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James Lucas

@JamesLucasIT • 794,370 subscribers

Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

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The most famous keyhole in Rome Through the Aventine Keyhole, you’ll see a perfectly framed view of St. Peter’s Basilica, aligned through the beautiful gardens of the Priory of the Knights of Malta.

The most famous keyhole in Rome Through the Aventine Keyhole, you’ll see a perfectly framed view of St. Peter’s Basilica, aligned through the beautiful gardens of the Priory of the Knights of Malta.

25,747,525 views

Penguin leaps to safety as ice breaks

Penguin leaps to safety as ice breaks

9,612,738 views

The Colosseum had a retractable roof, operated by a crew of sailors, almost 2000 years before any modern stadium. It was called the velarium: an enormous awning of canvas and rope that could be drawn across the open top of the arena to shade fifty thousand spectators from the Roman sun. It was so large and so complex that ordinary labourers could not manage it. The Romans brought in sailors from the imperial fleet, men who spent their lives handling rigging and sail, and stationed them at the top of the structure to extend and retract the canvas as the day moved. A building that has stood, roofless to our eyes, for centuries was in fact designed to be covered. That is the pattern with the Colosseum: almost everything about it was way more advanced than it looks today... Construction began around 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian. Once completed, it was the largest amphitheater in the Roman world: an elliptical structure of stone, concrete, and travertine, 189 meters long, rising as high as a modern fifteen story building. It could hold around 50,000 people and the staircases allowed that entire crowd to enter and leave with a speed that modern stadium designers still study. Beneath the arena floor lay the hypogeum, a hidden labyrinth of tunnels, cells, and machinery. Animals and gladiators waited there in the dark. Numerous trap doors opened in the wooden floor above them, and through hidden lifts and ramps a lion, a leopard, or an armed man could rise into the daylight as if from nowhere, in front of tens of thousands of people. The Romans knew that they had built something that would outlast them so completely that the Colosseum became, for the people who came after, a measure of the world's own endurance. In the 8th century, an epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede offered a prophecy that has never lost its allure: "As long as the Colosseum stands, so shall Rome; when the Colosseum falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

The Colosseum had a retractable roof, operated by a crew of sailors, almost 2000 years before any modern stadium. It was called the velarium: an enormous awning of canvas and rope that could be drawn across the open top of the arena to shade fifty thousand spectators from the Roman sun. It was so large and so complex that ordinary labourers could not manage it. The Romans brought in sailors from the imperial fleet, men who spent their lives handling rigging and sail, and stationed them at the top of the structure to extend and retract the canvas as the day moved. A building that has stood, roofless to our eyes, for centuries was in fact designed to be covered. That is the pattern with the Colosseum: almost everything about it was way more advanced than it looks today... Construction began around 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian. Once completed, it was the largest amphitheater in the Roman world: an elliptical structure of stone, concrete, and travertine, 189 meters long, rising as high as a modern fifteen story building. It could hold around 50,000 people and the staircases allowed that entire crowd to enter and leave with a speed that modern stadium designers still study. Beneath the arena floor lay the hypogeum, a hidden labyrinth of tunnels, cells, and machinery. Animals and gladiators waited there in the dark. Numerous trap doors opened in the wooden floor above them, and through hidden lifts and ramps a lion, a leopard, or an armed man could rise into the daylight as if from nowhere, in front of tens of thousands of people. The Romans knew that they had built something that would outlast them so completely that the Colosseum became, for the people who came after, a measure of the world's own endurance. In the 8th century, an epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede offered a prophecy that has never lost its allure: "As long as the Colosseum stands, so shall Rome; when the Colosseum falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

