Brian Sewell in Florence & the Last of the Medici.

In episode 3 of his Grand Tour, Brian Sewell visits Florence. Includes the 'Last of the Medici' scene.

Warning: This video contains personal opinions, do not watch it if you are afraid of hearing something that you might not like! For a purely practical Florence guide visit Rick Steves guide instead at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzDnJi-JeNI However, if you like a highly-opinionated, very critical art/travel guide by an extremely plummy & witty white haired elderly Englishman then watch this instead.

Brian Sewell writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art. Sewell has been described as "Britain's most famous and controversial art critic." Brian worked at Christie's auction house, specialising in Old Master paintings and drawings.

The full ten part series is available to buy on DVD as 'Brian Sewell's Grand Tour' in the UK or 'Brian Sewell's Grand Tour of Italy' in the United States.

A wonderful description of Brian from The Guardian's post-filming interview: "An old primrose Mercedes stops on a snowy bend and from its leathery recesses emerges a man with white hair and small, beady eyes, a soft blanket pulled tight around his shoulders against the cold. The man begins to speak, his voice improbably delicate; he sounds like a dowager duchess carefully recalling a large turd she was once mistakenly served during tea at Claridge's."

From the same interview: "On the last day of filming, one of the crew looked him straight in the eye and said: 'We all think it's been absolute hell working with you', a compliment that Sewell simply batted back. He is, rather disingenuously, I would say, highly indignant at what he has learned of television. 'I was promised that it would be my programme. That it would be all my research. I set down my criteria. "Yes, yes, yes," they said. "You can have all that." But my researches were buggered up by some 22-year-old with a degree from Nottingham. The nitwit had no idea. He didn't know if we were in the 18th or the 19th century and had me, as it were, chasing after Browning and the phenomenon of Chiantishire. I think simply this: they [TV people] are fundamentally unserious. They know nothing. They see things only in their own petty, boxed-in terms, and they cannot understand it when they have a presenter who has no vanity.'

In particular, he hated the way he was expected to come up with pictures. If he mentioned a duel, swordsmen would be booked; if he mentioned dancing, music would be arranged. He found all this ridiculous, as you can see in one scene when a young 'nobleman' and his lady can be seen prancing around to, bizarrely, the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. For a while, Sewell watches, poker-faced. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he explodes with laughter. It is to their credit that the people at Five have kept the laughter in.

'It's moronic,' he says. 'Moronic. The day-by-day tedium of it. Nine weeks. What hell. "

Despite Brian's suffering, I rather enjoyed the series. Which by the way, was filmed in reverse, starting in Venice. What a treasure he is.

The full interview can be read here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arta....nddesign/2005/nov/13