Museum Secrets (2011–…): Season 3, Episode 17 - Inside the Uffizi Gallery - full transcript
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Florence,
a city of intrigue
and inspiration.
And at its heart,
a museum with secrets dark and strange.
A fight to the death,
an alchemist's dream,
and a crypt that conceals a lost soul.
Secrets hidden in plain
sight inside the Uffizi Gallery.
(suspenseful music)
In the city of Florence, Italy,
birthplace of the Renaissance,
stands a former palace
that is now one of the most
popular museums in the world.
The Uffizi is filled with works
of genius by Michelangelo,
Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Today, tourists stroll
through its galleries
and in the streets
beyond in perfect safety.
But in the 15th century,
Florence was rife with intrigue and murder.
So turbulent was this
period that it recently inspired
a hugely popular video
game called Assassin's Creed.
In this action-adventure
game, players may be attacked
by agents of the Pope, or a daring noble,
or a wealthy citizen.
The game takes license with history
but not much.
This was a real daring noble.
The Duke of Urbino had
himself painted in left profile
because he lost his
right eye while jousting.
This was a real wealthy citizen.
Lorenzo de' Medici, the
head of a powerful family
who controlled Florence like a mafia don.
In Assassin's Creed, the
Medici family is under threat.
The conspiracy was real.
- The Pazzi conspiracy is actually
a really complicated affair.
It really is something right
out of the Godfather movies
where we have a Florentine
family by the name of Pazzi,
which actually gave name
to the conspiracy itself.
They're the eternal number twos in Florence
during the 15th century.
They kind of rode the
coattails of the Medici family.
The Pazzi would not be satisfied
with that number two position
and I think that the Pazzi,
at this point, kind of
see a window, if you will,
a way that they can actually now oust,
bump the Medici out of power
and perhaps step in themselves
as the leading family
in the city of Florence.
- [Narrator] In this cathedral
on Sunday, April 26, 1478,
the Pazzis lay in wait
for Lorenzo de' Medici
and his brother, Giuliano.
- Giuliano walks in, from what we know,
presumably makes his way
down the nave of the church,
trying to get closer
to his brother Lorenzo.
Lorenzo goes down towards
the southern end of the church
there at the altar and as more time passes,
all of the conspirators
are becoming a bit nervous
and they kind of jump the gun, if you will.
Instead of waiting until Giuliano
is in the vicinity of his brother,
Francesco de' Pazzi, who
seems to be the most impassioned
of all the conspirators,
decides that it's now or never.
He pulls his dagger
and he begins to violently
inflict wounds on the person
of Giuliano de' Medici.
- [Narrator] He is stabbed 19 times.
- While this is happening,
while Giuliano himself
is being savagely murdered
over there by Porto de Servi,
Lorenzo, instead,
finds himself in this part
of the cathedral.
We're down towards the southern side,
very close to the high altar.
- [Narrator] Here, two
more assassins attack.
- They grab Lorenzo and turn him around
in an attempt to actually
get a clear shot at him.
But it was enough to warn
Lorenzo, who draws his own weapon.
- [Narrator] The Pazzis wounded him twice
but he escaped through
these doors to safety.
Lorenzo lived on and history records
that the Pazzi family conspired alone
but the real truth is a museum secret.
Historian Marcello Simonetta
has been investigating
the Pazzi conspiracy for decades.
He was also an advisor for the
Assassin's Creed video game.
- I had a lot of fun
playing with the writers
trying to prevent them from
doing egregious mistakes
but also giving them more detail.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] During his research,
Marcello discovered a
letter sent to Popes Sixtus IV
shortly before the attack.
Some historians suspect that the Pope
supported the Pazzi conspiracy
but the letter shed no light on the matter
because it was encrypted.
- Nothing in it could be read
unless one broke the code.
- [Narrator] In the same
archive were unencrypted letters
to one of Marcello
Simonetta's own ancestors.
- I found a lot of letters and particularly
there were some letters
from Federico de Montefeltro,
Duke of Urbino, to my
ancestor, Chico Simonetta.
These letters were very curious.
- [Narrator] The Duke wrote
that on the day of the attack
soldiers had been seen outside the city.
But he dismissed the reports as unfounded.
- I got a bit suspicious about this
and slowly I realized that
some military operation
had to be ongoing in order
for the whole conspiracy
to be achieved.
- [Narrator] But there were no reports
of soldiers in Florence
during the attack or afterwards
when the Pazzis were captured by a mob.
- This is where the the
plotters were hanged
outside of the windows and
then their bodies were dropped
on the floor of the square
and the bodies were dragged
around the city for days
by the citizens of Florence
outraged by the attack against the Medici.
- [Narrator] It's starting
to look like the Pazzis
did act on their own.
But there is still that encrypted letter.
- At that point, I
remembered that my ancestor,
Chico Simonetta, had written
a treatise on how to decode
intercepted letters from enemies.
- [Narrator] The code represents some words
as letter/number combinations.
- And so I started using
this code-breaking tips
and slowly I managed to break the code.
- [Narrator] The message assured the Pope
that the attack on the Medicis
would be backed up by soldiers.
- While the attack on the
Medici brothers was ongoing,
military forces that surrounded the city
were ready to come in and seize it.
- [Narrator] But when the
attack in the cathedral failed,
everything changed.
- They were ready to
come in but they never did.
They simply had to hide away.
- [Narrator] Below the
message is the signature
of the one-eyed Duke of Urbino.
- The Pope Sextus IV and the Duke of Urbino
had been organizing the military operation
to seize the city of Florence
and destroy completely
the power of the Medici.
- [Narrator] It was the
kind of backstabbing move
you might expect in Assassin's Creed.
But in the mean streets
of 15th century Florence,
the game was real.
Next on Museum Secrets,
a lost and ancient martial art.
(light jovial music)
In Florence, Italy, inside the Uffizi,
there are galleries filled
with beautiful women
and equally beautiful men.
Some are gods, some are demons,
and some are tough guys.
This is one of the most
familiar statues in the world.
It is known simply as The Wrestlers.
And that makes sense
because these men are Greeks.
And the ancient Greeks
invented the sport of wrestling.
Wrestlers were the stars
of the first Olympic games.
Their holds and rules are familiar
to amateur wrestlers today.
But this story isn't about wrestling
because that's not what
these men are doing.
The martial art depicted in
this statue is a museum secret.
Our investigation
begins at a training facility
of the Italian Army
where elite paratroopers
prepare for hand-to-hand
combat under the watchful eye
of Aris Makris.
Aris hails from Montreal, Canada,
the son of Greek immigrants.
As a boy, he became obsessed with karate.
- I slept, ate, drank,
breathed martial arts
since the age of nine.
