So, the title of the episode is based on one of the cards from the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. In fact, all of the titles of Season 1 are more or less based on major arcana cards (with the exception of The Serpent and The Prisoner). Generally, the episode titles have two or even three meanings.

There are, of course, a couple of ‘hanged men’ in Episode 1. The Jew, then Leonardo himself (metaphorically). And there’s (sort of) a third one hidden in there as well.

The opening scene with the Turk is nonlinear. In it, the Turk speaks of time being like a river – which is an oblique reference to some of the writings from Jorges Luis Borges. Aslan al-Rahim is also, obliquely, referencing the work of another favorite author of mine, Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun). Those of you who are familiar with their work will be able to intuit where some of this show might ultimately be going.

In any event, the Turk also mentions how Leonardo’s own history will ultimately be manipulated. What I’m trying to do here is weave a story not just about Leonardo, but about the myths surrounding Leonardo and the celebrated place that he seems to exist in the public imagination.

At the end of the opening scene, we see a few brief flashes from events that will occur in the future.

Then we pivot to Milan and the assassination of Duke Sforza. This was based, more or less, on a real event and broadly happened as depicted (although the weapon used to kill him was a creative invention). The Duke was rumored to be a real rat-bastard, famous for having his way with just about anyone and everyone.

True story: on the set, I mentioned to Tom Riley how I wanted to start the show off with a bang and kill an actor famous for doing a “proper” historical show. I said “We need someone like Hugh Bonneville”. As it happened, Tom Riley was friends with Hugh and contacted him on my behalf.

After the Duke’s demise, we pivot to Leonardo testing his glider.

Side note: We know his name was Leonardo, but we had to take some artistic license. If you say “Da Vinci” around the world, most people immediately know who you are talking about. If you say Leonardo – well, sometimes you get the right guy and sometimes, you get DiCaprio.

The glider is fairly accurate in design — although Leonardo didn’t actually test it until a few years later and the unlikely “test pilot” was actually Zoroaster.

Vanessa is one of the few characters in the show that didn’t have a specific historical antecedent. We needed her for reasons that will become more obvious later on.

“Nico” is a young Niccolo Machiavelli. Niccolo was a fellow Florentine and later on in life, a close friend of Leonardo’s.

The falcon memory is based on Leonardo’s own writings. Some historians say it was a hawk, others a bird called a kite, still others a vulture. We chose this particular kind of falcon because it also has links to the Ottoman Empire. (More on that later.)

Once back on firm ground, we pivot to our half-scale Ponte Vecchio set. Leonardo sets eyes on Lucrezia Donati. We don’t know if Leonardo was ever involved with Lucrezia – but it’s quite likely that they knew of each other.

From the Ponte Vecchio, we meet the Medici brothers. Our Medici Palace sets were built into the shell of an existing castle – Margam Castle. It has an amazing staircase that doesn’t ape the actual Medici courtyard, so we had to take some liberties.

Then we pivot to Rome and introduce Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew, Count Riario. We introduce him in a controversial way, but the truth is, there were widely spread rumors about Sixtus’ “activities”. He was a controversial figure who also, famously, helped ignite the Spanish Inquisition. His desire to rule Florence and oust the Medici was very real. He also was involved in creating the Vatican Secret Archives. Lupo Mercuri, the Curator, is one of the other fabricated characters. The scene also briefly introduces Francesco Pazzi, a member of a competing Florentine family that had a long-standing feud with the Medici.

Back in Florence, we are introduced to Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo’s tutor and father-figure. Their relationship was, initially, largely as depicted. The Columbina was a big deal back in the day – and although Leonardo probably never built one as such – he did build a walking lion automaton as well as a moving, humanoid automaton.

After Leonardo gets his Columbina commission, he slaves over the designs and flashes back on his repressed memory of “the cave” – also based on a real event in Leonardo’s life. We don’t know what happened in the cave, but it clearly made an impression on him – he sketched it a few times. The “cave” is our Freudian, reverse “Rosebud”-like moment (if I can combine Freud and a reference to Citizen Kane)!

