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00:01A few hundred years ago there was the grand tour of Europe.
00:08Young aristocratic lords and ladies set off across the continent on a cultural rite of passage.
00:14They departed as callow youths, with the aim of returning to Britain refined, stylish, and schooled in the birds and
00:24the bees.
00:29I'm Tom Reed Wilson, and at the grand age of almost 40, I'm in need of a transformation.
00:36If you die, you die.
00:39I'm on the brink of being terribly grown up, so before that happens, I want to flood my senses with
00:44adventures of a bygone time.
00:46Who needs yoga when you've got etiquette?
00:48So, with a heart full of wanderlust, an old guidebook, my trusty Vedica, and a suitably vintage lens.
00:55It's the way Catherine Hepburn did it.
00:57I'm following in the posh footsteps of yesteryear by horse power, man power, fire power,
01:05up in a balloon boys, and the occasional modern convenience.
01:11There's Florence!
01:14From gay Paris to Rome, the eternal city.
01:18Will the magic of the grand tour work on me as it did on the powdered and privileged youth of
01:23the past?
01:23My time traveller!
01:25Gosh!
01:26Yes, I am!
01:27So get ready to twirl through the continent.
01:29This is getting rather naughty.
01:32This is my grand tour.
01:41The grand tour of Europe flung the young nobility of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, such as Lord Byron,
01:49Mary Shelley, and John Ruskin, into a cornucopia of art, literature, and culture.
01:56Like me, they were young, single, and eager for adventure.
02:00And as I'm soon to turn 40, I'm making the most of a grand tour of my own.
02:05I began in Paris.
02:08Gosh, it is dazzlingly beautiful.
02:12I was hoisted over the Alps.
02:15Don't be heroes.
02:16Ooh!
02:18Recuperated in Lake Como.
02:20I think even I can't take a bad photograph here.
02:23And twirled at the carnival in Venice.
02:26Broken a slightly baroque sweat doing that.
02:31Now I'm on the final leg of my grand tour, motoring across Italy, through the glorious vineyards and olive groves
02:40of Tuscany, to the stunning ancient city of Florence.
02:45This is my virgin visit to Florence.
02:48It's going to be, I hope, a sublime baptism.
02:55And what better way to arrive than in lovely Lorenzo's vintage Lancia.
03:02And you might be thinking, this particular mode of transportation is a bit more Roger Moore than Lord Byron.
03:09But I do have a very good excuse.
03:11I've been told this is the best way to take in the very first view of the city.
03:24Oh, there's Florence!
03:28Florence, the jewel of Tuscany, the birthplace of the Renaissance, a city where 600 years ago art, science and philosophy
03:38blossomed and changed the world forever.
03:42For those intrepid grand tourists of yesteryear, visiting Florence was an absolute must.
03:50It must have been like a huge prize for the grand tourist after so much travel, to have oodles of
03:59the jewels of Renaissance art in one little clump.
04:13I'm taking lodgings at the Hermitage Hotel in the heart of Florence, right next to the iconic Ponte Vecchio.
04:23A bridge full of jewelers and luxury shops that bestrides the Arno River.
04:31This is perilous for me. I'm a magpie.
04:35The grand tourists may have been drawn here for the art and jewels, but I've always dreamt of coming to
04:41Florence for cinematic reasons.
04:45My favorite film set in Florence is A Room with a View with Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, and Judy
04:54Dench.
04:56When Lucy, sublimely played by a very young Helena Bonham Carter, opens the window of her hotel, she is enraptured
05:04by her view of the Arno and beyond.
05:07This is what they can see the Ponte Vecchio.
05:12But the characters who are on their own grand tour disagree on how best to explore Florence, specifically whether or
05:19not to use the Baedeker guidebook.
05:22Judy Dench hates them.
05:27No, Miss Bartlett, you will not look into your Baedeker.
05:31I'm sorry, Judy, but I feel like Maggie does. I'm rather fond of mine.
05:37Florence, Florence, Florence.
05:40The modern Italian language and literature have emanated chiefly from Florence.
05:46And the fine arts also attain the zenith of their glory here, an amazing profusion of treasures of art such
05:53as no other locality possesses.
06:01Well, if that's the case, then I need to leave the confines of my lodgings immediately and create some memories
06:08in this majestic city.
06:10You know, the grand tourists often came armed with a sketchbook.
