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
• The shift from a dark reddish ground to a light gray one in Italy, and why it let him paint air and atmosphere
• The Surrender of Breda painted as a moment of compassion, and the dignified portrait of the court dwarf Don Diego de Acedo
• The portrait of Juan de Pareja, his election to the Roman Academy, and the 1650 papers that freed Pareja from slavery
• Las Meninas, Foucault’s fascination with it, the sickly Prince Felipe Prospero, the Order of Santiago investigation, and his rediscovery by Goya and Manet