Leo Tolstoy hand-wrote all 1,400 pages of War and Peace.

The handwriting of great authors 🧵 1. Fyodor Dostoevsky's manuscript draft of The Brothers Karamazov

Unpopular opinion: Christopher Columbus was a hero.

He singlehandedly carried the torch of Christianity and Western civilization across the ocean, lighting the dawn of a new world.

A thread on one of the most courageous explorers in history 🧵 "I should not proceed by land to the East, as is custom, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone."

Columbus wrote this on August 3, 1492.

Can you imagine the bravery it took to even consider such a journey?

Gen Z is rediscovering sacred music. They are drawn to the otherworldliness of it. 🧵

1. Katie Marshall sings a cappella in the Cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral 2. Blind girl sings Amazing Grace a cappella in a church

Today is the Feast of St Francis of Assisi

A thread on the beauty of Assisi, Italy 🧵 1. The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, begun in 1228, includes two churches (Upper and Lower) and a crypt with the saint’s remains.

Francis was buried on 25 May 1230 under the Lower Basilica, but its burial site remained a mystery until its rediscovery in 1818.

Inside 15 of Earth’s most beautiful churches🧵

1. St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City 2. Sagrada Família, Barcelona

Gaudí designed the columns to resemble trees and branches.

The interior has no flat surfaces, and its ornamentation blends abstract forms of flowing curves with sharp, angular points.

In 1987 American academia was rocked by the release of The Closing of The American Mind.

Bloom was the first to say out-loud what many already knew.

10 chilling quotes from The Closing of the American Mind. 🧵 1) We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.

The most beautiful abbeys on Earth 🧵

1. San Galgano, the abbey open to the heavens 2. Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey, France

Converted into a prison during the French Revolution, it underwent a magnificent restoration in the late 19th century.

Victor Hugo once said that Mont-Saint-Michel is to France what the Pyramids are to Egypt.

The most beautiful college campuses in the US 🧵

1. Flagler College, FL 2. Berry College, GA

Five books that have been especially impactful for me in developing a love for classical education. 🧵

1) The Abolition of Man 1) The basic purpose for a why we educate has dramatically changed and what we have replaced the ancient telos with may unravel civilization itself. As soon as I finished reading The Abolition of Man I started over and read it again. This is a must read.

The modern world uses math to create addictive social media algorithms. The old world used math to create timeless works of shocking beauty.

The most beautiful stained glass in the world

A thread 🧵

1. Sainte-Chapelle, Paris 2. The rose window of Notre-Dame de Paris

Christian symbolism added a new numerical layer to stained glass geometry.

Rose windows often feature petals in multiples of eight, representing the seven days of Creation plus an “eighth day” symbolizing Christ’s return.

Summer reading from Naples Classical, a Hillsdale affiliated K-12. This is what is what a serious K-12 education looks like 🧵

Kindergarten
•Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McKloskey
•Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
•When We Were Very Young, A.A. Milne
•William Steig Books First Grade
•The Nutcracker
•Encyclopedia Brown
•The Sword in the Tree, Clyde Robert Bulla
•Paddington Bear, Michael Bond
•Now We Are Six, A.A. Milne

The most beautiful church ceilings in the world

A thread 🧵

1. Santissima Annunziata, Florence 2. If you look up in the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, you'll see a ceiling that looks 3D — but it’s actually flat.

This optical illusion, painted by Andrea Pozzo in 1685, demonstrates his remarkable skill in using perspective to deceive the eye.

In case you missed Jennifer Frey’s New York Times article that is setting the internet on fire — here’s a summary of her powerful critique of how universities are failing students who want a true liberal arts education.

A thread 🧵 We're told students today can't read, won't think, and only care about careers.

But Jennifer Frey, a philosopher and former dean at the University of Tulsa, says that's simply not true.

Her firsthand experience offers a far more hopeful — and urgent — story.

The most famous commencement speech of the entire 20th century took place at Harvard University in 1978.

The speaker, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, was in exile from the Soviet Union.

In his speech Solzhenitsyn gave a dire warning to the West.

10 chilling quotes from his speech🧵 1) Socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.

15 things you (probably) didn't know about the Sagrada Família 🧵

1. It’s the largest unfinished Catholic church 2. Gaudí designed the columns to resemble trees and branches.

The basilica is often described as "the most extraordinary personal interpretation of Gothic architecture since the Middle Ages.”

Happy 4th of July!! 🇺🇸 Sadly, 4 out of 5 Americans under 45 can’t answer basic questions about our country. My daughter captured this reality on video in downtown Annapolis.

To help fix it, CLT is launching a free American Civics Exam—one year from today. 🧵 In the early republic, civic knowledge and engagement were pillars of American identity.

Citizens understood their rights and responsibilities, helping to sustain the young democracy.

For centuries, churches were the tallest structures in the world. This reality not only shaped skylines, but the orientation of culture itself.

The tallest churches on Earth - a thread🧵

1. At 157 m (515 ft), Cologne Cathedral is the tallest twin-spired church in the world. 2. Ulm Minster is the tallest church in the world, with its majestic spire reaching an height of 161.5 m (530 ft).

The spire was originally planned to be shorter but was raised to surpass the height of Cologne Cathedral.

The notebooks of great thinkers 🧵

1. Leonardo da Vinci’s study of a hand 2. A page from Albert Einstein's 1912 notebook with his works on relativity

Details you missed and things you (probably) didn't know about the Roman Pantheon 🧵

1. This takes place at noon every Pentecost 2. The Pantheon is one of the best-preserved monuments from Ancient Rome.

Since the 7th century, it has functioned as a church dedicated to St. Mary and the Martyrs, and it also houses the tombs of several Italian kings as well as the artist Raphael.

The most beautiful monasteries on Earth 🧵

1. Abbey of San Galgano, Italy 2. Sanctuary of Madonna della Corona, Italy

In the 1200s, a monastery and chapel honoring Saint Mary of Montebaldo were built on this striking cliff edge, 775 meters above sea level.

Today, the Sanctuary is widely regarded as one of the most breathtaking in the world.

Thread of religious wonders so surreal you won't believe they exist 🧵

1. Sumela Monastery, Turkey, 386 AD 2. Sanctuary of Madonna della Corona, Italy

Perched over 2,000 feet above sea level on Mount Baldo in Italy, this sanctuary overlooking the Valdadige Valley is one of the country's most famous sites dedicated to the Virgin Mary.