380,715 views

The story goes that when Paolina Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, was asked whether it had been uncomfortable to pose nearly naked for Antonio Canova, she answered with a line that has been repeated ever since: "All veils may fall before Canova." She had married into one of the great noble families of Rome, the Borghese, in 1803. Two years later, her husband Camillo commissioned the most celebrated sculptor in Europe to portray her in marble. Canova carved her between 1805 and 1808 as Venus Victrix — Venus the Victorious — reclining on a couch, semi-nude, holding the golden apple given to the goddess in the Judgement of Paris, when she was named the most beautiful of all the goddesses of Olympus. It scandalised Rome. Aristocratic women, especially the sister of an emperor, were not portrayed without drapery. The gossip was relentless, and the reply attributed to her became just as famous as the scandal itself... Canova carved her in white marble so finely that the mattress beneath her appears to give under her weight, and the surface of her skin glows in the light as though the stone were alive. She reclines today in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, where she has not moved in nearly two hundred years. "I can't read or write," Canova used to say, holding up his hammer and chisel, "but with these I can create poetry." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

The story goes that when Paolina Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, was asked whether it had been uncomfortable to pose nearly naked for Antonio Canova, she answered with a line that has been repeated ever since: "All veils may fall before Canova." She had married into one of the great noble families of Rome, the Borghese, in 1803. Two years later, her husband Camillo commissioned the most celebrated sculptor in Europe to portray her in marble. Canova carved her between 1805 and 1808 as Venus Victrix — Venus the Victorious — reclining on a couch, semi-nude, holding the golden apple given to the goddess in the Judgement of Paris, when she was named the most beautiful of all the goddesses of Olympus. It scandalised Rome. Aristocratic women, especially the sister of an emperor, were not portrayed without drapery. The gossip was relentless, and the reply attributed to her became just as famous as the scandal itself... Canova carved her in white marble so finely that the mattress beneath her appears to give under her weight, and the surface of her skin glows in the light as though the stone were alive. She reclines today in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, where she has not moved in nearly two hundred years. "I can't read or write," Canova used to say, holding up his hammer and chisel, "but with these I can create poetry." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

149,290 views

For 600 years, the only way to reach these monasteries was to climb into a net and let monks haul you, by hand, hundreds of metres into the sky... The place is Meteora, which means suspended in the air, where enormous pillars of sandstone rise straight out of the plain of Thessaly, some of them climbing hundreds of metres into the air. They were shaped over millions of years by water and earthquakes into a forest of stone columns. On top of these pillars, against every instinct a human body has, monks built monasteries. They first came to these rocks in the 11th century, living as hermits in the caves and cracks of the cliffs. By the 14th century they began building on the summits themselves, seeking refuge as the Byzantine world collapsed and Ottoman power rose around them. As many as twenty-four monasteries were eventually raised on these peaks in central Greece. They had no stairways, no roads, and in many cases no obvious way up at all. For centuries, the only way to the top was to be lifted in a net or basket, hauled by hand on a rope wound around a wooden winch by the monks above. Food, building stone, supplies, and people all rose the same way, swinging in open air, hundreds of metres above the ground. Stairways were finally carved into the rock in the 1920s, and today six of the monasteries are open to visitors. G.K. Chesterton once said: "The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder." He was right. The wonders are still here. Whether we still have the wonder is up to us... If you enjoyed this, check out today's article for a deeper dive: And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible:

For 600 years, the only way to reach these monasteries was to climb into a net and let monks haul you, by hand, hundreds of metres into the sky... The place is Meteora, which means suspended in the air, where enormous pillars of sandstone rise straight out of the plain of Thessaly, some of them climbing hundreds of metres into the air. They were shaped over millions of years by water and earthquakes into a forest of stone columns. On top of these pillars, against every instinct a human body has, monks built monasteries. They first came to these rocks in the 11th century, living as hermits in the caves and cracks of the cliffs. By the 14th century they began building on the summits themselves, seeking refuge as the Byzantine world collapsed and Ottoman power rose around them. As many as twenty-four monasteries were eventually raised on these peaks in central Greece. They had no stairways, no roads, and in many cases no obvious way up at all. For centuries, the only way to the top was to be lifted in a net or basket, hauled by hand on a rope wound around a wooden winch by the monks above. Food, building stone, supplies, and people all rose the same way, swinging in open air, hundreds of metres above the ground. Stairways were finally carved into the rock in the 1920s, and today six of the monasteries are open to visitors. G.K. Chesterton once said: "The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder." He was right. The wonders are still here. Whether we still have the wonder is up to us... If you enjoyed this, check out today's article for a deeper dive: And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible:

