1500s. they practically bankrolled the renaissance, paying for artists and scientists like michelangelo and galileo to remake the world. tucci: how many days a week are you here? they are the medici. so come in. and i m going to meet one of them. you are in a place that the florentines call the casino dei medici . and this is a place created as a scientific laboratory the medici wanted all the bright minds in europe to come here and to create new things and to experiment with science, with the arts, with food, with spices. so it was like you say a think tank. a think tank. or a taste tank. exactly. expert art restorer daniela murphy is sneaking me in for an audience with the most powerful medici of them all. where is he? he s right, right there. oh my. meet cosimo primo de medici.
heritage. so, i m travelling across italy to discover how the food, in each of this countries twenty regions, is as unique as the people and their past. the creations of famous tuscans are known the world over. michelangelo, i think if he were to come back today, he d be able to walk around florence. it hasn t changed. but it s the hands of the ordinary people. chef: we fold it like this. .that have crafted the incredible food here. it s like a christmas in your mouth, yeah. this is a place built on human ingenuity, mind-boggling riches and an insane amount of bread. i really don t know how they eat this much bread. it s delicious but so hot.
but why? 500 years later, thankfully you don t need to be a grand-duke to enjoy steaks this big, and fabio wants to cook for me tuscany s signature dish, the magnificent bistecca alla fiorentina. good. and in case lunch isn t looking worthy enough of, like, ten men, fabio picks out a little appetizer, yet another cut of meat. we head back to the deli fabio owns. thank you. oh, look at that, look at the flowers. he hurries us past any food that hasn t had a pulse. and we head up to his hideaway
but i don t have anyone to cook for anymore. i miss my grandchildren. oh don t, don t. but you could move to england. if this series does well. if this series does well. which series? the one we re shooting right now. i got news for ya. [laughs] the time we shared in florence changed everything for us. finally, you re here. yes. after a year spent in the home of the renaissance, we returned to america as a family reborn. it s so delicate, this sauce too, isn t it? you smell the sweetness of the carrot and the butter. our eyes had been opened to some of the greatest treasures on earth and some pretty good food too. it s so good. for me, it was the start of a lifelong love affair with italy. cheers. cheers. thank you, thank you. to florence. thank you, cheers.
knowing my love of food and art, daniela has invited me to a festival this evening. a very fancy festival. the one thing that everybody has in common is the food. yeah. this event is about as far as you can get from the wheat threshing festival. here florence s richest and most powerful families have gathered, as they have for centuries, to toast the city s new creative talent from chefs and musicians, to artists hoping to follow in the footsteps of da vinci and michelangelo. you are right now in a situation where, more or less 500 years ago, the medici would have done something like this. so we re going to go and have some food now. she knows me too well. really?