When Leonardo wakes from his nightmare and is berated by Verrocchio, sharp-eyed viewers may notice the helmet for the diving suit he designed (in the back-ground).

Back on the Ponte Vecchio, Leonardo let’s loose a cage of starlings – something that he apparently did quite often. We used this scene to illustrate how he sees the world and also, to hopefully imbue the show with a celebratory moment. Afterwards, Leonardo encounters Lorenzo and company, along with his own father, Piero, who really did work for Lorenzo.

Afterwards, Leo takes comfort in the Barking Dog and we meet Zoroaster (based on a real figure — every genius needs a bad influence to tether him to the earth, right?) In the bar, we briefly meet Jacopo Saltarelli, a male prostitute and artist’s model who will return later on in the season to bedevil Leo.

Leo gets a little ambidextrous sword fighting in, and then meets the Turk for the first time. (Sharp-eyed viewers will have noticed the Turk on the boat outside the Ponte Vecchio near the beginning of the show. He’s in the background, disembarking and watching Leo.) The coin the Turk gives Leo his a hypnotic trigger – as is the invocation he utters. The symbols on each side of the coin are both symbols from the Sons of Mithras mystery cult. The lion-headed figure is the leontocephaline – the God of Knowledge and possibly the God of Time.

The scene in the Bargello/dungeon is another moment of artistic license, but the words Leonardo says to his father are loosely based on a much harsher letter he wrote on the occasion of the birth of his step-brother. The original words were so harsh, in fact, that my producers asked me to tone it down. I do think Leonardo being illegitimate was a big chip on his shoulders.

Leo sketches Lucrezia’s, the witnesses the Jew being hung. Hanging were essentially public sport in those days – and sadly, many minorities were routinely put upon. Again, the Jew utters the Mithras invocation, which triggers the Turk’s hypnotic suggestion.

From the hanging, Leo goes to the Inn at the Black Swan, a reference to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s high-profile, hard-to-predict rare events – and also, to my last show, FlashForward.

After the Inn, Leonardo travels to the roman ruins and the Mithraeum. Mithraeums were early, pre-Christian places of worship – lots of them still dot the European landscape and many churches were built atop Mithraic sites.

Now we’ve come full circle and caught up to were we began. Time is a river. The Turk explains why he has contacted Leonardo and gives him his classic, Joseph Campbell call to adventure. We’re essentially in Star Wars territory now. The Turk is to Obi Wan as Leonardo is to Luke.

The Turk sets up the central mythic quest for Leonardo and provides us with the show’s quest object: The Book of Leaves (which was loosely based on a real tome called the Voynich Manuscript).

If our show is lucky enough to last multiple seasons and end as we planned, then the secrets to our ending are already embedded in this scene.

After Leonardo wakes up, it’s off to the Medici Palace where our hero gets his painting commission and a stipend to experiment with his war machines. Leonardo did attempt to promote himself as a war engineer to Lorenzo and he did work for Lorenzo.

As Leonardo once famously said: “The Medicis created and destroyed me.”

Back at the workshop, Leo gives Zoroaster a task – dig up the Jew’s body. (Leonardo did cut open cadavers later in life and supposedly tasked Zoroaster to dig them up.)

From Verrocchio’s studio, we pivot to the Duomo and the Columbina. Here we see the Scarlet Woman, who is wearing a phoenix dress – bird imagery, fire imagery. Hopefully, this also subtly links to the early glider/Icarus-like imagery.

After the Columbina, Leonardo sleeps with Lucrezia and we preview some other designs (like the parachute).

From Leonardo’s studio we pivot to the Secret Archives. We meet Riario’s “agent”, Lucrezia, who is playing a double or triple game. Riario also gives Lucrezia payment – a severed finger with a ring on it. We’ll learn more about whose finger that is in later episodes.

And that’s Episode One. There are countless other Easter eggs and such embedded in the episode – hopefully, we’ll have time to decipher them in future exchanges.