- [Narrator] Many disciplines
have Asian names like judo,
jujitsu, taekwondo.
Aris tried them all.
But then he stumbled upon a martial art
that had a Greek name, pankration.
- That's what sparked
my interest as a young boy,
as a young Greek boy, as
a young Greek Spartan boy,
growing up in a Greek
community and very bitten
by the martial art bug, to
actually find out more about it.
- [Narrator] Aris discovered
that in the Greek myth
of the labyrinth, the hero used pankration
to defeat the Minotaur.
(Minotaur roaring)
In the real world, Alexander
the Great ordered his men
to master it.
But over the centuries,
pankration became a lost art
surviving only in ancient images.
- I found the images very intriguing.
I mean, it almost
connected certain dots for me
because many of the
different martial arts I was doing
did have similar techniques.
I need to control the
upper ground all the time,
no matter what.
- [Narrator] Now Aris travels the world
introducing Pankration to modern warriors
like these Italian paratroopers.
- A lot of militaries,
especially the ones that I've
worked with around the world,
they're trying to adapt
to a pankration style,
type of martial art because
it provides something
that is complete.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] On the ground,
pankration looks like wrestling
but when opponents stand up,
it's more like bare-knuckle
boxing with karate kicks.
So far, these trainees have
been pulling their punches
but that's about to change.
- You work your way
up, now you start up slow.
- Later we throw in a punch?
- The punches and then
you throw everything in.
- Yeah.
(dramatic music)
- Beautiful job, very
beautiful work, excellent work.
- [Narrator] That was a
real fight but believe it or not,
they were still holding back.
(audience cheering loudly)
There are some pankration
moves that were only used
in ancient times.
- Finger breaks, small
joint breaks, eye gouging,
biting, and a tap on the
back of the cervical spine,
the groin area, from
wrestling to striking to kicking,
I mean, and that's what pankration means.
Pankratos, pankration means all powers,
all encompassing powers,
everything involved.
- [Narrator] In pankration, anything goes.
And that brings us back to
the statue called The Wrestlers.
- That is the father of all sculptures.
That represents pankration to the T.
That is clearly pankration.
- [Narrator] Aris intends
to prove his theory
with the help of two volunteers.
- Okay, so now this
leg will go on the inside.
Oh, that's the hook exactly.
This way the guy is locked in.
- [Narrator] He arranges their positions
to mirror the sculpture precisely.
- And this leg over here's got to be out.
That's it.
The guy on top, although he is locked in,
in a perfect lock, single-leg hook inside,
to make sure that he can hook himself
and attach himself to the other guy's body,
the other leg stretched out on the side
to give him more like a tripod position.
- [Narrator] The stance
may come from wrestling
but one detail does not.
- What changes this from
being a wrestling move
into a pankration move is
the fact that he's got his hand
up in the air in a striking position.
His fist is closed.
He sees you punching in
the face so he turns that way.
That's right, see.
Now, if it was a strictly
wrestling position,
he would have his head tucked down
and this way we know that he's not going,
he's going to try to avoid the guy
from actually going in on
him, or going around his neck.
Only he knows he's going to take a punch.
He'd rather give the back of
his head as opposed to his face
or the side of his head is his temple.
The fist and the turning of the guy's head
combined with the locking
of the two bodies together
is the ultimate description
or example of pankration.
- [Narrator] As this ancient martial art
emerges from obscurity,
perhaps the Uffizi's sculpture
will become known by its true
name, The Pankration Fighters.
(dramatic music)
Next on Museum Secrets,
the artist who lost his head.
(dramatic orchestral music)
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy
houses some of the most sublime images
of the Italian Renaissance
and some of the most disturbing.
The face of this Medusa is a self-portrait
of history's most antisocial artist,
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
- He had absolutely no social skills.
When it came to dealing with patrons,
when it came to dealing with his models,
and almost anybody else, his friends,
he would often fight with them.
He lived a life of drama
and he had a belief
in his own genius.
He lived a life on the edges,
on the margins in every way.
He also was a person who couldn't control
his own urges and desires.
He had sexual relations with women
but he was a practicing homosexual
and so that marginalized him in society.
Was he the person you'd
like your sister to marry?
I doubt it very much.
But is he a person whose
art you would love to have
on your wall and who
would continually inspire you
with an understanding of the
nature of the human condition?
Absolutely.
- [Narrator] He painted
the darkest subjects
with a mastery of light.
His talent made him famous and rich enough
to afford the carnal pleasures he craved.
But as time went on, he
became unstable, easily enraged,
and prone to violence.
Historians believe his
deterioration was caused
by the lead in his pigments.
In this self-portrait his teeth are green,
a symptom of lead poisoning.
But though historians
have dissected every aspect
of Caravaggio's life, one
critical detail remains unknown.
At the age of 38 he disappeared.
His final resting place is a museum secret.
(upbeat string music)
The investigation
begins in the seaside town
of Porto Ercole.
In a local cemetery,
researchers pry open a hatch
that leads to an ancient crypt.
(suspenseful music)
They believe that
Caravaggio may be buried here
but identifying which bones
are his will be like finding
a needle in a haystack.
The team is led by
historian Silvano Vinceti.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] But why
look here in Porto Ercole?
Why not search the crypts in
Caravaggio's home city of Rome?
The reason is Caravaggio
didn't stay in Rome.
In 1606, the hotheaded
artist was goaded into a duel.
After he killed the man,
the authorities branded him a murderer.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Caravaggio
fled South to Naples
where he lived in hiding.
Here his painting depicted
increasingly disturbing subjects
including these self-portraits
with their heads cut off.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Then in 1610, a
message came from Rome.
A rich cardinal had arranged a pardon
in return for three of
Caravaggio's masterpieces.
To deliver them, he
would need to get to Rome
without being arrested.
He embarked on a sea
voyage via Porto Ercole
but at a stop along the
way, he was apprehended.
He was separated from his paintings
and some historians
believe he was murdered.
But Vinceti believes that
he wasn't murdered at all.
That he escaped and made
his own way to Porto Ercole.
And if he did, there's a
good chance his bones
are in the local crypt
amid thousands of others.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Based on sex
and age, Vinceti's team identify
11 skeletons that could be Caravaggio.
But they need to narrow the field to one.
Then someone remembered
Caravaggio's green teeth
caused by lead poisoning.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] The skeletons are transported
to a laboratory in Ravenna
where they are examined
by researcher Elisabetta Cilli.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] The presence
of lead is intriguing
but lead paint was common at the time.
To find more evidence,
they'll need to saw through the bones.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] DNA would
provide a unique identifier
if it's still present.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Now the
team has DNA to compare
with the DNA of
Caravaggio's living relatives.