06:14And I've got this, so I can capture the real McCoy. In fact, no McCoy could be realer.
06:21Captured on my Super 8 camera, there's no doubt this city is a cinematic delight, adored by artists and architects
06:29alike.
06:30And in the center of it all is something very special indeed.
06:36This has slightly knotted my viscera. This is my first sight of the Duomo.
06:44And it's absolutely walloped me like a cudgel.
06:49The cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore took 140 years to complete, crowned in 1436 by the largest masonry dome
06:59on earth.
07:01Devised by the architectural genius Filippo Brunelleschi, using techniques that inspired Sir Christopher Wren nearly 300 years later for the
07:11dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
07:14That dome that was like the fuse that lit the dynamite of Renaissance architecture.
07:23It takes my breath away.
07:27It is quite simply one of the most beautiful buildings ever created.
07:33And the grand tourists agreed.
07:49You know, ever since I was very small, intense beauty just makes me weep.
07:56I'm so sorry, in disarray.
08:02I really am knocked for six.
08:05I need to lie down back at my lodgings.
08:08I must rest ahead of a very big day.
08:17Because tomorrow, I climb up the hallowed stairs of the Duomo at dawn.
08:22Oh, that puts coal in my firebox.
08:25Vino goes down the hatch.
08:27It's a Chianticlassical.
08:29And the ruins of ancient Rome are at my fingertips.
08:33Oh, gosh, the mark of the wheel.
08:48I'm in Florence.
08:49And like the grand tourists before me, I've managed to pull some strings to get a private view of the
08:55city's Duomo in all its glory.
08:58The downside? It's a hideously early start.
09:05I'm here at the doors of the Duomo, staggeringly early in the morning.
09:10I mean, sparrows fart before the lights even up.
09:26The dome's architect, Brunelleschi, hid steps inside it for his workers to use.
09:32Only 458 to go.
09:34But now, they are a true stairway to heaven.
09:39Gosh, the dome that created the domino effect of Renaissance domes.
09:46Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, all climbed these steps to admire Brunelleschi's masterpiece.
09:57Oh, gosh, that's the interior.
10:07Oh, look at that.
10:12These frescoes were added over 100 years after Brunelleschi died, mostly painted by the Florentine artist Giorgio Vasari, the man
10:21who coined the term Renaissance.
10:23The artwork spans over 3,600 square meters and depicts the triumphant return of Christ at the end of the
10:32world.
10:32It is one of the largest painted frescoes ever made.
10:36I think the Grand Tourist must have been in awe.
10:43And it's as crisp and immaculate as ever it was.
10:49Believe it or not, the best views are apparently still to come.
10:54Boy, boy, boy.
10:56And I see light.
10:58Oh, that puts coal in my firebox.
11:07What a payoff this vista was for the Grand Tourists.
11:12All these grey streaks and dappled sky giving it such strength and texture.
11:19I'm sort of glad that we didn't see this on a picture postcard day.
11:24It's very dramatic.
11:39Back on earth and just round the corner, I stumble across the glorious Piazza della Signoria, where Lucy, played by
11:48Helena Bonham Carter in a room with a view, faints into the arms of the dashing Julian Sands.
11:59To avoid a similar incident as I giddily navigate this gorgeous array of sculptures, I need some guidance.
12:07So like those Grand Tourists before me, I found myself a tutor or bear leader.
12:14Laura?
12:15Oh, nice to meet you.
12:19How are you?
12:19Oh, my bear leader today.
12:22Art expert Laura Amerighi is the modern equivalent of a Grand Tour chaperone.
12:28You see the beautiful statues everywhere you look, are symbols of the power of the Medici.
12:37The Medici were a family of bankers who ruled Florence for nearly 300 years.
12:42They spent lavishly on art and architecture, including works by Da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo, who created one of
12:53the most famous statues in the world.
12:55The most important one, that is David.
13:00David was originally intended to be stood on the Duomo roof, but he was deemed too beautiful and important.
13:07So was placed here in the center of the city.
13:10The original was moved to a museum for preservation in 1873.
13:14This is an exquisitely rendered replica.
13:18He is magnificent.
13:20He's so much more substantial than I thought he was going to be.
13:24I mean, he's whopping.
13:26Michelangelo, he knew anatomy very well.
