Da Vinci's Demons S1 NEWS & SPOILERS

Exclusive! Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville summons his signature furrowed brow for the new series Da Vinci’s Demons, which
premieres April 12 at 10 p.m. on STARZ.

Leonardo’s male relationships do come into the show further down the line, explains Ritson, who studied Italian at Cambridge before entering the acting profession. He points out that the Renaissance was a very lusty time. “Sexuality was a lot more fluid back then. Boys slept with boys, girls slept with girls - most of the court cases for sodomy would simply have been an excuse to prosecute someone the authorities didn’t like. I don’t think anyone cared that much about your proclivities unless they could use them for their own ends.”

…Ritson argues that historical fact is sometimes just too fanficul for television drama. “I don’t know if you know anything about Pope Sixtus IV, the guy whose son I play. You couldn’t invent him if you tried.
He was incestuous, a rapist; he tried to introduce the satanic high mass and human sacrifice. But he also started the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Secret Archives. He propounded the idea of papal indulgences, which led to the Reformation. All in all, pretty ambitious for a pope. But if you scripted it and put it on Starz, everyone would dismiss it as stunt and spectacle. But he’d be so much fun to play…