All language subtitles for Leonardo.Da.Vinci.The.Universal.Man.2019.FRENCH.ENSUBBED.1080p.WEBRip.x264-VXT.eng

[mysterious captivating music]

[narrator]
Let us take you on a journey.

A journey into the life
of an extraordinary man.

Talking about Leonardo da Vinci
means confronting a mystery.

We know a lot about his work.

We know a lot about his life.

But the mystery remains.

How could a single person,
a single mind,

have imagined and achieved
so many different things?

What makes Leonardo

the top of the bright guys
of the Renaissance,

compared to Raffaello,
to Michelangelo,

to many other
remarkable figures,

is that
he was not simply an artist.

In Leonardo,
everything was interrelated:

science, painting, all the arts,
let's say like that.

Probably, for him painting was
the top of his activities.

Leonardo invented himself.
That's clear already

in his letter
to Ludovico il Moro.

He's saying things
that he cannot yet do,

but he will learn to do,
in order to fulfil the promise.

[narrator] To share
the full extent of his work,

we need an approach,

an imaginary space.

An immense gallery
that would allow us to travel,

to see,

to make everything he studied
concrete.

The works
and machines he imagined,

and sometimes designed.

To begin our journey
of discovery

into such a unique mind,

we have to understand,
and to reconstruct the path

of the child, the apprentice,

and the man who would develop
work methods

that would lead
into astonishing universality.

[birds chirping]

Our first destination
is the village of Vinci,

located in Tuscany, in Italy,
where Leonardo was born.

-[birds singing]
-[insects chirping]

-[stream flowing]
-[bird cooing]

-[mysterious music]
-[engine revs]

[birds shrieking]

Leonardo arrives in Florence
as a teenager,

coming from a small village,

a ''nowhere place''
we would say today, at the time.

But he was the natural son
of a notary, with a housing,

pretty beautiful housing
in Florence,

and excellent relations

with the powerful authorities
of Florence.

So, he was not coming
from nothing.

Plus,
he was absolutely impressed,

as everybody would have been,
coming to the...

possibly wealthiest city
in the planet at that moment.

[bells toll]

A city which was weak,
on military grounds,

because it was a small city,
with no army.

But very powerful on economy.

Florence has been a city
of intense building activity

since the eleventh century.

And so, we must try to imagine
the moment when

the young Leonardo arrived
in this thriving

and extremely modern
and ambitious city,

from a much more sleepy place.

Nonetheless,
he would have found a city

that was an open chantier,
an open work site,

with churches, palaces rising.

And so,
he would have seen Florence

as a place
that was always in activity,

always changing,
always getting bigger,

more beautiful, more modern.

He would have absorbed
the Florentine passion

for modernity and excellence.

He was certainly impressed
by the beauty of the buildings,

by the richness
of the collections

of the private families.

And also, and not the least,
by the workshop

in which he was taught to work.

Verrochio's workshop
is generally portrayed in movies

as a very elegant place,
where people are using brushes,

and painting or sculpturing
in a very elegant way.

Verrochio's workshop
was a new scene,

it was something where you had
hammers, you had tools.

He was building sculptures.
He was creating gunpowder.

He was having furnaces
to cast bronze and other things.

So, the impact
must have been very strong,

and certainly, it must have been
an enormous surprise.

[spade clanks]

[loud hammering]

[tools pounding]

[soft dramatic music]

The ball
atop the lantern of the dome

would be more than 110 meters
from the ground.

It was very heavy.

We don't know the exact weight

because it was struck
with lightning,

and fell in 1600.

We do know that the large ball
exactly reproducing the shape,

that was made to replace it,
weighs 6000 kilos.

Six thousand kilos

is a great deal
to lift 110 meters.

We believe
that Verrochio's original ball

was much heavier.

[priests chanting]

And so,
you are talking about a problem

that is positively...
mind-boggling.

One cannot imagine how to do it.

Bear in mind that the ball
is at the center

of a dome
that has a 43-meter diameter.

So, the great crane
that has to be put in place

to lift the ball up,

has to have an arm that extends
at least 25 meters.

Half the width of the dome.
And then, beyond that,

to allow the ball to be lifted
from the ground,

without actually
touching the dome.

And it's almost unbelievable

that they could have constructed
scaffolding, and the crane

in those dimensions.

How they did it? We do not know.

That they did it, we know.

[narrator] Like all apprentices,
Leonardo started very modestly

at Verrocchio's workshop.

Then, he became a workman:
a better position.

And as such,
he started participating more

in the activities
of the workshop.

During all that time,
he drew from nature

whenever he could.

Like all the students,
he made draperies,

and learned to work with light
and reflections

in order to give volume
to his drawings.