But there are no records
of his descendants.
In the town where the artist was born,
they seek out men who
share his family name, Merisi.
When their DNA is analyzed,
it turns out they also share
a genetic heritage.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Markers on these chromosomes
match the Caravaggio sample perfectly.
This is compelling evidence
that the bones of Caravaggio,
lost for 400 years, have finally been found
here in Porto Ercole.
- (speaking Italian)
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] In death, as in life,
Caravaggio's final journey is by sea
as Vinceti and his team
return his bones to Porto Ercole.
A master of light was
revealed in the darkness.
But for those who love him,
he may always be a lost soul.
(pig grunting)
Next on Museum Secrets,
the treasure of the wild boar.
(dramatic music)
Inside the Uffizi,
curator Fabrizio Paolucci
oversees restoration of
museum's vast collection of statues.
Many are Roman imitations
of Greek statues that were,
in turn, imitated by the
artists of the Renaissance.
If imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery,
few statues have been
flattered more than this one.
(pig grunting)
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] The wild boar's popularity
may have something to do with luck.
At the center of Florence,
there's a bronze replica
with a shiny snout.
For centuries, tourist have
been encouraged to rub the snout
to ensure good fortune.
What makes a wild boar a good luck charm?
That is our museum secret.
(pig grunting)
(light jovial music)
Our story begins at a
restaurant in Florence
that specializes in Tuscan cuisine.
And that's because the wild boar's luck
is linked with the food
that Tuscany is famous for,
dishes flavored with a
fungus called a truffle.
Black ones are expensive,
white ones are ridiculously expensive.
A truffle this size could set you back
as much as a compact car.
In Italy, the truffle industry is worth
$400 million Euros per year.
In Florence, this delicacy is on the menu
at Cinghiale Bianco, The White Boar.
- Truffle is something
that you either totally fall in love with,
and it could be dangerous
because it's very expensive,
or you don't like it at all.
I guess a little bit
like oysters or caviar,
it's a very refined kind of food.
- [Narrator] Truffles are expensive
because they cannot be grown on farms.
They grow underground in the Tuscan forest,
the natural habitat of the wild boar.
Wild boars love them and
their snouts have evolved
to sniff them out.
In the past, domesticated
boars were employed
to help find truffles for their masters.
In their enthusiasm,
boars would often destroy
as many truffles as they found.
So today's truffle hunters
like Stefano Braccini
employee a special breed of dog
called the Lagotto Romagnolo.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] These dogs have
no urge to destroy the truffles
but they must be trained to retrieve them.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Stefano even gives puppies
truffles to play with
which makes these truffles
the world's priciest chew toys.
As they mature, the dogs
become obsessed with truffles.
And while their noses can't
match the sensitive snout
of a wild boar, a single
dog can find truffles
worth thousands of Euros.
Today Stefano delivers
a sample of his harvest
to The White Boar.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] For Marco, the nose knows.
- The first thing you do
when Stefano brings his truffle,
you check the consistence
and you smell the truffle
because smell is important.
It tells you if the truffle is good.
- [Narrator] Marco decides
that Stefano's truffles
are a worthy addition to the
gourmet cuisine of Tuscany.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] But even
the nose of a Tuscan chef
isn't sensitive enough
to detect the tasty truffle
in the ground without a little help.
(pig grunting)
And that brings us back to
why a boar is a good luck charm.
Because a nose that can
sniff out buried treasure
is surely worth a rub.
Next on Museum Secrets,
a 16th century crime scene investigation.
(suspenseful music)
The Uffizi Gallery was once
the political headquarters
of the powerful Medici family.
In the 16th century,
these rich commoners
reinvented themselves as nobility.
The Medicis were known as schemers
but this Medici was a dreamer.
Grand Duke Francesco I built the Tribuna,
a chamber of dreams
at the heart of the Uffizi.
Decorated with alchemical
symbols, shells for water,
red velvet for fire, stone inlay for Earth,
and a weather vane for air.
- It's governed by his
belief in the four elements
and his desire was to find
mechanisms to transform
one thing into another.
The Tribuna really
is a kind of distillation
of his thinking and his world
view and his personality.
This place that he was creating
in order to engage in
his mystical thinking.
- [Narrator] Francesco created
another stranger sanctuary
just across the river from the Uffizi.
Ghostly spirits loom and pagan gods frolic.
All for the delight of
his lovely wife, Bianca.
She was a dreamer, too,
but their dream was cut short.
During a visit to their
country villa in 1587,
both Francesco and Bianca fell ill and died
within days of each other.
Francesco's younger
brother, Cardinal Ferdinando,
ordered an autopsy that determined malaria
was the cause of death.
Malaria was common in
the swampy countryside
but there were rumors of foul play.
How and why did Francesco and Bianca die?
That is our museum secret.
(dramatic music)
Our investigation begins
beneath the chapel of San Lorenzo
in the crypt of the Medicis.
Recently, researchers exhumed human remains
hoping to discover the causes
of death of many members
of the family.
The team's medical
historian is Donatella Lippi.
- We found that the corpses
of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany
in small, zinc boxes.
In the box belonging to Francesco I,
we found only his bones.
- [Narrator] When
Francesco's bones were tested,
they found DNA but no
evidence of why he died.
And as for his wife Bianca,
her bones weren't
allowed in the family crypt
by order of Francesco's
brother, Ferdinando.
Bianca was rumored to be a witch.
- Ferdinando said I don't want Bianca close
to the Medici family and
Bianca's corpse disappeared.
- [Narrator] A few years
before the couple died,
Ferdinando also became
concerned about Duke Francesco.
- Francesco I was a very strange man.
He should, to some extent,
have been a perfect ruler
but it was quite clear
that that wasn't his primary interest.
His real interest was in what
we would now call science
but in those days was
much closer associated
with magic and alchemy.
That is the transformation of substances
and his desire was to find
mechanisms to transform
base metals into gold.
He became so obsessed
that he would leave early in the morning
and lock himself in his
room for experiments
and not come until
very, very late at night.
- [Narrator] His dream was innocent
but it stole time from his
duties as head of state.
- Cardinal Ferdinando felt that the future
of the Medici dynasty was,
in fact, being compromised
and the well-being of the
state was being compromised
by Francesco's increasing interest
in his alchemical experiments.
- [Narrator] Did Ferdinando's
fears about his brother
give him a motive for murder?
Ken and Donatella visit the
villa where Francesco and Bianca
fell fatally ill.
It happened during a family gathering.
- So we must imagine
the situation, many people,
the Grand Duke Francesco, his wife, Bianca,
and Cardinal Ferdinando.
- [Narrator] According
to eyewitness accounts,
something unexpected happened.
