In 1650 Vatican officials feared a diplomatic disaster when Diego Velazquez unveiled a ruthlessly honest portrait of Pope Innocent X. Instead, the pope loved it and hung it in his waiting room. This episode follows the painter of painters from a modest family in Seville, with a possible converso or morisco heritage that shadowed his ambitions, through his apprenticeship with Francisco Pacheco and his early kitchen scenes like Old Woman Frying Eggs.

The hosts trace his monopoly on the royal image under Philip IV, the influence of Rubens, two trips to Italy, and a lifelong habit of stripping away pomp to reveal the shared humanity of generals, court dwarfs, philosophers, and an enslaved assistant he would eventually free.

• How rejecting Pacheco's mannerism and studying the physics of a frying egg shaped his entire worldview
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