When he did those paintings,

imagine, he was only
in his early twenties.

And 500 years on,

you can still admire
those paintings.

We know the studies of draperies
were very important and relevant

for the activity of the artist
at the time.

Especially, they were
a kind of exercise.

They were studying,
probably all together,

drawing and painting
from reality.

Studying real draperies.

These kind of drawing studies,
then, will eventually be useful

for paintings,
but also for sculpture.

Unfortunately, we don't have
surely any sculpture

attributed to Leonardo.

This is a big problem
because we know that Leonardo

was also a sculptor.

[mellow music]

The Madonna with Child
is a terracotta sculpture,

and the style of this statue
is really unique.

And the only possible candidate
is the young Leonardo da Vinci

in the studio of Verrocchio.

[gentle classical music]

[Dramatic strings playing]

[narrator] Why did he abandon
his paintings?

Including a large format
that seemed very promising,

and for which
he had done many studies:

perspective, characters,
composition.

What's more,
if you look closely,

you can see
some of his future masterpieces:

Saint Anne.

Saint John the Baptist.

The Battle of Anghiari.

Some of the expressions
inThe Last Supper.

The Equestrian Monument.

So, why did he abandon it?

Why did he leave?

[strings crescendo]

In The Virgin of the Rocks,
Leonardo shows us Mary who,

on the one hand,
tries to protect her son.

Her left hand descends
as if to protect her son.

Her right hand
tries to restrain,

to hold back
little John the Baptist

because he is the prophet
of her son's future death.

Her left hand
can never fully descend

because there is the finger
of an angel

pointing back
to John the Baptist.

Leonardo is exploring
a psychodrama

in the mind of this woman.

He knows that,
in religious terms,

she is the servant of God,
and she accepts God's will.

But he says, in human terms,

it must have been
terribly difficult for her

to accept her son's death.

And so, he shows her
trying to prevent

God's will from happening.

But, ultimately,
he has to allow it to happen.

[birds shrieking]

It is in Milan that he emerges
as his own man,

as a fully acclaimed artist.

But it is also in Milan that,
at a certain point,

we see Leonardo
trying to learn Latin.

His notes,
where he's trying to memorize

the form of Latin verbs,
are moving

because this brilliant man,
this spontaneous genius,

does not have the most simple
and basic credential

of intellectual life
of the period.

Someone who could not speak
and read Latin, was simply out.

[dramatic music]

[narrator] Leonardo
wanted to seduce.

He wanted to convince.

And his best weapon
was his pencil.

He knew that an engineer
would be more highly respected

than an artist.

And so, he designed
machines for the Duke.

Starting with military machines.

Leonardo was particularly
interested in civil engineering.

The machines useful
for everyday life.

His winch, for example.

It is designed with a ratchet

to prevent human effort
from being wasted.

This was the first drawing
in exploded view,

something that would later
become a reference.

He also designed machines
for the theater.

This automobile, for instance,
would be useless in the street,

but could produce
magical effects on the stage.

[narrator] There were
floating machines as well,

like this pedal-activated
paddle-wheel boat,

that leaves
the user's hands free.

And finally, later on,

he also pursued
herculean projects,

like this giant excavator
for digging canals.

The Duke was intending
to make a new Milan,

a new modern city.

And he was very ambitious,
Ludovico Sforza.

And so, there was ground
for Leonardo

to taste the possibility

of getting approval
by the patron,

proposing something that was
responding to his ambitions.

And so,
he made this fantastic idea

of a clean city where water
was removing all the rubbish.

Where all the buildings
were connected to one another.

Where carriages
and horses could have

their independent roads,
and so on.

This is a beautiful project
which introduced a new vision.

[people chattering indistinctly]

[classical music]

Christ has just said:
''One of you will betray me.''

And as the apostles remonstrate
and gesticulate

and ask what he means,

he then begins
to institute the Eucharist.

One hand reaches
to a cup of wine,

another to the bread,

and on his face
you see a deep sadness.

You see the sadness

because he is thinking
of his future death.

In that same room,
the dining hall

of the Dominicans
in Santa Maria delle Grazie,

on the opposite wall,
there is a crucifixion scene.

If Leonardo's Christ
lifted his eyes,

he would see himself
the next day on the cross.

And so, Leonardo is trying
to capture the moment

when he has said:
''One of you will betray me.''

And then, he gives them
the great sign, the gift,

that he's willing to die:
''This bread is my body,

this wine is my blood.''

The impact
of the new works by Leonardo

at the time was probably
something incredible,

because for the first time ever,
the figures painted were living.

The Last Supperin Milan,
in this fresco,

unfortunately very damaged,

we know that Leonardo was able
to give life to these figures.