- During the lunch, very
suddenly Francesco felt great pains
in his stomach and at
the same time, Bianca.
- [Narrator] They died
so soon after their meal,
it suggests poison was involved.
So why did the autopsy say malaria?
- Ferdinando took upon
himself to have the autopsies
performed on the bodies and he was the one
who released the medical reports
and he kept complete control.
He became the spin doctor of
Francesco's and Bianca's death.
- [Narrator] But recently,
Donatella discovered a second autopsy.
This one conducted by
Francesco's personal physicians.
- The corpses were opened
and the surgeons realized
that the same kind of
poison had spoiled the entrails
of Bianca and Francesco.
This record was hidden, was concealed
because it was too dangerous.
- [Narrator] The second autopsy also states
that the internal organs
were buried in the church
close to the villa.
Donatella went there hoping
to excavate under the floor.
Church officials allow her to descend
through an existing
cavity but not to enlarge it.
- I'm lucky that I'm so small
because it was very difficult to go in.
I had to take out a great
amount of masonry, debris,
stones, bricks, bones.
I managed to find the six
or seven small fragments
of biological substances
which revealed themselves
to be pieces, fragments of livers.
- [Narrator] Tests revealed a
mix of male and female DNA.
The male sample matched the DNA
found in Duke Francesco's bones.
And the liver contents
revealed something else.
- Fragments of entrails, of
liver, belonging to Francesco,
we had found the
evidence, arsenic was found.
So this was the evidence that
Francesco had been poisoned.
- [Narrator] The alchemist
and the alleged witch
were probably poisoned by Ferdinando
but he never faced justice.
In an act of political alchemy,
he transformed himself
from a cardinal into a grand duke,
usurping his brother's power in Florence.
Some say that murder victims become ghosts
if their deaths are unavenged.
If that is so, then Francesco
and Bianca are with us still.
And perhaps they whisper,
in the Medici clan there
is no place for dreamers.
(solemn string music)
Up next, the art loving
Nazi who saved Uffizi.
(suspenseful music)
Inside the Uffizi,
a locked door leads
from the public galleries
to a private passageway
called the Vasari Corridor.
It was built to allow a
Medici patriarch to travel
to and from his palace
without fear of assassination.
For several centuries, it has
been extension of the museum
featuring self-portraits of
great artists like Rubens,
Bernini, and Chagall.
Its windows provide a
unique view of the Arno River
because the corridor is
the second story of a bridge.
The Ponte Vecchio is one of several bridges
that span the river.
Most appear to be very old
but historian Lee Windsor knows better.
- We're coming upon
the Ponte Santa Trinita,
arguably the most important
bridge in all of Florence
architecturally, culturally, structurally.
And it looks at those it
pre-exists the war but, in fact,
in the 1950s local
architects rescued the rubble
from the bottom of the river
and used it to rebuild the
bridge almost as it was.
- [Narrator] It needed to be rebuilt
because of what happened
here in World War II
when allied forces began
to push the Nazis out of Italy.
- In August of 1944, when
the Germans evacuate,
begin to evacuate Florence,
they need to establish the
Arno River as a speed bump
so that the allies can't
chase them too quickly
into their new gothic lined defenses.
They need to hold the allies
here for a short period of time
and in order to do that,
they're going to blow
all of the bridges over the Arno River.
(bombs exploding)
- [Narrator] One after
another, the historic bridges
were reduced to rubble
except for the Ponte Vecchio.
Why did the Ponte Vecchio survive?
That is our museum secret.
(crowd roaring loudly)
The story begins in 1938 when Adolf Hitler
arrived in Florence with his Italian ally,
Benito Mussolini.
At Hitler's request,
they visited the Ponte
Vecchio's Vasari Corridor.
Mussolini was bored but
the furor fancied himself
a connoisseur of color and form.
He paused to examine several masterpieces
before he stopped to wave to the crowds.
Some Floretines still remember.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Some
believe that six years later
when Hitler's army was
in retreat, he couldn't bear
to see the bridge destroyed.
- They were bombing
all the bridges, obviously,
because there's eight
more bridges to our left
and to our right, they bombed them all.
But wait a second, Hitler
sends in a telegram saying
don't bomb this bridge here.
Why?
Because of all the artwork up above.
So that's the only thing
that saves the bridge
and the Germans do not bomb this bridge.
- [Narrator] But was the Ponte Vecchio
really saved by Adolf Hitler?
Local filmmaker Gianmarco
D'Agostino doesn't think so.
Beneath the arches he
recently noticed a plaque
commemorating someone named Gerhard Wolf.
- I pass here a lot of times, of course,
but I never, never looked at the plaque.
I think almost nobody do it.
- [Narrator] The plaque
thanks Wolf for helping Florence
and saving the Ponte Vecchio.
- I became really curious about this story
and I started to research.
- [Narrator] Gianmarco soon discovered
that during World War II,
Gerhard Wolf was the
German consul for Florence.
While Nazis in other cities looted art,
Wolf did something strange.
Secretly he helped Florentines
transfer the Uffizi's
treasures to hiding places
outside the city.
- He tried hard to save
the works of art of Florence.
- [Narrator] And his un-Nazi behavior
extended to people as well.
When local Jews were threatened,
Wolf used his position to help them.
- (speaking Italian)
Here in the building was
the German consulate
during the World War II.
Here Gerhard Wolf worked during the day.
He got in contact with a
very famous Jew lawyer
in Florence and started to
give him the names of people
before they were deported to Auschwitz
and other concentration camps.
He had to act undercover
because he was risking his life, of course.
- [Narrator] By the time the
Germans began their retreat,
Wolf had saved hundreds of lives.
He also tried to save the city's bridges
by pleading with his
superiors to stop the demolition.
(bombs exploding)
Did his pleas save the Ponte Vecchio?
Lee Windsor has a different theory.
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill
described the Ponte Vecchio as venerable
but was totally inadequate
for military purposes.
You can see that it really
is a pedestrianized bridge.
It's not capable, not suitable
for heavy vehicular traffic.
You can tell that it's
strained, and old, and weak.
To put any kind of amount
of heavy military traffic
onto that bridge is going to knock it down.
The bridge is militarily useless.
The Germans know it so it's
the only one they leave intact.
- [Narrator] If the
bridge had been sturdier,
it might not be here today
and neither would the
masterpieces of the Vasari Corridor.
And without a traitorous
Nazi named Gerhard Wolf,
the museum's collections might now be gone.
The galleries would no longer whisper
that humanity achieves
its highest expression
during the darkest of times.
(dramatic music)
In this place where
intrigue and inspiration meet,
for every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.
Secrets of the questing
mind and the troubled heart,
hidden in plain sight,
inside the Uffizi Gallery.
