Niccolo Paganini played the violin with such supernatural skill that audiences genuinely believed he had made a pact with the devil. He could play entire pieces on a single string after the others "accidentally" snapped, performed techniques nobody could replicate for decades, and cultivated the satanic rumors because they sold tickets. When he died, the Catholic Church refused to bury him for five years.

This episode traces Paganini from his Genoa childhood through the virtuoso career that terrified and amazed Europe, the deliberate cultivation of his demonic image, and the five-year refusal of burial that proved the devil story had stuck.

• The grueling childhood practice regimen that produced the most technically advanced violinist in history
• The performances that convinced audiences he was supernaturally gifted — or cur ...