13:29So therefore, he was able to transfer the perfection of the anatomy in such a big size.
13:37It is extraordinary, isn't it?
13:39It's so detailed.
13:40I mean, around the clavicle and even those mastoids.
13:42And the juggler as well.
13:45Yes, yes.
13:47But for the grand tourists with their stiff British upbringings, these naked statues were quite a shock.
13:54Queen Victoria was particularly scandalized.
13:57You know, when she saw David's bits and bobs.
14:01So the authorities took action to spare the queens and the grand tourist's blushes.
14:06You know, that in the 19th century, there was a fig leaf covering his naked body.
14:14Oh, what a pity.
14:16The young travelers weren't just looking, they were learning.
14:20Grand tourist Anne Seymour Demer became one of Britain's most celebrated 18th century sculptors.
14:26Thanks in part to her many trips to Florence, studying statues like David and learning from master craftsmen.
14:35Raffaello.
14:36Hello, Tom.
14:37Oh, what an honor to meet you.
14:40Nice to meet you, Tom.
14:41The world-renowned sculptor Raffaello Romanelli and his family have been creating masterpieces here for over 200 years.
14:49Six generations of sculptors in one family takes me so close to the grand tourists.
14:55Oh, it makes me completely gooey.
14:59Grand tourist and sculptor Anne Demer was particularly keen on crafting portraits of her actor friends, which gives me an
15:07idea.
15:09I won't be good, but I'd very much like to have a go.
15:13Come with me.
15:14Raffaello has recently been commissioned to make this bust of English actor Eddie Redmayne, and he's going to allow me
15:20to, well, copy it.
15:22Look, even that little cow's lick. It's exactly him.
15:27It took Raffaello two weeks to sculpt his. I've got about half an hour.
15:33Oh, that's very quick.
15:35Really?
15:35Oh God, are you ready there?
15:38Oh.
15:38That's very quick.
15:42Gosh, Eddie, I'm studying you in a whole new way.
15:46It's almost like pillow talk.
15:51Oh no, something's fallen off.
15:54You're very good at lips, I can say.
15:55Do you think so?
15:56Yeah, yeah.
15:57Just to do a pair of lips normally takes three hours.
16:00I'm really realizing the patience required. It's really hard. Every time you think you've made headway, you step back and
16:09you think, oh no, it's worse.
16:11Yes.
16:14Well, your face, you're not Eddie Redmayne's face.
16:20Well, I'll tell you, there's not very many people can do a face like that in a very short time.
16:25Welcome to the sculptor world.
16:26I don't think my effort will end up in a gallery anytime soon.
16:30Unlike my grand tourist predecessor, English sculptor Ann Dahmer, who gave her marble self-portrait to the Uffizi Gallery in
16:38Florence, where it can still be seen today.
16:41Thank you. Grazie mille.
16:43Di niente. Grazie a te. Ciao.
16:53Completed in 1580, the Uffizi was the building from which the Medici family ran Florence, with the top floor set
17:00aside for their private art collection.
17:04Ziff?
17:05Yeah, we enter.
17:06Oh, Laura.
17:07Today, it's one of the most visited art galleries in Italy, with pieces by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and many
17:16more.
17:17To beat the crowds, my bare leader Laura has wangled me a private view.
17:23And now I take you to the place that was visited by the grand tourists, the important ones.
17:31In the early days of the grand tour, the Uffizi was invitation only.
17:35At its heart, the Tribuna Room was a favorite meeting place for well-connected grand tourists, and for Grand Duke
17:42Francesco de' Medici to show off.
17:45And this was the place where he liked to collect all his most precious objects.
17:54What a remarkable room.
17:55Grand tourist Thomas Beckford wrote that he fell into a delightful delirium, flew madly from bust to bust, like a
18:05butterfly bewildered in a universe of flowers.
18:09But further down the corridor, there is a painting prized above all others.
18:17Oh, she doesn't disappoint, does she?
18:20No.
18:21Wow.
18:27The birth of Venus, the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty, was painted in the 15th century by Florentine
18:36Sandro Botticelli.
18:39Exquisitely beautiful.
18:40Yeah.
18:41Those eyes are extraordinary.
18:43They look right at you and through you almost.
18:46Yeah.
18:48It's the use of gold that Botticelli uses also, you see, the wings and the hair, to give light.
