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Meanwhile, in Renaissance Florence...
May. 26th, 2018 07:38 pmSome weeks back doing a meme reminded me that I never got around to watching Da Vinci’s Demons. Also, Netflix had put up the first season of Medici: Masters of Florence, which is an Italian-American coproduction. (A second season is in production.) So I marathoned through two series which had Renaissance Florence as a central location, and members of the Medici family in important roles. Result: I was entertained, but wouldn’t call either one a must.
I Medici/ Medici: Masters of Florence is the more conventional of the two, a straightforward historical. ( Spoilers have always believed in Florence. ) I hear the second season will skip two decades and will bring us to Lorenzo and his brother Guiliano and the Pazzi Conspiracy, i.e. the very events the first season of Da Vinci’s Demons uses as background. Presumably without Leonardo da Vinci.
To get the most obvious out of the way first, Da Vinci’s Demons does not feature any literal demons. (Lots of metaphorical ones, though.) It is historical fantasy, but the supernatural elements mostly consist of telepathy, prophecy and Vlad Tepes, Dracula himself, having an uncanny ability to survive things which kill other people. (He shows up in season 1 and season 3 and is played gloriously over the top by Paul Rhys. Since geography in Da Vinci’s Demons is as excentric as history, trips to Romania and back pose no problem for our heroes.)
What Da Vinci’s Demons also is: batshit, to use a fannish term. A very entertaining kind of crazy, with Jacobean and modern tropes thrown in to a wild mixture. Secret societies! (Two of them are basically responsible for most major plot twists.) Evil twins! Surprise other relations! Double (and triple) agents! Lots of assasinations (with various degrees of success)! Revennnnnge! Enemies turning allies! Daddy issues! Evil clerics! Evil military overlords! Orgies! And so on, and so forth. The cinematography matches. Also, the score by Bear McCreary (he who gave us the music for Battlestar Galactica, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Black Sails) is gorgeous.
( Spoilers were probably planted by the Sons of Mithras to foil the Enemies of Men only to be seen in a vision by Leonardo da Vinci )
I Medici/ Medici: Masters of Florence is the more conventional of the two, a straightforward historical. ( Spoilers have always believed in Florence. ) I hear the second season will skip two decades and will bring us to Lorenzo and his brother Guiliano and the Pazzi Conspiracy, i.e. the very events the first season of Da Vinci’s Demons uses as background. Presumably without Leonardo da Vinci.
To get the most obvious out of the way first, Da Vinci’s Demons does not feature any literal demons. (Lots of metaphorical ones, though.) It is historical fantasy, but the supernatural elements mostly consist of telepathy, prophecy and Vlad Tepes, Dracula himself, having an uncanny ability to survive things which kill other people. (He shows up in season 1 and season 3 and is played gloriously over the top by Paul Rhys. Since geography in Da Vinci’s Demons is as excentric as history, trips to Romania and back pose no problem for our heroes.)
What Da Vinci’s Demons also is: batshit, to use a fannish term. A very entertaining kind of crazy, with Jacobean and modern tropes thrown in to a wild mixture. Secret societies! (Two of them are basically responsible for most major plot twists.) Evil twins! Surprise other relations! Double (and triple) agents! Lots of assasinations (with various degrees of success)! Revennnnnge! Enemies turning allies! Daddy issues! Evil clerics! Evil military overlords! Orgies! And so on, and so forth. The cinematography matches. Also, the score by Bear McCreary (he who gave us the music for Battlestar Galactica, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Black Sails) is gorgeous.
( Spoilers were probably planted by the Sons of Mithras to foil the Enemies of Men only to be seen in a vision by Leonardo da Vinci )
