The Renaissance Unchained, BBC4 - TV review: Waldemar Januszczak’s Venice episode was a seductive bit of art history

Januszczak’s accessible presenting style brought his version of Renaissance Venice alive to the viewer

The Renaissance Unchained (BBC)

Waldemar Januszczak is three-quarters of the way through his journey encouraging us to rethink the Renaissance. This time, he was in Venice, arguing that the unique setting of the city – a trade hot spot between East and West, and in watery, mythical-feeling surroundings – had a big influence on Renaissance art. As he stamped around the canals, you got a sense he was having a great time and it made for an absorbing watch.

He zoomed in on some of the city's most sensual qualities, not least as the birthplace of the reclining Venus, a product of the fact that at the time, the area was home to some 12,000 prostitutes. “I'm afraid, it means 'bridge of tits'. I'm sorry but that's what it's called,” he said entirely unapologetic on the Ponte delle Tette. That's nothing new, of course, but his accessible style drew us in to the small details. He encouraged us to spot the Murano glass in the paintings, and the subjects' “snazzy robes” that were a result of the silk trade and were influential beyond Venice: “You’ll be amazed how many of the prophets and ancestors up there have turned up in their best cangiante clobber,” he said of the presence of the city's distinctive shot silk in images on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling.

As Januszczak was the sole narrator, it was inevitable his head occasionally got in the way of the art, but mercifully those shots were in the minority and there was plenty of time devoted to the works of the likes of Titian and Tintoretto. It made me want to revisit Venice and look that bit closer; at the glass, the silk and yep, the tits.