18:55But look at the gesture, because there is also a Christian interpretation.
19:00Yes, absolutely.
19:01And John baptizing Jesus, you see that the gesture is the same, because they were trying to put together mythology
19:09with Christianity, so that sense of beauty, beauty is truth.
19:16Yes, yes.
19:18Shockingly, this was also the first secular painting to include nudity, with golden hair draped over her body for modesty.
19:27You see, the blonde hair, because it was the fashion of the time, and rich ladies used to bleach their
19:33hair by using urine.
19:36But the urine of the babies, that was better.
19:39Urine?
19:40Oh, look, I didn't know it had properties to bleach one's hair.
19:43It's natural harmoniac.
19:47So all frantically dunking their heads in vats of babies' wee.
19:52Yeah.
19:52To try and unlock their inner Venus.
19:55Always done incredible things to look beautiful.
19:59I think I'll leave my own curls so natural.
20:02This is the only painting on canvas that we have, one of the most ancient, because normally they were painting
20:09on wood.
20:10This is much more soft.
20:13It's really incredible how different this is in the flesh.
20:17It's like seeing it through a kind of magical fog, which makes it sort of fantastical and wondrous.
20:25Countless people have stood here and basked in the glory of Venus.
20:28Not least Queen Victoria, who visited the Uffizi in 1893, and was so inspired by the art, she even dabbled
20:36herself.
20:37But unlike David, her models kept their clothes on.
20:40She loved to draw.
20:41So she felt that she was much more free, you know, to stay here without having all the obligations.
20:50It takes a little time off being a queen, just being an artist.
20:53And she also liked to drink a little bit after dinner.
21:00Well, who could blame her?
21:02And the queen would never have been too far from a nice glass of wine in this city.
21:09Just a Chianti?
21:11Yeah.
21:12Wine windows have dotted the Florentine streets for nearly 500 years.
21:17They were permitted by the Medici's for wine-producing families to sell excess stock tax-free from holes cut in
21:24their houses.
21:26Who knew such a magical thing existed?
21:30And since the 1600s, they were particularly popular during the 17th century bubonic plague, and then revived during the COVID
21:39-19 pandemic.
21:40But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
21:45Chianti.
21:46You can tell when my voice goes into my boots, it's proper Chianti.
21:49Very full-bodied.
21:51Very robust.
21:54Chianti classical.
22:02A heavenly taste of Florence.
22:04But my short time here is nearly at an end.
22:07And I will ultimately finish my grand tour in Rome.
22:11A magnet for romantic poets.
22:15So this was Pete's last home.
22:18Artists.
22:19I want you to just paint me truthfully.
22:23And of course, grand tourists.
22:26I wished.
22:28It was a very good wish.
22:41I'm in Florence, sweeping through Europe, following in the footsteps of the grand tourists traveling a few hundred years before
22:49me.
22:49I think by the time the grand tourists reached this destination, it must have been a balm for the soul
22:58of the weary traveler.
23:00Masterpieces wherever they turned.
23:03The grand tourists would have spent months in Florence.
23:06I'm in here for 48 hours.
23:08But there's one last Florentine masterpiece to visit.
23:11You must be Vitulio.
23:14Hi.
23:15Lovely to meet you.
23:16Vitulio Bondi is probably the most famous gelato maker in Italy, with his own TV show and legendary store.
23:23What a dazzling selection.
23:26We are in Florence.
23:28Gelato is like it's born here.
23:30The first gelato was a milk and sugar concoction by Cosimo Ruggeri, who won a cooking competition at the Medici
23:38court in the 1500s.
23:41I want you to try, you know ricotta?
23:43Made it with the figs and then walnuts.
23:47Oh, I can really taste the fig.
23:50And then...
23:51That's wonderful.
23:55I feel more Italian with every bite.
23:57Time I left Florence before things get out of hand.
24:03Oh, that is the happiest marriage of flavor.
24:16Replete with gelato, I'm completing the final leg of my grand tour, heading south with my driver Lorenzo, across the
24:24Tuscan hills, into the province of Lazio.
24:27To the climax of my journey in Rome.
24:32Oh, gosh.
24:35If a city can give you come hither eyes, she's giving me come hither eyes.
24:42I'm gonna have to obey.
24:45My hero, Lord Byron wrote,
24:49Oh, Rome, my country, city of the soul.