(tense dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Florence,
a city of intrigue
and inspiration.
And at its heart,
a museum with secrets dark and strange.
A fight to the death,
an alchemist's dream,
and a crypt that conceals a lost soul.
Secrets hidden in plain
sight inside the Uffizi Gallery.
(suspenseful music)
In the city of Florence, Italy,
birthplace of the Renaissance,
stands a former palace
that is now one of the most
popular museums in the world.
The Uffizi is filled with works
of genius by Michelangelo,
Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Today, tourists stroll
through its galleries
and in the streets
beyond in perfect safety.
But in the 15th century,
Florence was rife with intrigue and murder.
So turbulent was this
period that it recently inspired
a hugely popular video
game called Assassin's Creed.
In this action-adventure
game, players may be attacked
by agents of the Pope, or a daring noble,
or a wealthy citizen.
The game takes license with history
but not much.
This was a real daring noble.
The Duke of Urbino had
himself painted in left profile
because he lost his
right eye while jousting.
This was a real wealthy citizen.
Lorenzo de' Medici, the
head of a powerful family
who controlled Florence like a mafia don.
In Assassin's Creed, the
Medici family is under threat.
The conspiracy was real.
- The Pazzi conspiracy is actually
a really complicated affair.
It really is something right
out of the Godfather movies
where we have a Florentine
family by the name of Pazzi,
which actually gave name
to the conspiracy itself.
They're the eternal number twos in Florence
during the 15th century.
They kind of rode the
coattails of the Medici family.
The Pazzi would not be satisfied
with that number two position
and I think that the Pazzi,
at this point, kind of
see a window, if you will,
a way that they can actually now oust,
bump the Medici out of power
and perhaps step in themselves
as the leading family
in the city of Florence.
- [Narrator] In this cathedral
on Sunday, April 26, 1478,
the Pazzis lay in wait
for Lorenzo de' Medici
and his brother, Giuliano.
- Giuliano walks in, from what we know,
presumably makes his way
down the nave of the church,
trying to get closer
to his brother Lorenzo.
Lorenzo goes down towards
the southern end of the church
there at the altar and as more time passes,
all of the conspirators
are becoming a bit nervous
and they kind of jump the gun, if you will.
Instead of waiting until Giuliano
is in the vicinity of his brother,
Francesco de' Pazzi, who
seems to be the most impassioned
of all the conspirators,
decides that it's now or never.
He pulls his dagger
and he begins to violently
inflict wounds on the person
of Giuliano de' Medici.
- [Narrator] He is stabbed 19 times.
- While this is happening,
while Giuliano himself
is being savagely murdered
over there by Porto de Servi,
Lorenzo, instead,
finds himself in this part
of the cathedral.
We're down towards the southern side,
very close to the high altar.
- [Narrator] Here, two
more assassins attack.
- They grab Lorenzo and turn him around
in an attempt to actually
get a clear shot at him.
But it was enough to warn
Lorenzo, who draws his own weapon.
- [Narrator] The Pazzis wounded him twice
but he escaped through
these doors to safety.
Lorenzo lived on and history records
that the Pazzi family conspired alone
but the real truth is a museum secret.
Historian Marcello Simonetta
has been investigating
the Pazzi conspiracy for decades.
He was also an advisor for the
Assassin's Creed video game.
- I had a lot of fun
playing with the writers
trying to prevent them from
doing egregious mistakes
but also giving them more detail.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] During his research,
Marcello discovered a
letter sent to Popes Sixtus IV
shortly before the attack.
Some historians suspect that the Pope
supported the Pazzi conspiracy
but the letter shed no light on the matter
because it was encrypted.
- Nothing in it could be read
unless one broke the code.
- [Narrator] In the same
archive were unencrypted letters
to one of Marcello
Simonetta's own ancestors.
- I found a lot of letters and particularly
there were some letters
from Federico de Montefeltro,
Duke of Urbino, to my
ancestor, Chico Simonetta.
These letters were very curious.
- [Narrator] The Duke wrote
that on the day of the attack
soldiers had been seen outside the city.
But he dismissed the reports as unfounded.
- I got a bit suspicious about this
and slowly I realized that
some military operation
had to be ongoing in order
for the whole conspiracy
to be achieved.
- [Narrator] But there were no reports
of soldiers in Florence
during the attack or afterwards
when the Pazzis were captured by a mob.
- This is where the the
plotters were hanged
outside of the windows and
then their bodies were dropped
on the floor of the square
and the bodies were dragged
around the city for days
by the citizens of Florence
outraged by the attack against the Medici.
- [Narrator] It's starting
to look like the Pazzis
did act on their own.
But there is still that encrypted letter.
- At that point, I
remembered that my ancestor,
Chico Simonetta, had written
a treatise on how to decode
intercepted letters from enemies.
- [Narrator] The code represents some words
as letter/number combinations.
- And so I started using
this code-breaking tips
and slowly I managed to break the code.
- [Narrator] The message assured the Pope
that the attack on the Medicis
would be backed up by soldiers.
- While the attack on the
Medici brothers was ongoing,
military forces that surrounded the city
were ready to come in and seize it.
- [Narrator] But when the
attack in the cathedral failed,
everything changed.
- They were ready to
come in but they never did.
They simply had to hide away.
- [Narrator] Below the
message is the signature
of the one-eyed Duke of Urbino.
- The Pope Sextus IV and the Duke of Urbino
had been organizing the military operation
to seize the city of Florence
and destroy completely
the power of the Medici.
- [Narrator] It was the
kind of backstabbing move
you might expect in Assassin's Creed.
But in the mean streets
of 15th century Florence,
the game was real.
Next on Museum Secrets,
a lost and ancient martial art.
(light jovial music)
In Florence, Italy, inside the Uffizi,
there are galleries filled
with beautiful women
and equally beautiful men.
Some are gods, some are demons,
and some are tough guys.
This is one of the most
familiar statues in the world.
It is known simply as The Wrestlers.
And that makes sense
because these men are Greeks.
And the ancient Greeks
invented the sport of wrestling.
Wrestlers were the stars
of the first Olympic games.
Their holds and rules are familiar
to amateur wrestlers today.
But this story isn't about wrestling
because that's not what
these men are doing.
The martial art depicted in
this statue is a museum secret.
Our investigation
begins at a training facility
of the Italian Army
where elite paratroopers
prepare for hand-to-hand
combat under the watchful eye
of Aris Makris.
Aris hails from Montreal, Canada,
the son of Greek immigrants.
As a boy, he became obsessed with karate.
- I slept, ate, drank,
breathed martial arts
since the age of nine.
- [Narrator] Many disciplines
have Asian names like judo,
jujitsu, taekwondo.
