BBC Two’s Renaissance – The Blood and the Beauty pulls back the velvet curtains on the surprisingly gritty early years of art titans Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Forget those serene chapel ceilings and enigmatic smiles; this is a tale of two ambitious young men hustling for survival in 15th-century Florence, where artists, despite their burgeoning talent, ranked somewhere below fishmongers on the social ladder.
The series premiere finds a young Michelangelo (Eddie Mann) facing familiar familial friction. His father, a staunch believer in sensible professions like, well, anything other than art, isn’t thrilled with his son’s chisel-wielding aspirations. Naturally, Michelangelo rebels, setting off for Florence, the epicenter of banking, trade, and, crucially, the arts. He soon catches the eye of the city’s ruler, Lorenzo de’ Medici, who clearly has a penchant for spotting future fresco-painters.
Meanwhile, Leonardo da Vinci (Jonny Glynn), also navigating the cutthroat Florentine art scene, takes a different tack. Facing his own set of obstacles, he sets his sights on the Duke of Milan (Ludovico Sforza), a man whose reputation precedes him as, shall we say, rather forceful. Da Vinci shrewdly pitches himself not as a mere artist but as a military engineer, a skill set likely to resonate with a ruler whose idea of a productive afternoon probably involved catapults and siege warfare.
With Sophie Okonedo providing a steady narrative hand, the series effectively establishes the precarious nature of artistic ambition in this era. The patronage system becomes less a charming historical footnote and more a high-stakes game of survival, where talent alone is rarely enough. The inclusion of Charles Dance as an older, presumably wiser Michelangelo also hints at the long and winding road ahead for these two icons.
As for the young Raphael (Joshua Duffy)? Well, we’ll have to see how he fits into this burgeoning tapestry of artistic intrigue. But with only three episodes, Renaissance – The Blood and the Beauty seems determined to paint a vivid, if somewhat ruthless, portrait of a world where beauty was often born of struggle.
Renaissance – The Blood and the Beauty airs Mondays at 9/8c on BBC Two.