To...
show the internal psychology.

[bells toll]

There is no evidence
that Leonardo

was a personally devout person.

On the other hand,
he was a man of his time,

and would have had
great religious information.

As an artist,
he had to use that.

And it was really his passionate
interest in human nature,

his scientific interest
in the body and, above all,

in what he calls
the moti della mente,

the movements of the mind,
the emotions,

the movements of the spirit,

that allowed him to become

the great interpreter
of Christian art that we know,

because Christianity believes
that God became man.

And so, in the measure
in which an artist can penetrate

the depths
of the human mind and spirit

and system of choices,
that artist becomes

a potential interpreter
of Christianity.

And Leonardo certainly succeeded
in doing that.

-[bells toll]
-[pigeons flap]

Leonardo is mainly known
as a painter,

but we know
that he was a sculptor,

and if we think about
his Milanese period,

we know that
about a decade of this time

was completely dedicated
to the sculpture of the horse.

It took many hours of work
designing the shape.

Then finding the system

to arrive at the only casting
process for the whole structure.

Huge structure.

You need 40 tons of metal
to fill that.

The problem is
it's many aspects.

The first one
is the size of the horse,

it's an unheard size.

Seven meters high,
just the horse.

And the amount of material

that you need to get
for the casting process.

The third one is the machines
that you have to elaborate.

Nothing existed before
to move such a heavy object

from the place where is prepared
to the casting pit.

And making all the accessories
necessary to produce this work.

It took years
to go ahead in that direction.

Leonardo, luckily,
has recorded in his manuscripts

many of the data on which
we base our conclusions.

So there we find the drawings
of the machines he's considered.

We find remarks about the alloy
that he has intended to use.

We find the tales
on the casting of the head

and the legs, separated
from the rest of the body.

We have plenty of information,
which is precious information,

and beautiful information

because the red chalk drawings
are spectacular.

And when he arrived
not far from being close

to producing the horse,

a French army arrived in Milan
and put an end to the duchy

of the Sforza domination
on the city.

[dramatic music]

The tradition in portraying
or imagining men flying

is based on no mechanism at all.

It's wax wings,
or things like that.

Leonardo introduced
a revolution in the field.

He tries to create a machine.

That is,
conceiving precise tools

to transmit and empower
the force of the man,

and to emulate the mechanics
of the birds flying.

So it's quite a revolution.

There was
nothing similar before.

This is what is new
in his imagination.

A mechanical system to fly.

[wings flapping]

[narrator] Leonardo quickly
comprehended aerial dynamic lift

and using a machine,
he tested our resistance.

He studied the flight of birds,
especially that of bats,

which are, like us, mammals.

And if bats can fly, humans
should also be able to fly.

Leonardo, therefore,
pursued the idea

of a machine that flies
by beating it's wings.

But he soon understood
that the materials:

wood, metal, rope, fabric,

were too heavy
for human strength alone.

So he turned his attention
to a sort of glider.

Obviously, the limit
of the planes by Leonardo

is the materials.

He didn't have
the light materials

that we can have today.

Inevitably,
his flying gliders were heavy.

Possibly too heavy
to produce some output.

In a way, Leonardo was going
in the direction of God.

So to understand
the secret of nature.

And we can feel it when we are
in front of his paintings.

And the perfection that Leonardo
wanted to give to his creations.

It's quite evident if we are
in front of The Mona Lisa.

When we see the landscape.

When we see this...

inner psychology
of the sitter, and so on.

Everything is interrelated
in Leonardo.

And probably
the acting of painting

is the pinnacle of his activity.

[gentle guitar playing]

[narrator] When he died,
five centuries ago,

on May 2nd, 1519,

Leonardo da Vinci left behind
the exemplar image of a man

who was not only able to free
himself from his condition,

and shine forever
in the pantheon of the arts,

but also,
that of a tireless researcher,

who wanted
to understand everything.

And who said: ''It is simple
to become universal.''

It is said thatThe Mona Lisa
is the most famous painting

in the history of art.

Perhaps, the very symbol
of painting itself.

We now understand
a little bit why.

In this painting,
Leonardo didn't limit himself

to creating a portrait.

He wanted,
with a mysterious smile,

and a twilight landscape,

to express the wonder and fear
he felt before creation.

The Mona Lisa is smiling,

and behind her
is a tragic background.

But she smiles
despite the tragedy.

And that was Leonardo's vision
of the mystery of life.

Terrifying. Unfathomable.
And yet, a source of wonder.

The Mona Lisa,

likeJohn the Baptist,

likeSaint Anne,

conveys everything
that Leonardo wanted to express.

And that wonder is now ours.