there, and you can actually recognise them very well, because the one on the right, that's a castelmagno, and that one, because it's got a red skin," "is castelrosso, which are really typical cheeses from this area." "So they were eating, as well, something that the people actually knew." "Yeah, yeah, so you can actually identify the cheeses as being from here?" "The two different cheeses, from here." "Well, I think that was the idea, because in the instruction manuals for the artists of the time, it always says, "Make the people feel at home."" "You know, it shouldn't feel like it is 2,000 years ago in the Holy Land, it should feel as if it's taking place in Piedmont, and that's what they have done." "I would have liked to cook this dinner." "After seeing the various stages of Christ's life, we get to the chapel where the story reaches its climax - the Crucifixion." "At this moment, the maximum moment of empathy, where you're supposed to feel Christ's suffering, you're allowed to occupy the same space as his mother, you're allowed to occupy the same space as the Disciples looking up." "You are really touched by it." "You feel like you've seen every scene, and it has a little bit of that sort of feeling of a theme park... but for the soul." "Well, in a sense, the modern theme park is a debased version of this." "You know, Disneyland - you make the pilgrimage to go there, you know the stories, you've seen the films, and now you meet the characters, you shake hands." "Except all the spiritual content has been removed, and whereas you end your visit to Disneyland, perhaps, with a trip to the shop, here... you end your visit by going down into the basement of the church" "and paying your respects to the holy image of the Madonna." "The basement chapel is like a people's museum of faith and devotion, a place where they offer remembrance, or give thanks." "What I love about it is, it's like a history of the kind of accidents that could have befallen you in Piedmont over the centuries." "Here we've got somebody who got attacked by a highwayman." "That's right." "Here you've got a terrible rail crash that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century, and then..." "To electricity." "To electricity, accident." "To go more recent, you remember, a few months ago, the Costa Concordia?" "There must be somebody who was on the Costa Concordia, and he felt that the Madonna blessed him." "That's right." "It's not necessarily that you just came to pray that you would be saved." "If something happened to you and you had a close shave..." "Very close shave." "..then you attributed to... ..to the fact that your faith allowed... ..saved you." "I suppose it just shows that, for many people, the church is still the first port of call." "This is from 1807." "and what happened is this Alfonso Cabora, captain of the Italian Regiment, had received two shots, and the Maria Santissima saved him." "Isn't that amazing?" "That you've got the Napoleonic Wars, someone surviving that, cheek by jowl with someone surviving a bicycle accident in the '50s." "Grazia Ricevuta." "There must be 1,000 human stories in here." "Absolutely." "Our journey through Piedmont has been so rich and full of variety." "I feel we have seen most of the special things this wonderful region has to offer." "Well, all except one." "We've still not visited any of the great wine producers this region is so famous for." "That's because I saved it for last." "We are going to spend the evening at Contratto, one of the great historic wine houses of the Langhe." "I know the guy who owns the place." "I am so excited about it, because it has been bought by a friend of mine, called Giorgio Rivetti." "Which is that guy there." "Giorgio!" "Come stai?" "Benissimo, Giorgio." "Fantastico." "Nice to see you." "Hey, Andrew." "Thanks for having us." "A pleasure." "Thank you, thank you for coming here." "This is a new place, new house!" "Yes, something new for me, something exciting." "You know me." "I love to produce Barbaresco and Barolo, but my passion is about bubbles, too." "'Giorgio is one of the best wine producers in Piedmont, 'so it's exciting he's turning his hand to sparkling wine.'" "'And we can't miss a tour of the cellar, 'the secret of the success of the Contratto champagne method wine.'" "Wow!" "This is a cathedral!" "UNESCO protected, these wine cellars where dug out of the old limestone hills of Canelli in the 19th century." "Ingenious local winemakers discovered the constant temperature of 13 degrees inside created the perfect conditions to ferment the wine naturally." "Giorgio's always got his eye on business, but he hasn't lost sight of the small, but important, rituals of winemaking." "30,000 bottles a day are turned manually here to loosen the sediment inside." "Hello, Mario." "Do you mind?" "Don't mess around, Andrew." "Andrew, like that." "OK, go on, Giorgio." "Eh, no." "No?" "I missed the one in the middle?" "I think you are better in the kitchen!" "'After turning the bottles,' the sediment inside must be released so the wine can be laid down to mature." "This is the bit I've been waiting for." "Wow!" "That is brilliant!" "No way!" "Because this wine is in life, it has life inside." "Look, half of the bottle shot off." "Yeah." "That was incredible!" "Giorgio, man!" "I'm scared to open it now, after what I saw downstairs!" "Don't worry." "It's going to be a shower." "CORK POPPING" "It smells quite sweet." "It's got the..." "Like a crust, bread crust." "Yes, typical for sparkling wine." "Salute." "Salute." "Cheers." "I can imagine this with some fish." "Oh, yes." "Oysters, too." "Oysters!" "Piedmont is a corner of paradise, really." "We have a lot of beautiful grapes, and this beautiful land." "99% of the top wine producers in Piedmont are farmers." "This is something special." "They know everything about a vineyard, they respect the environment because they do everything organic, OK?" "They do a beautiful job in the vineyard and are purchasing a small quantity of fruit, small quantity of wine, but the wines are unbelievable." "And they're probably doing the same thing that their father did, and maybe THEIR father did." "Looking after the land." "Yeah." "So, although you're a large producer, you want to keep the philosophy of the small producer." "Yes, of course." "No, really, the farming philosophy, this is important for me." "I don't want to change this, of course." "Here's hoping you never do change it." "Cheers." "Cheers." "To us and to Piedmont." "Piedmont." "If Giorgio and his kind stick around, there really won't be any space for a big multinational here." "He reminds me of the old Piedmontese saying - farmer, farmer - big shoes but sharp brains." "And the heart of Piedmont for me will always be the countryside, the original source of everything that is so magical about this hidden gem of Italy." "Our pilgrimage has come full circle." "You see, Andrew, when I think about Piedmontese," "I always think about people with an incredible amount of resilience, you know." "They really are..." "They fight things over and they turn things over, and they made it, they rule it, the first capital of Italy." "Here they have people like Carlo Petrini, coming in and saying," ""Listen, you've got a great amount of value on this land."" "I keep coming back to these leaves." "Sandrino's dog, snuffling among the leaves." "Even the artwork is made of the leaves!" "That's right!" "That beautiful piece by Penone." "There's this real..." "I think this sense of connection to the land so strong here." "It seems to me, it feels to me, as if the cultura populara is now on the way up." "In fact, that's what people come here for now." "What do you think your favourite experience has been?" "What do you remember?" "For me, the most magic moment was when Sandrino's dogs got the truffle out of the ground." "It's such a moment, isn't it, to find this pearl hidden away?" "It's fantastic, and it just puts me back, you know," "I'm sitting in London trying to sell these things to people, and suddenly here I am, just picking it out of the ground." "It's magic for me, that." "I'll be coming back for that experience of the soil, for the humble pilgrimage church, the terracotta statues at Varallo, for the experience of eating funghi porcini, and the venison that you cooked." "The truffle." "Of course." "Andiamo." "Va va." "So, where do you think we should go next?" "I think the best place to go now is for lunch, man." "HE LAUGHS" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd"