This masterpiece of Caravaggio is more than just a painting.

It is a guide to living a Christian life of virtue.

Here’s what it can teach you about vice, virtue, and the journey of faith… 🧵 In 1606, Caravaggio, the most famous artist in Rome, was a wanted man.

In a drunken brawl, tortured too perhaps by the ravages of syphilis, he had slain a man in blind rage. Hunted for his crime, Caravaggio fled for the Kingdom of Naples, torn by guilt and fear.

In 1417, Western Europe was in crisis.

The Church was in schism, the Papacy was a puppet of foreign powers, and Italy was in anarchy.

But then, a new Pope was elected.

Here’s how he put an end to chaos and saved Rome…🧵 After a brutal power struggle in Rome, King Philip IV of France leant on the 1305 Papal conclave to have a Frenchman elected to the Throne of Saint Peter.

In 1309, the new Pope Clement V set up court in Avignon, withdrawing the Church from Italy and fully abandoning Rome.

The evil at the heart of the United Kingdom, and the author of her plight, is her now core institution.

The decline of Britain, after all, has walked hand in hand with the growth in the power of Parliament, and the House of Commons above all.

How did this happen? 🧵

https://twitter.com/Will_Tanner_1/status/1886500060583628910

In 1641, Parliament's abolition of the Star Chamber removed the first critical check on its power.

It was a move motivated by anger at the fines levied by King Charles I on those who evicted the peasantry by force from common land. Months later, the English Civil War erupted.

136 years ago today, horror and scandal gripped the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and all Europe.

For on the 30th January 1889, in the woods outside Vienna, two bodies were discovered here at the hunting lodge of Mayerling, in a room locked from the inside 🧵 The victims were Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the imperial throne, and the seventeen year old Baroness Mary Vetsera.

Hours of anguish gave way to a terrible truth, that the lovers had died in an apparent murder-suicide pact, sparking all out information war on the continent.

2,052 years ago today, Octavian became Augustus — the first Roman Emperor.

Over the next 4 decades, he laid the foundations of an Empire that lasted 1,400 years.

Here’s the story of how Augustus saved his civilisation from ruin — and made Rome great again... 🧵 For over a hundred years Roman civilisation had been haemorrhaging to internal division and open civil war.

Yet the wars were now at an end, and the people of Rome, whose oligarchic Republic had actively and passively enabled all of this, had a new leader at the helm.

In 239 BC, a nine year old boy swore an oath to his father and to the gods.

By fire and steel, he promised to be the greatest enemy that Rome had ever known.

As a man, Hannibal would humiliate the Romans on their own soil. This is how he won battles, but lost the war... 🧵 When Rome, outraged by Hannibal's attack on the allied city of Saguntum in Spain, declares war in 218 BC, they expect a repeat of the last confrontation with Carthage.

So they ready their forces in Sicily, and prepare to fight their greatest rival in the Mediterranean.

Having now watched this film a second time, a rather ironic truth struck me.

The 'hero' of Gladiator II is thoroughly unlikeable, and the most sympathetic character is actually Emperor Geta, closely followed by Emperor Caracalla.

Here's why... 🧵 A consistent narrative problem of Gladiator II is that what the film tells us about certain characters is wildly different from what the film shows us about them.

This applies to both the protagonists and the antagonists. Consider Hanno/Lucius, the 'hero' of this film.

18th century Venice was the most beautiful city in the world.

Many artists tried to capture her beauty - but one man did so better than any other.

Here’s how his art conquered hearts and markets, and why it’s still so revered today… 🧵 Born in 1697, Giovanni Antonio Canal would live in the final century of his country's independence.

For while the city of Venice had never been more beautiful, the world's longest lived republic that governed her was a shadow of its former self.

"What an artist dies in me!"

With these words, the reign of a man long since held up as the archetype of tyranny came to its theatrical close.

But why did so many Romans mourn the Emperor Nero when he was gone? Let us explore the forgotten side of Rome's greatest showman... 🧵 Tales of Nero's malice, from alleged matricide to the persecution of Christians, are legend. How many of these stories were actually true is another matter.

It says much that the most iconic story of Nero, fiddling while Rome burned, is almost certainly a fiction of propaganda.

"You are made for Rome, and Rome is made for you"

Such were the words of an awed Pope Urban VIII to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the greatest sculptor of the 17th century.

His works are now world famous. His story, rather less so. Let us examine the life of a prodigy...🧵 Born in Naples on the 7th December 1598, Gian Lorenzo was the sixth of the thirteen children of a Florentine father, Pietro Bernini, and Neapolitan mother, Angelica Galante.

While his siblings played, the young boy loved watching his father, a sculptor, toiling in his workshop.

THE DYNASTIES OF ITALY 🧵

The House of Montefeltro

Origin: Monte Copiolo, Emilia-Romagna
States: Lordship, County and Duchy of Urbino, Papal States
Highest Titles: Duke of Urbino, Count of Montefeltro, Count of Castel Durante Heraldic Blazon

Bendy of six azure and or

As a branch of the dynastic counts of Carpegna, the Montefeltro adopted their arms, replacing silver with gold. Following their ennoblement by Frederick II in 1213, the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire was added to the upper golden bend.

THE DYNASTIES OF ITALY 🧵

The House of Corsini

Origin: Poggibonsi, Tuscany
States: Republic of Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Papal States, Kingdom of Italy, Republic of Italy
Highest Titles: Pontifex Maximus (Pope), Prince of Sismano Heraldic Blazon

Bendy Argent and Gules, a fess Azure

Disputed origin, however the Corsini arms (left) are likely derived from Hugh the Great, Margrave of Tuscany (953-1001), who various Tuscan families honoured by adopting variants of his arms (right) as their own.

The Olympic Theatre of Vicenza

On this day, the 3rd March 1585, the first permanent theatre to be built in the West since the days of Ancient Rome opened in the Italian city of Vicenza. How was this possible?

This is the story of a cultural and architectural resurrection 🧵 1/ The Italian Renaissance, in its most literal essence, was the move to rebirth and reinvent the classical world, whose architectural and artistic vestiges were emerging from the soils of medieval Rome. In its earliest days, it was a time of profound reckoning for the West. 2/

The Theft of a Saint

On this day, the 31st January AD 828, a priceless treasure arrived in Venice. Yet aboard that ship was no earthly gold, but relics holy indeed - the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist.

This is the story of how the City of Canals gained her patron saint 🧵1/ Following a gruelling victory in AD 810 over the armies of Pepin, son of Charlemagne, Doge Agnello Partecipazio took a momentous decision - to transfer the capital from Malamocco, on the Lido of the Venetian Lagoon, to the more protected Rivo Alto, or 'Rialto', at its heart. 2/

The Secret Room of Michelangelo

It scarcely seems possible that so modest a chamber, illuminated by the light of a sole barred window, once housed one of the greatest minds who ever lived.

Yet here, for two months in 1530, Michelangelo Buonarroti would hide for his very life 1/
It was on the 17th May 1527, just days after the rebellious mercenary Landsknechts of the Emperor had sacked Rome with ruthless abandon, that the oligarchs of Florence seized the opportunity afforded by the chaos to cast out the ruling House of Medici, and install a Republic. 2/

On the Australian 'Voice', and the case of Austria-Hungary

If there is one thing that unites the West, beyond the paper trail of debt and supranational allegiance, it is a historic crisis of legitimacy.

Australia, long deemed the 'Lucky Country', is now on the frontline 1/ On the 14th October, Australia is to hold a referendum on the following question:

“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

Do you approve this proposed alteration?” 2/