24:53While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand.
24:56When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall.
24:59And when Rome falls, the world.
25:07In the 19th century, the area around the iconic Spanish steppes was known as the English ghetto.
25:14At its heart is Cafe Greco, the oldest cafe in the city.
25:20This is my very first visit to Rome.
25:24And I've whipped out my trusty Baedeker.
25:27Rome, known even in antiquity as the eternal city.
25:33The capital of the spiritual empire of the popes.
25:37And actually, I even found this cafe through my trusty Baedeker.
25:42Cafe Greco, Via Condotti 86, frequented by the English for luncheon and afternoon tea.
25:49This cafe was so regularly packed with English intellectuals and artists,
25:54that numerous pictures of them remain on the walls.
25:57I can see why it was so beloved.
26:02Well, the coffee is superlative.
26:07Two celebrated English poets, who spent a lot of time in Cafe Greco,
26:12were John Keats and Percy Shelley.
26:14They loved it so much, they took up lodgings across the road.
26:19Ella Kilgallen is curator of the Keats Shelley house.
26:23Hello!
26:24Hi, Tom!
26:25Welcome to the Keats Shelley house.
26:27Oh, thank you so much.
26:30So this was Keats' last home?
26:33Yes, this was an apartment that he came to stay in.
26:35Only for a matter of months, when he was unfortunately dying of tuberculosis.
26:38Very, very ill.
26:39He was only 25.
26:40He was 25 when he died, yeah.
26:42Such a kind of genius poet and intellect.
26:46Keats went to Italy on the advice of his doctors,
26:49who said another cold winter in London with tuberculosis would kill him.
26:54He arrived in November 1820, but before the following spring he had died.
27:01And people get very emotional when they come in here, understandably.
27:04In this space where Keats was lying in his kind of last days,
27:07and he referred to this as his posthumous existence, his time in Rome.
27:10And he would have looked up at the ceiling, imagining already his time buried essentially,
27:15which is so tragic.
27:15Oh, gosh.
27:18Keats' poem, Ode to a Nightingale, is particularly poignant.
27:22Darkling, I listen, and for many a time I've been half in love with easeful death,
27:29called him soft names in many amused rhyme, to take into the air my quiet breath.
27:36He had very gentle features, very beautiful.
27:38Yes, I've always thought of him as quite androgynous in a way.
27:41Yes, exactly, exactly.
27:42Very beautiful.
27:43In fact, all of those romantic poets, Byron and Wilde,
27:48I think of them as kind of beautiful in the most exquisitely androgynous way.
27:53Definitely.
28:00Many grand tourists wanted to come to Rome to pay homage to their romantic poetic heroes.
28:06But away from home for the first time, the guidebook advised them to beware of unofficial guides
28:12and insist upon those licensed by municipal authorities.
28:16So my licensed guide and historian is Silvia Franchi.
28:22Silvia?
28:23Oh, Tom!
28:25Oh!
28:25Hello!
28:27Hello!
28:28My bear leader!
28:30Hi, my dear!
28:30Oh, yes, yes, I am.
28:32I'm so pleased to meet you here, my time traveller.
28:35Yes!
28:35Gosh!
28:36Yes, I am.
28:37I hadn't thought about it like that, but that's exactly what I am.
28:40Yeah, so you're wearing a misty London, your mage in 1820, grey,
28:46and then you expect the sun and the beauty and the fountain
28:49and they're ruined and bam, you're in Rome.
28:52Ah!
28:52An expert in Roman history, Silvia is shepherding me to a mussy Roman icon, the Trevi Fountain.
29:03The fountain was designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed in 1762.
29:12It's the scene of one of the most famous moments in Italian cinema,
29:16when Anita Ekberg wades through the fountain with Marcello Mastroanni in Fellini's La Dolce Vita.
29:25Marcello! Come here! Hurry up!
29:31My! It's a proper cascade, isn't it?
29:36And you know the guy there?
29:38That's Oceanus.
29:39Yeah.
29:40The god of the sea.
29:41Oh.
29:42And he has his sons down there, so they are blowing through the shell.
29:47So the whole thing is musical.
29:49It's the music of water, but it's that wonderful music that they're making with their conches.
29:54The guidebook said that if you took a sip of the water from the fountain, you would surely return to
30:00Rome,
30:00but fears of drinking fountain water meant that the sip evolved into tossing a coin.