161,628 views

The castles of Europe are some of the most amazing things we’ve inherited from history Between 75,000 and 100,000 castles were built in Western Europe during the medieval period, with around 1,700 in England and Wales alone, and roughly 14,000 in German-speaking areas... Most of them rose between the 9th and 15th centuries after the collapse of centralized Roman authority and the rise of fragmented feudal power. As attacking armies grew more sophisticated, so did the walls meant to stop them. The cost was staggering: from 1179 to 1188, King Henry II of England spent over £6,500 on Dover Castle alone — an enormous sum given that his entire annual revenue was around £10,000. That figure was more than three times what he spent on any other building project in his reign, and more than four times what went into grand royal residences like Windsor. And then there is Malbork... Built by the Teutonic Knights in what is now Poland, Malbork is the largest castle in the world measured by land area. It covers 52 acres and once housed approximately 3,000 knights. A medieval visitor reportedly noted it seemed "more a city enclosed by walls than a single castle." In 950, Provence was home to just 12 castles. By 1000, the number had risen to 30. By 1030, it was over 100. The pace was not driven by a single empire with a plan, but by thousands of individual decisions made by lords, bishops, and kings who each decided, in their own time and place, that stone was the only reliable answer to an uncertain world... The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which is a diminutive of the word castrum, meaning "fortified place". Between seventy-five thousand and a hundred thousand of these fortresses were built over six centuries as a reminder that every civilization eventually decides what it will leave behind. Europe decided on this. And the castles are still here.

The castles of Europe are some of the most amazing things we’ve inherited from history Between 75,000 and 100,000 castles were built in Western Europe during the medieval period, with around 1,700 in England and Wales alone, and roughly 14,000 in German-speaking areas... Most of them rose between the 9th and 15th centuries after the collapse of centralized Roman authority and the rise of fragmented feudal power. As attacking armies grew more sophisticated, so did the walls meant to stop them. The cost was staggering: from 1179 to 1188, King Henry II of England spent over £6,500 on Dover Castle alone — an enormous sum given that his entire annual revenue was around £10,000. That figure was more than three times what he spent on any other building project in his reign, and more than four times what went into grand royal residences like Windsor. And then there is Malbork... Built by the Teutonic Knights in what is now Poland, Malbork is the largest castle in the world measured by land area. It covers 52 acres and once housed approximately 3,000 knights. A medieval visitor reportedly noted it seemed "more a city enclosed by walls than a single castle." In 950, Provence was home to just 12 castles. By 1000, the number had risen to 30. By 1030, it was over 100. The pace was not driven by a single empire with a plan, but by thousands of individual decisions made by lords, bishops, and kings who each decided, in their own time and place, that stone was the only reliable answer to an uncertain world... The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which is a diminutive of the word castrum, meaning "fortified place". Between seventy-five thousand and a hundred thousand of these fortresses were built over six centuries as a reminder that every civilization eventually decides what it will leave behind. Europe decided on this. And the castles are still here.

1,920,772 views

Colorized footage is like a time machine 🧵 1. English kids in 1901, 124 years ago

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Colorized footage is like a time machine 🧵 1. English kids in 1901, 124 years ago

