Leonardo BBC

Learning his craft at the heart of the Renaissance movement in Florence, Leonardo survives arrest to win the patronage of the powerful tyrant Ludivico Sforza, Duke of Milan. While working for Sforza, he paints Madonna of the Rocks, works out why the sky is blue and becomes the first person to properly dissect a human body. He also becomes a practical engineer. The program builds and tries out two designs from that period - an armored war vehicle and a parachute.

Following Leonardo's journey from Milan to Venice in 1500, where he proposes to the Doges a novel form of warfare, a crack team of underwater divers to help sink the invading Turkish fleet. Would such a thing have been possible in the 16th century? Spurned by the Venetians, Leonardo designs war machines for the bloodthirsty tyrant Cesare Borgia before returning to Florence, where his lifelong obsession with flight culminates in the design of a flying machine, which we build and test. But it is in Florence, while painting the Mona Lisa, that he becomes locked in a bitter rivalry with the sculptor Michelangelo, which will end in his undoing.

She has her own bodyguards and lives in Paris in a humidified, air-conditioned box protected by triplex bullet proof glass. Despite this she is visited by six million tourists every year. She is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Alan Yentob tells the story of how the Mona Lisa came to be the most famous work of art in the world. It's a tale full of notoriety, glamor and intrigue as the Mona Lisa is abducted, vandalized and exploited across the centuries. With the help of leading scholars and original research Alan also finally solves the central mystery of the Mona Lisa - who she is and why she's smiling.