30:06You know the rule?
30:07What's the rule?
30:08Right hand, left shoulder.
30:11Okay.
30:11One, two, three.
30:17I wished.
30:19It was a very good wish.
30:26My wish of walking in the footsteps of those grand tourists before me has nearly come to an end,
30:33and I've captured so many treasured memories on my Super 8, including the majestic Spanish steps.
30:40Oh, this is my Cecil Beaton moment.
30:43The grand tourists had another way to remember their travels with a painting.
30:56Angelo?
30:57Yes.
30:58Hi, Tom.
30:59Hi.
31:00Hello.
31:01Oh.
31:02Artist Angelo Bellabono has agreed to take on the daunting task of turning my face into a work of art.
31:09You're welcome to my studio.
31:10Roman studio.
31:11Okay.
31:12This is the studio.
31:12I just love your style.
31:15I sort of want you to be my Pompeo Batoni.
31:18Oh, Pompeo.
31:19Yes.
31:20Yeah.
31:21Yes.
31:21Yes.
31:22Pompeo Batoni was probably the most famous 18th century portrait artist who specialized in painting grand tourists.
31:31They wanted something, basically the early version of an Instagram filter.
31:35But I want you to just paint me truthfully.
31:39It's a contemporary grand tour, basically.
31:42Yes.
31:43Yes.
31:43Yes.
31:43With a contemporary commission.
31:45Well, we can try, absolutely.
31:54This is a completely new experience for me.
31:57I've never even been in a studio space like this before.
32:02Tom, don't move too much because I need to catch the beginning of your eyes.
32:08I always start this portrait from the eyes.
32:13I love to do the portrait in presence.
32:16Yes.
32:16But I like also to be with my own self facing the portrait.
32:22And then it sort of begins to have a life of its own.
32:27Absolutely.
32:28I'll leave Angelo to his art and come back to see his creation in a couple of days.
32:33That was an extraordinary experience with Angelo because he has this sort of penetrative gaze and he was looking far
32:44beyond me into my being.
32:50It was incredibly intimate.
32:53It was like nothing I have ever done before in my life.
33:03Grand tourists didn't only come to Rome to have their portraits painted.
33:07The main draw was an obsession with ancient Rome.
33:11Time to bring out my little red book.
33:14It's lovely to think that this was also liberally thumbed by grand tourists of the romantic age before me.
33:23Appian Way visits were sine qua non.
33:27Oh, well, duly noted.
33:31The Appian Way was built in 312 BC and is over 300 miles long.
33:37It was the main route linking the south of Italy with Rome.
33:41This road looks so much a part of the land you can tell it's ancient.
33:48This is the queen of all roads.
33:51Wow.
33:52Like a highway, but with carriages.
33:55I can imagine grand tourists coming, especially the literary ones.
34:01This road must kind of hold a thousand tails in it.
34:05For sure. You know who was Spartacus?
34:08Oh, yes.
34:09Spartacus' army with 6,000 slaves was defeated in the end.
34:14And there was a big punishment right here.
34:17These 6,000 slaves have been crucified, then beheaded along the Appian Way.
34:25So more than enough ghosts around to inspire a story or two.
34:30Lord Byron wrote of Rome's ruins that they were
34:33wrecks of another world whose ashes still are warm.
34:37Oh, gosh, the mark of the wheel.
34:40This is so deep.
34:41Isn't that extraordinary?
34:44That is an ancient impression.
34:48You can touch the history directly.
34:51Yes, yes.
34:57My own grand tour has nearly been confined to history.
35:01As I perform my last act.
35:03Lord of your bed.
35:09Inadvertently induce tears.
35:11Have a lovely evening.
35:14And confront my painted self.
35:17Oh, I say.
35:32I'm on the last leg of my grand tour, blazing a trail through Europe, just like those intrepid aristocrats of
35:40yesteryear.
35:41Though sated on their sumptuous diet of history and art, young grand tourists were equally keen to learn the art
35:48of seduction.
35:50And one of the most popular ways to impress a potential lover in Rome was to serenade them.
35:55And one of the most popular things was to be seen in Rome was to be seen in Rome was
36:03to be seen in Rome was to be seen in Rome.
36:05Fabrizio and Ezio are masters of traditional Roman Stornelli, rhyming serenades full of humor and innuendo.
