The Ugly Renaissance, Cate Blanchett, Mira Schendel, Maxim Leo

Cate Blanchett takes the lead in Woody Allen's latest offering 'Blue Jasmine', portrait of
a wealthy New York socialite's decline into alcohol, lies and self-deception. Blanchett joins Samira to discuss her preparation for the role.

As the late Brazilian artist Mira Schendel gets a first major retrospective at London's Tate Modern, Samira talks to art critic Joanne Harwood about this intellectual European woman who has iconic status in Sao Paulo but remains relatively unknown outside South America.

Maxim Leo was 19 and living in East Berlin when the Wall came down in 1989. Both of his grandfathers had been prominent Communists but in his new memoir Red Love he finds that that meant very different things in each case. He joins Samira to discuss the compromises involved in living in the DDR.

And did the great works of Donatello, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Michelangelo spring into being despite the social and political conditions of the times, or rather because of them? Renaissance scholar Alexander Lee argues we view the Renaissance through rose-tinted glasses. He joins Samira along with John Gallagher of Cambridge University and Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, and Sarah Dunant whose novels include 'Blood and Beauty' about the Borgias.

Produced by Luke Mulhall.