Aris tried them all.
But then he stumbled upon a martial art
that had a Greek name, pankration.
- That's what sparked
my interest as a young boy,
as a young Greek boy, as
a young Greek Spartan boy,
growing up in a Greek
community and very bitten
by the martial art bug, to
actually find out more about it.
- [Narrator] Aris discovered
that in the Greek myth
of the labyrinth, the hero used pankration
to defeat the Minotaur.
(Minotaur roaring)
In the real world, Alexander
the Great ordered his men
to master it.
But over the centuries,
pankration became a lost art
surviving only in ancient images.
- I found the images very intriguing.
I mean, it almost
connected certain dots for me
because many of the
different martial arts I was doing
did have similar techniques.
I need to control the
upper ground all the time,
no matter what.
- [Narrator] Now Aris travels the world
introducing Pankration to modern warriors
like these Italian paratroopers.
- A lot of militaries,
especially the ones that I've
worked with around the world,
they're trying to adapt
to a pankration style,
type of martial art because
it provides something
that is complete.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] On the ground,
pankration looks like wrestling
but when opponents stand up,
it's more like bare-knuckle
boxing with karate kicks.
So far, these trainees have
been pulling their punches
but that's about to change.
- You work your way
up, now you start up slow.
- Later we throw in a punch?
- The punches and then
you throw everything in.
- Yeah.
(dramatic music)
- Beautiful job, very
beautiful work, excellent work.
- [Narrator] That was a
real fight but believe it or not,
they were still holding back.
(audience cheering loudly)
There are some pankration
moves that were only used
in ancient times.
- Finger breaks, small
joint breaks, eye gouging,
biting, and a tap on the
back of the cervical spine,
the groin area, from
wrestling to striking to kicking,
I mean, and that's what pankration means.
Pankratos, pankration means all powers,
all encompassing powers,
everything involved.
- [Narrator] In pankration, anything goes.
And that brings us back to
the statue called The Wrestlers.
- That is the father of all sculptures.
That represents pankration to the T.
That is clearly pankration.
- [Narrator] Aris intends
to prove his theory
with the help of two volunteers.
- Okay, so now this
leg will go on the inside.
Oh, that's the hook exactly.
This way the guy is locked in.
- [Narrator] He arranges their positions
to mirror the sculpture precisely.
- And this leg over here's got to be out.
That's it.
The guy on top, although he is locked in,
in a perfect lock, single-leg hook inside,
to make sure that he can hook himself
and attach himself to the other guy's body,
the other leg stretched out on the side
to give him more like a tripod position.
- [Narrator] The stance
may come from wrestling
but one detail does not.
- What changes this from
being a wrestling move
into a pankration move is
the fact that he's got his hand
up in the air in a striking position.
His fist is closed.
He sees you punching in
the face so he turns that way.
That's right, see.
Now, if it was a strictly
wrestling position,
he would have his head tucked down
and this way we know that he's not going,
he's going to try to avoid the guy
from actually going in on
him, or going around his neck.
Only he knows he's going to take a punch.
He'd rather give the back of
his head as opposed to his face
or the side of his head is his temple.
The fist and the turning of the guy's head
combined with the locking
of the two bodies together
is the ultimate description
or example of pankration.
- [Narrator] As this ancient martial art
emerges from obscurity,
perhaps the Uffizi's sculpture
will become known by its true
name, The Pankration Fighters.
(dramatic music)
Next on Museum Secrets,
the artist who lost his head.
(dramatic orchestral music)
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy
houses some of the most sublime images
of the Italian Renaissance
and some of the most disturbing.
The face of this Medusa is a self-portrait
of history's most antisocial artist,
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
- He had absolutely no social skills.
When it came to dealing with patrons,
when it came to dealing with his models,
and almost anybody else, his friends,
he would often fight with them.
He lived a life of drama
and he had a belief
in his own genius.
He lived a life on the edges,
on the margins in every way.
He also was a person who couldn't control
his own urges and desires.
He had sexual relations with women
but he was a practicing homosexual
and so that marginalized him in society.
Was he the person you'd
like your sister to marry?
I doubt it very much.
But is he a person whose
art you would love to have
on your wall and who
would continually inspire you
with an understanding of the
nature of the human condition?
Absolutely.
- [Narrator] He painted
the darkest subjects
with a mastery of light.
His talent made him famous and rich enough
to afford the carnal pleasures he craved.
But as time went on, he
became unstable, easily enraged,
and prone to violence.
Historians believe his
deterioration was caused
by the lead in his pigments.
In this self-portrait his teeth are green,
a symptom of lead poisoning.
But though historians
have dissected every aspect
of Caravaggio's life, one
critical detail remains unknown.
At the age of 38 he disappeared.
His final resting place is a museum secret.
(upbeat string music)
The investigation
begins in the seaside town
of Porto Ercole.
In a local cemetery,
researchers pry open a hatch
that leads to an ancient crypt.
(suspenseful music)
They believe that
Caravaggio may be buried here
but identifying which bones
are his will be like finding
a needle in a haystack.
The team is led by
historian Silvano Vinceti.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] But why
look here in Porto Ercole?
Why not search the crypts in
Caravaggio's home city of Rome?
The reason is Caravaggio
didn't stay in Rome.
In 1606, the hotheaded
artist was goaded into a duel.
After he killed the man,
the authorities branded him a murderer.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Caravaggio
fled South to Naples
where he lived in hiding.
Here his painting depicted
increasingly disturbing subjects
including these self-portraits
with their heads cut off.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Then in 1610, a
message came from Rome.
A rich cardinal had arranged a pardon
in return for three of
Caravaggio's masterpieces.
To deliver them, he
would need to get to Rome
without being arrested.
He embarked on a sea
voyage via Porto Ercole
but at a stop along the
way, he was apprehended.
He was separated from his paintings
and some historians
believe he was murdered.
But Vinceti believes that
he wasn't murdered at all.
That he escaped and made
his own way to Porto Ercole.
And if he did, there's a
good chance his bones
are in the local crypt
amid thousands of others.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Based on sex
and age, Vinceti's team identify
11 skeletons that could be Caravaggio.
But they need to narrow the field to one.
Then someone remembered
Caravaggio's green teeth
caused by lead poisoning.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] The skeletons are transported
to a laboratory in Ravenna
where they are examined
by researcher Elisabetta Cilli.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] The presence
of lead is intriguing
but lead paint was common at the time.
To find more evidence,
they'll need to saw through the bones.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] DNA would
provide a unique identifier
if it's still present.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Now the
team has DNA to compare
with the DNA of
Caravaggio's living relatives.
But there are no records
of his descendants.
In the town where the artist was born,
they seek out men who
share his family name, Merisi.