24,549,292 views

Why does Mary look younger than Jesus in Michelangelo's Pietà? The answer is one of the most beautiful in art history... Mary is holding the body of her 33 year old son, but she looks 20. Critics noticed it the moment the sculpture was unveiled in 1499. The mother of a man who has just been crucified would have been in her late forties or early fifties. Michelangelo had carved her as a girl. His own biographer, Ascanio Condivi, was the one who finally asked him why. The answer Michelangelo gave is preserved in Condivi's Life of Michelangelo and has been repeated for centuries: "Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?" Most modern critics treat this answer as a half-serious deflection. Michelangelo was famous for his sharp tongue and refused to explain himself to people he considered beneath his intellect. The deeper answer is older, and it lies inside one of the greatest poems ever written. In the final canto of Dante's Paradiso, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux begins his prayer to the Virgin with one of the most extraordinary lines in Italian literature: "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio." "Virgin mother, daughter of your own son." Michelangelo, who knew Dante by heart, was carving that line into stone. Mary is younger than Jesus because Jesus is older than the universe... because she gave birth to her own creator. But there is another reading, simpler than either of those, and it is the one I find myself thinking of today. Every mother who has held her child has held them at every age at once. The infant is still inside the toddler. The toddler is still inside the teenager. The young man on her lap, even dead, is also the boy she nursed and the baby she first carried home. And maybe that's why Michelangelo did not carve Mary as the years had aged her. He carved her as love had kept her: outside of time, outside of grief, holding her son the way she had always held him... Happy Mother's Day. -- -- -- If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: I write about beauty in all its forms. If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

Why does Mary look younger than Jesus in Michelangelo's Pietà? The answer is one of the most beautiful in art history... Mary is holding the body of her 33 year old son, but she looks 20. Critics noticed it the moment the sculpture was unveiled in 1499. The mother of a man who has just been crucified would have been in her late forties or early fifties. Michelangelo had carved her as a girl. His own biographer, Ascanio Condivi, was the one who finally asked him why. The answer Michelangelo gave is preserved in Condivi's Life of Michelangelo and has been repeated for centuries: "Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?" Most modern critics treat this answer as a half-serious deflection. Michelangelo was famous for his sharp tongue and refused to explain himself to people he considered beneath his intellect. The deeper answer is older, and it lies inside one of the greatest poems ever written. In the final canto of Dante's Paradiso, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux begins his prayer to the Virgin with one of the most extraordinary lines in Italian literature: "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio." "Virgin mother, daughter of your own son." Michelangelo, who knew Dante by heart, was carving that line into stone. Mary is younger than Jesus because Jesus is older than the universe... because she gave birth to her own creator. But there is another reading, simpler than either of those, and it is the one I find myself thinking of today. Every mother who has held her child has held them at every age at once. The infant is still inside the toddler. The toddler is still inside the teenager. The young man on her lap, even dead, is also the boy she nursed and the baby she first carried home. And maybe that's why Michelangelo did not carve Mary as the years had aged her. He carved her as love had kept her: outside of time, outside of grief, holding her son the way she had always held him... Happy Mother's Day. -- -- -- If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: I write about beauty in all its forms. If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

793,312 views

In 1504, Michelangelo finished a sculpture that contained a fact medical science would not catch up with for another 124 years. No doctor noticed it for centuries... The sculpture is the David, in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. The fact, hidden in plain sight on his neck, was finally observed in 2019 by an American cardiologist named Daniel Gelfman, a clinical professor at the Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Gelfman had gone to the museum like millions of visitors before him. But where most people see a perfect male body carved out of stone, he saw something only a heart specialist could see: the external jugular vein on the right side of David's neck is distended, raised visibly above the collarbone, exactly as it would appear on a real human being in a state of intense physical excitement. In ordinary anatomy, this vein is not visible. It only stands out under specific conditions — adrenaline, fear, exertion, the cardiovascular surge that comes before great physical effort. In other words, exactly the state a young man would be in moments before facing a giant. Gelfman published the finding in JAMA Cardiology, one of the most respected medical journals in the world. He called it the David Sign, and noted that it had been hiding in plain sight for more than 500 years. What makes this detail extraordinary is when Michelangelo carved it... The mechanics of the human circulatory system — the way blood actually returns to the heart through the venous network — were not formally described until 1628, when the English physician William Harvey published De Motu Cordis. Michelangelo finished David in 1504. He had sculpted, with anatomical precision, a circulatory phenomenon that medicine would not understand for over a century. "Michelangelo, like some of his artistic contemporaries, had anatomical training," Gelfman wrote. "I realized that he must have noticed temporary jugular venous distension in healthy individuals who are excited." He had. And he carved it into the marble. His contemporaries knew they were watching something more than a sculptor at work... They called him Il Divino, the divine one. In a letter dated September 1537, the poet Pietro Aretino wrote: "The world has many kings, and only one Michelangelo." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: For the full breakdown of Michelangelo's David, check out today’s article: 5 details hidden inside what many consider the greatest work of art ever created by man. And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it all possible.

