Season 18

Renzo, Lucia and Alberto Angela: "Ulisse, il piacere della scoperta" travels through the pages of I promessi sposi, Alessandro Manzoni's masterpiece. It is not a school reading, but the fresco of an entire era: the seventeenth century. Alberto Angela demonstrates how the author used very accurate documentation concerning first of all the habits and customs of the time and the great historical events: the famine, the plague, the Thirty Years' War, the spinning mills, the duels. All these aspects are also explored in depth with the help of the Rai drama directed by Salvatore Nocita in 1989. Even more surprising is the correspondence of some characters in the novel with real-life figures: Don Rodrigo and the Unnamed are not only the fruit of Manzoni's imagination, but they are present - albeit with other names - in the "black" chronicles of the seventeenth century.

In this episode of "Ulisse, il piacere della scoperta", Alberto Angela takes us on a journey to the limits of what the human body can do. Let's try to understand if there are, and where they are, the limits of our organism. We meet extraordinary people, capable of incredible feats, and the researchers who study to understand how they do it. But we also meet those who experience the challenge of overcoming a limitation of the body every day, and we discover some of the technological solutions being worked on to allow the body to recover lost functions. This journey, however, has a peculiarity: Alberto Angela takes us by the hand towards the goals that human beings can achieve today, also keeping an eye on what our species has always dreamed of doing and which it thought was only possible for superior creatures, like gods and heroes of antiquity.

We follow Alberto Angela into the depths of the abyss. The world of the deep sea is still little known and full of surprises. We know the surface of the Moon in more detail than the depths of our seas. In this episode we discover the stories and adventures of the pioneers who led humanity to discover the oceans and their underwater world. "Challenge to the abyss" takes us on board one of the most advanced submarines of the Italian Navy, the Todaro, to discover what happens on board a modern submarine and how its crew lives.

"I know I have a fragile and delicate woman's body, but I have the stomach and heart of a king, of a king of England." These are the words of Elizabeth I, the virgin queen, protagonist of this episode of "Ulisse - Il piacere della scoperta". With the help of a drama, Alberto Angela reconstructs the life of Queen Elizabeth I Tudor from her difficult childhood to the last days of her long reign. A life lived like a Shakespearean tragedy, made up of deception, revenge in the name of religion, bloody deaths.

Alberto Angela dedicates the first of the two episodes to the beauties of Rome. But this time we will talk about a "hidden" eternal city that centuries and centuries of construction have buried. Rome under Rome. The hidden secrets of the city. They will be told through little-known locations, never-discovered treasures, secret doors and unexplored dungeons. One for all, the Baths of Trajan in the park of Colle Oppio, where the largest Roman wall mosaic ever discovered was found: 300 square meters discovered, but a part is still buried and to be brought to light. The Basilica of Porta Maggiore, discovered by chance during work on the railway viaduct leading to Termini Station. In the Appio Latino neighborhood, under a manhole, is a hypogeum hidden with magnificent frescoes, where Christian and pagan symbols mix? This too was discovered by chance, while laying the foundations of a building. Alberto Angela will make us relive the activity that he carried out in these spaces.

Second appointment with the two-episode journey of "Ulisse: il piacere della scoperta" with Alberto Angela among the secrets of underground Rome. A city that never ceases to amaze us, which reveals new aspects among more recent neighborhoods with new buildings, the accumulation of debris, the raising of the walking surface which have made buildings which once constituted authentic wonders disappear underground and which sometimes they randomly re-emerge in all their splendor. This is the case of the Basilica of Porta Maggiore, discovered by chance during work on the railway viaduct leading to Termini Station. Or the hypogeum with magnificent frescoes, where Christian and pagan symbols mix, hidden under a manhole in the Appio Latino neighborhood. Or, again, of the astonishing maze of tunnels and service areas that hides underground of the grandiose Baths of Caracalla, and the small lake with pure water that was formed under ancient ruins on the Celian Hill.

An extraordinary journey by Alberto Angela to the continent furthest from us and perhaps the least known: Australia. Why was it discovered just 250 years ago? Why are there animals very different from other continents? What is Ayers Rock, the enormous rock block located in the center of the continent, and why is it considered a sacred place by Aboriginal people? Is it true that Giuseppe Garibaldi was in Australia? These are some of the many curiosities that the episode answers. Just two and a half centuries ago, until James Cook's expedition, Australia was not even suspected of existence; and even today its interior - the so-called outback - behind the large coastal cities remains almost completely uninhabited and largely unexplored. There are many wonders and surprises that Ulysses reserves for us on this journey to discover the lesser-known aspects of Australia.

Alberto Angela accompanies viewers to discover the adventurous events of a place fundamental to history, art and Christianity. A living place, not just a splendid museum. Starting from the heart of the Vatican, and then moving to Florence and London, Alberto Angela will recall characters, stories, ideas of a historical period that has so far had no equal: the Renaissance. A true journey through history, to discover the lives of the protagonists who have linked their names to the Sistine Chapel: artists such as Michelangelo, Raffaello, Botticelli, Perugino and popes such as Sisto IV, Giulio II and Leone X. Together with Alberto Angela Gigi Proietti, who will give voice to the great protagonists of the past by recounting the work and genius of those who contributed to the birth of one of the most spectacular places in the world.

This second episode of the series will be dedicated to one of the most famous and fascinating female figures in history: Queen Cleopatra. Alberto Angela will guide viewers on a real journey through time to discover the world at the time of Cleopatra, describing the fundamental stages of her existence and those events that changed the destiny of history forever, contributing to the birth of the great Roman Empire . No woman of the ancient world exercised such a strong seduction on her contemporaries, as well as on posterity, as Cleopatra: the last ruler of the powerful Egyptian dominion. Starting from the Colosseum, symbol of Roman civilisation, crossing ancient Egypt and ancient Rome and stopping at the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Alberto Angela will reconstruct the life and history of the last queen of Egypt, a woman whose existence has marked the fundamental transition between the end of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Empire.

The episode of Ulisse: il piacere della scoperta, by Alberto Angela, is dedicated to the story of one of the most shameful events in the history of our country: the roundup of the Jews in the Rome ghetto which took place on 16 October 1943. It all began with the laws racial groups, which from one day to the next had deprived thousands of Italian citizens of many rights and freedoms simply because they were Jews. And it ended with the extermination camps from which very few had escaped after experiencing all sorts of horrors. Alberto Angela will tell the story of the events in the same places where the tragic events took place. The strong point will above all be the direct testimony of those who escaped death in the concentration camps, certain that listening to their voice will be a renewed opportunity for reflection, analysis and knowledge for viewers. Among the testimonies is that of Senator Liliana Segre.

Alberto Angela presents a new episode of "Ulisse, il piacere della scoperta", the program dedicated to history, art and culture. This fourth episode of the series will be dedicated to Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as "Princess Sissi" thanks to her films played by the unforgettable Romy Schneider. Retracing the life of this fascinating and controversial historical figure, Alberto Angela will guide viewers on a journey through the sumptuous court palaces of the Habsburg dynasty. From her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna until her dramatic death in 1898 in Geneva at the hands of an Italian anarchist, Sissi was for many a symbol of female independence in a century of great social transformations. Her rebellious nature, in contrast with the rigid conventions of the court, foreshadowed the end of the old world decades in advance.