When their DNA is analyzed,
it turns out they also share
a genetic heritage.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Markers on these chromosomes
match the Caravaggio sample perfectly.
This is compelling evidence
that the bones of Caravaggio,
lost for 400 years, have finally been found
here in Porto Ercole.
- (speaking Italian)
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] In death, as in life,
Caravaggio's final journey is by sea
as Vinceti and his team
return his bones to Porto Ercole.
A master of light was
revealed in the darkness.
But for those who love him,
he may always be a lost soul.
(pig grunting)
Next on Museum Secrets,
the treasure of the wild boar.
(dramatic music)
Inside the Uffizi,
curator Fabrizio Paolucci
oversees restoration of
museum's vast collection of statues.
Many are Roman imitations
of Greek statues that were,
in turn, imitated by the
artists of the Renaissance.
If imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery,
few statues have been
flattered more than this one.
(pig grunting)
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] The wild boar's popularity
may have something to do with luck.
At the center of Florence,
there's a bronze replica
with a shiny snout.
For centuries, tourist have
been encouraged to rub the snout
to ensure good fortune.
What makes a wild boar a good luck charm?
That is our museum secret.
(pig grunting)
(light jovial music)
Our story begins at a
restaurant in Florence
that specializes in Tuscan cuisine.
And that's because the wild boar's luck
is linked with the food
that Tuscany is famous for,
dishes flavored with a
fungus called a truffle.
Black ones are expensive,
white ones are ridiculously expensive.
A truffle this size could set you back
as much as a compact car.
In Italy, the truffle industry is worth
$400 million Euros per year.
In Florence, this delicacy is on the menu
at Cinghiale Bianco, The White Boar.
- Truffle is something
that you either totally fall in love with,
and it could be dangerous
because it's very expensive,
or you don't like it at all.
I guess a little bit
like oysters or caviar,
it's a very refined kind of food.
- [Narrator] Truffles are expensive
because they cannot be grown on farms.
They grow underground in the Tuscan forest,
the natural habitat of the wild boar.
Wild boars love them and
their snouts have evolved
to sniff them out.
In the past, domesticated
boars were employed
to help find truffles for their masters.
In their enthusiasm,
boars would often destroy
as many truffles as they found.
So today's truffle hunters
like Stefano Braccini
employee a special breed of dog
called the Lagotto Romagnolo.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] These dogs have
no urge to destroy the truffles
but they must be trained to retrieve them.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Stefano even gives puppies
truffles to play with
which makes these truffles
the world's priciest chew toys.
As they mature, the dogs
become obsessed with truffles.
And while their noses can't
match the sensitive snout
of a wild boar, a single
dog can find truffles
worth thousands of Euros.
Today Stefano delivers
a sample of his harvest
to The White Boar.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] For Marco, the nose knows.
- The first thing you do
when Stefano brings his truffle,
you check the consistence
and you smell the truffle
because smell is important.
It tells you if the truffle is good.
- [Narrator] Marco decides
that Stefano's truffles
are a worthy addition to the
gourmet cuisine of Tuscany.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] But even
the nose of a Tuscan chef
isn't sensitive enough
to detect the tasty truffle
in the ground without a little help.
(pig grunting)
And that brings us back to
why a boar is a good luck charm.
Because a nose that can
sniff out buried treasure
is surely worth a rub.
Next on Museum Secrets,
a 16th century crime scene investigation.
(suspenseful music)
The Uffizi Gallery was once
the political headquarters
of the powerful Medici family.
In the 16th century,
these rich commoners
reinvented themselves as nobility.
The Medicis were known as schemers
but this Medici was a dreamer.
Grand Duke Francesco I built the Tribuna,
a chamber of dreams
at the heart of the Uffizi.
Decorated with alchemical
symbols, shells for water,
red velvet for fire, stone inlay for Earth,
and a weather vane for air.
- It's governed by his
belief in the four elements
and his desire was to find
mechanisms to transform
one thing into another.
The Tribuna really
is a kind of distillation
of his thinking and his world
view and his personality.
This place that he was creating
in order to engage in
his mystical thinking.
- [Narrator] Francesco created
another stranger sanctuary
just across the river from the Uffizi.
Ghostly spirits loom and pagan gods frolic.
All for the delight of
his lovely wife, Bianca.
She was a dreamer, too,
but their dream was cut short.
During a visit to their
country villa in 1587,
both Francesco and Bianca fell ill and died
within days of each other.
Francesco's younger
brother, Cardinal Ferdinando,
ordered an autopsy that determined malaria
was the cause of death.
Malaria was common in
the swampy countryside
but there were rumors of foul play.
How and why did Francesco and Bianca die?
That is our museum secret.
(dramatic music)
Our investigation begins
beneath the chapel of San Lorenzo
in the crypt of the Medicis.
Recently, researchers exhumed human remains
hoping to discover the causes
of death of many members
of the family.
The team's medical
historian is Donatella Lippi.
- We found that the corpses
of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany
in small, zinc boxes.
In the box belonging to Francesco I,
we found only his bones.
- [Narrator] When
Francesco's bones were tested,
they found DNA but no
evidence of why he died.
And as for his wife Bianca,
her bones weren't
allowed in the family crypt
by order of Francesco's
brother, Ferdinando.
Bianca was rumored to be a witch.
- Ferdinando said I don't want Bianca close
to the Medici family and
Bianca's corpse disappeared.
- [Narrator] A few years
before the couple died,
Ferdinando also became
concerned about Duke Francesco.
- Francesco I was a very strange man.
He should, to some extent,
have been a perfect ruler
but it was quite clear
that that wasn't his primary interest.
His real interest was in what
we would now call science
but in those days was
much closer associated
with magic and alchemy.
That is the transformation of substances
and his desire was to find
mechanisms to transform
base metals into gold.
He became so obsessed
that he would leave early in the morning
and lock himself in his
room for experiments
and not come until
very, very late at night.
- [Narrator] His dream was innocent
but it stole time from his
duties as head of state.
- Cardinal Ferdinando felt that the future
of the Medici dynasty was,
in fact, being compromised
and the well-being of the
state was being compromised
by Francesco's increasing interest
in his alchemical experiments.
- [Narrator] Did Ferdinando's
fears about his brother
give him a motive for murder?
Ken and Donatella visit the
villa where Francesco and Bianca
fell fatally ill.
It happened during a family gathering.
- So we must imagine
the situation, many people,
the Grand Duke Francesco, his wife, Bianca,
and Cardinal Ferdinando.
- [Narrator] According
to eyewitness accounts,
something unexpected happened.
- During the lunch, very
suddenly Francesco felt great pains
in his stomach and at
the same time, Bianca.
