Ulisse - The Pleasure of Discovery - Season 4

First aired: 4/3/2004 8 episodes

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Episodes

1. Inca: the Empire of the Sun

Aired: 4/3/2004

Ulisse will make a long journey through the extraordinary scenery of Peru, to discover one of the most important civilizations of the past: the Incas. Alberto Angela will travel to the heart of the Andes, to let us discover some of the most beautiful archaeological sites on the planet and to tell us about the habits, customs and rites of the Incas. We will get to know Machu Pichu and, through graphic reconstructions, we will see how it must have looked 5 centuries ago. It was a city full of life with temples, palaces, sanctuaries, homes. We will talk about deities and human sacrifices, healing methods, writing systems and, thanks also to filmed reconstructions, we will discover some aspects of daily life. Alberto Angela will also travel to Cuzco, where the most important temple of the Incas stood and where the Spanish built the church and convent of Santo Domingo.

2. Homo Sapiens: the Revolution of Intelligence

Aired: 4/17/2004

Ulisse will retrace some of the most extraordinary moments in the history of Homo Sapiens. We will discover how he was able to survive in extremely difficult conditions and how, despite adversity, he was able to give birth to what was perhaps the greatest revolution in human history: agriculture. Alberto Angela will show us objects and finds that have marked the long odyssey of Homo Sapiens and, through these, he will tell us how he hunted, how he tanned skins and how he sewed them. We will discover which animals populated the planet, such as the saber-toothed tiger and the flat-headed bear. We will follow the evolution that occurred in human history with the birth of agriculture and animal breeding.

3. Time Travel - Rome Five Centuries Ago

Aired: 4/24/2004

Piazza di Spagna, Trinità dei Monti steps. Without a doubt this is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, millions of visitors come every year from all over the world to admire this but also many other masterpieces scattered throughout the eternal city, masterpieces of art, architecture and sacred art. But how were Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain, the mouth of truth born? What stories are behind it? We will try to find out in this episode, in fact we will take a journey to discover the wonders and secrets of Renaissance and Baroque Rome, when the eternal city for a few centuries was the capital of man's genius and creativity, but we will do it in a special way . We will return to those centuries, back in time, and follow some very particular travellers.

4. In the Trenches of the Great War

Aired: 5/8/2004

Ulisse will dedicate this episode to the First World War, making us relive one of the greatest tragedies of all time which cost the lives of millions of men. It was a different war from those that had preceded it. Together with conventional weapons and traditional warfare techniques, new technologies took to the field, increasingly powerful and increasingly ruthless: the machine gun, the first tanks, submarines up to perhaps the most frightening weapon of all, gases and chemical warfare. Alberto Angela will go to the trenches of the Carso and to the tunnels of Monte Sabotino where thousands of soldiers died between 1915 and 1918 and, directly from the places where the fighting was fought, he will tell us the motivations and the most salient episodes of this war; where the soldiers came from and how they were recruited, their life in the trenches, their anxieties, survival strategies, the weapons used and fighting techniques.

5. Mummies: a Challenge to Immortality

Aired: 5/15/2004

Why do people get mummified? In general, behind all mummies there is a long history. It is man's challenge at the time, the attempt to preserve the body at all costs, even after death. A challenge that has no age and that starts from very distant times. We will take a journey into this challenge. We will talk about mummies, of course, about civilizations from different eras, but not only that: we will try to discover everything that man has implemented over the millennia to save his image, even today. In short, we will take a journey in what can be called the search for immortality.

6. The Normandy Landings

Aired: 5/22/2004

Ulisse will dedicate this episode to an event that changed our history: the Normandy landing, reconstructing that memorable day of 6 June 1944, which represented the great turning point of the Second World War. Alberto Angela will travel to the same places where the landing took place, the French coast of Normandy, to give us the opportunity to relive that extraordinary day and to tell us how the operation was born and the enormous effort made to put it into practice feet that colossal war machine. We will see what happened through images of the time, shot by war operators, through the testimonies of soldiers who participated in the landing and also thanks to a film that the BBC made specifically to mark the 60th anniversary of the landing.

7. Journey to the Poles

Aired: 9/5/2004

In this episode we go to one of the most remote places on the planet, near the Svalbard Islands, where the pack ice begins that leads directly to the North Pole. On our planet there are many inhospitable regions where man has always preferred to avoid because they are hostile, but on these frozen expanses, even for thousands and thousands of years, no human being has ever dared to venture because they are decidedly unlivable.

8. The Great Florence of the Medici

Aired: 9/12/2004

This evening we will talk about a beautiful city that the world envies us: Florence. It is precisely in its streets and buildings that in the 1400s that extraordinary phenomenon took shape, destined to bring about an essential turning point in art and culture: the Renaissance. And it is a story intertwined in an almost intimate way with that of a large family: the Medici. In particular with Cosimo and Lorenzo known as the Magnificent. It was they who transformed Florence, who gave it this economic miracle and this explosion of creativity.