36:13And they've kindly agreed to audition me for a part in their band of serenading brothers.
36:19This is a very traditional Roman song.
36:22Your voice is heavenly.
36:25But you are a singer.
36:27Yes.
36:28I'm not like you guys, but I do.
36:31I love it.
36:32I love singing.
36:33You prefer romantic songs.
36:34Yes, I, I, I, I.
36:37My song is, I have this song.
36:40Do you know what it too?
36:41Pavarotti, Luciano Pavarotti.
36:44Yes, yes, I know the Pavarotti version.
36:47You must put heart, big heart.
36:50I love you, my friend.
36:55Cred in me, all men.
37:00Senza di te and we shall come.
37:15Big Tom, thank you.
37:18Bravo, bravissimo.
37:20Nice to meet you.
37:22We bring you with us to sing.
37:26We bring.
37:28To perform?
37:30Yes, to perform.
37:32Grazie infinite.
37:36Well, when in Rome,
37:38but before I bring the curtain down
37:41on my Grand Tour, oh, there's a painting
37:43to collect.
37:46The moment of truth, Angelo.
37:49Come in.
37:51Oh, I say.
37:56Angelo has made some smaller trial paintings
37:59of me that are completely
38:01unexpected.
38:02So strange, because
38:04I've been following in the Grand Tourist's footsteps.
38:07This sort of
38:09romantic
38:10look from the
38:12early 19th century.
38:15The other thing
38:17I love about this
38:18is the cloudiness of gender.
38:21Yeah.
38:21There's something extremely
38:25feminine in that.
38:26And then a little bit more
38:29romantic masculine
38:31in that.
38:32and then totally androgynous
38:35here.
38:36Yeah.
38:37But I can see that you've seen beyond
38:40my face, way beyond
38:41my face.
38:44That's all in the eyes.
38:47Exactly.
38:48And now for the big reveal.
38:54Oh, gosh.
38:59Oh, it's extraordinary.
39:04I really think that you are a genius.
39:08And you've given me
39:11a beautiful truth.
39:16Thank you, thank you, thank you.
39:19It's wonderful.
39:21Wonderful.
39:24It was most extraordinary.
39:26I was sort of looking at
39:29some love child
39:30of Keats, Byron, and Wilde.
39:34And yet I still recognized myself.
39:38It's all about
39:40the impact of the art on the soul
39:43and the impact of the people.
39:46And in this case,
39:47the people that make the art.
39:51that's what I'll carry with me.
39:55And now it's my turn
39:57to hopefully make an artistic impact.
40:02We've come to the best vista
40:05in Rome to do it.
40:07And hopefully we'll find some lovers
40:11and help them along a little.
40:12Well, that's what it's all about.
40:16Rome's Gianicolo Terris,
40:18with its views over the whole city,
40:20is the place to come with a young lover.
40:22So it's the perfect place for a serenade.
40:24?
40:29?
40:30?
40:30?
40:30?
40:32?
40:39I'm a fun boy.
40:40I'm a good boy.
40:41I'm a good boy.
40:48I'm a good boy.
40:56Tom, wonderful!
41:07I'm not sure crying was the effect I was going for let's hope their tears of joy and love I
41:14can
41:14see why it's been going for hundreds of years because it's so romantic oh ciao that's it
41:23it's still going on it's a tranche of heaven I don't know what to tell you I am on cloud
41:30nine
41:31I'm like a dog with three tails four tails as many as it's allowed
41:38the grand tour was expected to have a life-changing effect on those young free and single adventurers
41:46of yesteryear through exposure to master tutors and masterpieces my version has certainly changed me
41:55I will treasure this trip for the rest of my life it has transfigured me feels extraordinary to me
42:11that I go back to my little flat in London tonight an entirely different person
42:24it consumed me and I'm consumed by it you can't I think visit the great cities of
42:33France and Italy and not be utterly transfigured and you can't have that sort of art in your orbit
42:43and it not penetrate your very soul
42:49I'm in love with it I'm in love with it that's that's all there is to say
42:56it's so affecting if you can possibly do it do it it will change you forever that's a solemn promise
43:07I'm in love with it
43:10I'm in love with it
43:16it's so affecting me and I'm in love with it
43:17I'm in love with it
43:19I'm in love with it
43:40Transcription by CastingWords
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