- [Narrator] They died
so soon after their meal,
it suggests poison was involved.
So why did the autopsy say malaria?
- Ferdinando took upon
himself to have the autopsies
performed on the bodies and he was the one
who released the medical reports
and he kept complete control.
He became the spin doctor of
Francesco's and Bianca's death.
- [Narrator] But recently,
Donatella discovered a second autopsy.
This one conducted by
Francesco's personal physicians.
- The corpses were opened
and the surgeons realized
that the same kind of
poison had spoiled the entrails
of Bianca and Francesco.
This record was hidden, was concealed
because it was too dangerous.
- [Narrator] The second autopsy also states
that the internal organs
were buried in the church
close to the villa.
Donatella went there hoping
to excavate under the floor.
Church officials allow her to descend
through an existing
cavity but not to enlarge it.
- I'm lucky that I'm so small
because it was very difficult to go in.
I had to take out a great
amount of masonry, debris,
stones, bricks, bones.
I managed to find the six
or seven small fragments
of biological substances
which revealed themselves
to be pieces, fragments of livers.
- [Narrator] Tests revealed a
mix of male and female DNA.
The male sample matched the DNA
found in Duke Francesco's bones.
And the liver contents
revealed something else.
- Fragments of entrails, of
liver, belonging to Francesco,
we had found the
evidence, arsenic was found.
So this was the evidence that
Francesco had been poisoned.
- [Narrator] The alchemist
and the alleged witch
were probably poisoned by Ferdinando
but he never faced justice.
In an act of political alchemy,
he transformed himself
from a cardinal into a grand duke,
usurping his brother's power in Florence.
Some say that murder victims become ghosts
if their deaths are unavenged.
If that is so, then Francesco
and Bianca are with us still.
And perhaps they whisper,
in the Medici clan there
is no place for dreamers.
(solemn string music)
Up next, the art loving
Nazi who saved Uffizi.
(suspenseful music)
Inside the Uffizi,
a locked door leads
from the public galleries
to a private passageway
called the Vasari Corridor.
It was built to allow a
Medici patriarch to travel
to and from his palace
without fear of assassination.
For several centuries, it has
been extension of the museum
featuring self-portraits of
great artists like Rubens,
Bernini, and Chagall.
Its windows provide a
unique view of the Arno River
because the corridor is
the second story of a bridge.
The Ponte Vecchio is one of several bridges
that span the river.
Most appear to be very old
but historian Lee Windsor knows better.
- We're coming upon
the Ponte Santa Trinita,
arguably the most important
bridge in all of Florence
architecturally, culturally, structurally.
And it looks at those it
pre-exists the war but, in fact,
in the 1950s local
architects rescued the rubble
from the bottom of the river
and used it to rebuild the
bridge almost as it was.
- [Narrator] It needed to be rebuilt
because of what happened
here in World War II
when allied forces began
to push the Nazis out of Italy.
- In August of 1944, when
the Germans evacuate,
begin to evacuate Florence,
they need to establish the
Arno River as a speed bump
so that the allies can't
chase them too quickly
into their new gothic lined defenses.
They need to hold the allies
here for a short period of time
and in order to do that,
they're going to blow
all of the bridges over the Arno River.
(bombs exploding)
- [Narrator] One after
another, the historic bridges
were reduced to rubble
except for the Ponte Vecchio.
Why did the Ponte Vecchio survive?
That is our museum secret.
(crowd roaring loudly)
The story begins in 1938 when Adolf Hitler
arrived in Florence with his Italian ally,
Benito Mussolini.
At Hitler's request,
they visited the Ponte
Vecchio's Vasari Corridor.
Mussolini was bored but
the furor fancied himself
a connoisseur of color and form.
He paused to examine several masterpieces
before he stopped to wave to the crowds.
Some Floretines still remember.
- (speaking Italian)
- [Narrator] Some
believe that six years later
when Hitler's army was
in retreat, he couldn't bear
to see the bridge destroyed.
- They were bombing
all the bridges, obviously,
because there's eight
more bridges to our left
and to our right, they bombed them all.
But wait a second, Hitler
sends in a telegram saying
don't bomb this bridge here.
Why?
Because of all the artwork up above.
So that's the only thing
that saves the bridge
and the Germans do not bomb this bridge.
- [Narrator] But was the Ponte Vecchio
really saved by Adolf Hitler?
Local filmmaker Gianmarco
D'Agostino doesn't think so.
Beneath the arches he
recently noticed a plaque
commemorating someone named Gerhard Wolf.
- I pass here a lot of times, of course,
but I never, never looked at the plaque.
I think almost nobody do it.
- [Narrator] The plaque
thanks Wolf for helping Florence
and saving the Ponte Vecchio.
- I became really curious about this story
and I started to research.
- [Narrator] Gianmarco soon discovered
that during World War II,
Gerhard Wolf was the
German consul for Florence.
While Nazis in other cities looted art,
Wolf did something strange.
Secretly he helped Florentines
transfer the Uffizi's
treasures to hiding places
outside the city.
- He tried hard to save
the works of art of Florence.
- [Narrator] And his un-Nazi behavior
extended to people as well.
When local Jews were threatened,
Wolf used his position to help them.
- (speaking Italian)
Here in the building was
the German consulate
during the World War II.
Here Gerhard Wolf worked during the day.
He got in contact with a
very famous Jew lawyer
in Florence and started to
give him the names of people
before they were deported to Auschwitz
and other concentration camps.
He had to act undercover
because he was risking his life, of course.
- [Narrator] By the time the
Germans began their retreat,
Wolf had saved hundreds of lives.
He also tried to save the city's bridges
by pleading with his
superiors to stop the demolition.
(bombs exploding)
Did his pleas save the Ponte Vecchio?
Lee Windsor has a different theory.
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill
described the Ponte Vecchio as venerable
but was totally inadequate
for military purposes.
You can see that it really
is a pedestrianized bridge.
It's not capable, not suitable
for heavy vehicular traffic.
You can tell that it's
strained, and old, and weak.
To put any kind of amount
of heavy military traffic
onto that bridge is going to knock it down.
The bridge is militarily useless.
The Germans know it so it's
the only one they leave intact.
- [Narrator] If the
bridge had been sturdier,
it might not be here today
and neither would the
masterpieces of the Vasari Corridor.
And without a traitorous
Nazi named Gerhard Wolf,
the museum's collections might now be gone.
The galleries would no longer whisper
that humanity achieves
its highest expression
during the darkest of times.
(dramatic music)
In this place where
intrigue and inspiration meet,
for every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.
Secrets of the questing
mind and the troubled heart,
hidden in plain sight,
inside the Uffizi Gallery.
(tense dramatic music)