Renaissance: The Blood and The Beauty explores the lives of three rival artists - Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael
Monday: Renaissance – The Blood and the Beauty (BBC Two, 9pm)
And that was certainly the case in Renaissance Florence.
The Italian city bubbled with deceit and corruption during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, when it was menaced by cardinal and condottiero Cesare Borgia and ruled using the deceptive advice of Niccolò Machiavelli.
Yet inside this treacherous and turbulent city, three of the art world’s greatest names, who are still recognised by only one of their names as well as having crime-flighting reptiles named after them, competed to create works of breathtaking beauty.
Three-part docu-drama, Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty, a co-commission from PBS and the BBC, shows how the iconic works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael emerged from an era of political rivalry and upheaval, and how the three interconnected artists’ were controlled by rich patrons exercising their power in Italy.
Born in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci returned to Florence, the city of his youth, as he was nearing 50.
The polymath was already famous for his painting the Last Supper in Milan, and was looking for new challenges.
In 1503 he began work on the Mona Lisa and then was asked to make a mural for the main hall, the Salone dei Cinquecento, in the Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.
His rival, Michelangelo, was pitched against him for the job, in a kind of face-off.
He began work on the palazzo too, but was called away in 1508 to work on the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Returning to Florence in his late 20s, Michelangelo planned to concentrate on sculpture and soon won a major commission for a colossal marble statue, eventually sited opposite the Palazzo Vecchio. This was his David.
The youngest of the three, Raphael, went to Florence because he had heard about the art being made there. On arrival, he studied and learned from his older peers, but would later go on to be their rivals too.
Actor Charles Dance is well known for playing villains and authoritative characters on screen, with his past credits including The Crown, Game of Thrones and The Imitation Game.
He plays Michelangelo in this series, which begins tonight when the sculptor and painter finds favour with the powerful Medici family in Florence.
Leonardo, meanwhile, struggles to find work and must take himself to the court of Milan to secure commissions from a dangerous Duke.
But warfare and political upheaval threaten both men’s lives and careers, and they become engaged in a high-stakes game of personal and political alliances.
As Leonardo’s reputation grows with his work in Lombardy – including the Last Supper – Michelangelo’s artistic endeavours were also becoming legendary.
The Blood And The Beauty features contributions from contemporary artists such as Antony Gormley, Alison Lapper and David LaChapelle, as well as historians and biographers.
They all explain how the three iconic artists were pushed to greatness by a combination of intense personal rivalry, petty feuding and the powerful and brutal people who were lining their pockets.