In 1504, Michelangelo finished a sculpture that contained a fact medical science would not catch up with for another 124 years. No doctor noticed it for centuries... The sculpture is the David, in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. The fact, hidden in plain sight on his neck, was finally observed in 2019 by an American cardiologist named Daniel Gelfman, a clinical professor at the Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Gelfman had gone to the museum like millions of visitors before him. But where most people see a perfect male body carved out of stone, he saw something only a heart specialist could see: the external jugular vein on the right side of David's neck is distended, raised visibly above the collarbone, exactly as it would appear on a real human being in a state of intense physical excitement. In ordinary anatomy, this vein is not visible. It only stands out under specific conditions — adrenaline, fear, exertion, the cardiovascular surge that comes before great physical effort. In other words, exactly the state a young man would be in moments before facing a giant. Gelfman published the finding in JAMA Cardiology, one of the most respected medical journals in the world. He called it the David Sign, and noted that it had been hiding in plain sight for more than 500 years. What makes this detail extraordinary is when Michelangelo carved it... The mechanics of the human circulatory system — the way blood actually returns to the heart through the venous network — were not formally described until 1628, when the English physician William Harvey published De Motu Cordis. Michelangelo finished David in 1504. He had sculpted, with anatomical precision, a circulatory phenomenon that medicine would not understand for over a century. "Michelangelo, like some of his artistic contemporaries, had anatomical training," Gelfman wrote. "I realized that he must have noticed temporary jugular venous distension in healthy individuals who are excited." He had. And he carved it into the marble. His contemporaries knew they were watching something more than a sculptor at work... They called him Il Divino, the divine one. In a letter dated September 1537, the poet Pietro Aretino wrote: "The world has many kings, and only one Michelangelo." If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: For the full breakdown of Michelangelo's David, check out today’s article: 5 details hidden inside what many consider the greatest work of art ever created by man. And if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it all possible.

793,195 views

This is the Devil’s footprint It is one of Germany's most famous legends: when Munich’s Frauenkirche was being built in the 15th century, the architect made a deal with the Devil. The church would be funded... but only on one condition: it could have no windows. When construction was finished, the Devil stood at a precise spot near the entrance and saw nothing but bare walls. Convinced he had won, he stomped his foot into the floor so hard that it left the dark imprint visitors still see today. But when he stepped forward, he discovered the truth. The "windowless" church was an illusion, created by perfectly positioned columns that hid the stained glass windows from his view. Realizing he had been tricked, the Devil fled in fury, leaving only his scorched footprint behind. Some ghost tours in Munich add even more to the myth. Guides claim the air near the entrance is strangely cold, as if the Devil still circles the church, searching for a way back in. In winter, they say, the snow at the doorway is always last to melt. History tells us it's just a legend... but the footprint is real, the illusion is real, and the story continues to haunt the cathedral to this day.

This is the Devil’s footprint It is one of Germany's most famous legends: when Munich’s Frauenkirche was being built in the 15th century, the architect made a deal with the Devil. The church would be funded... but only on one condition: it could have no windows. When construction was finished, the Devil stood at a precise spot near the entrance and saw nothing but bare walls. Convinced he had won, he stomped his foot into the floor so hard that it left the dark imprint visitors still see today. But when he stepped forward, he discovered the truth. The "windowless" church was an illusion, created by perfectly positioned columns that hid the stained glass windows from his view. Realizing he had been tricked, the Devil fled in fury, leaving only his scorched footprint behind. Some ghost tours in Munich add even more to the myth. Guides claim the air near the entrance is strangely cold, as if the Devil still circles the church, searching for a way back in. In winter, they say, the snow at the doorway is always last to melt. History tells us it's just a legend... but the footprint is real, the illusion is real, and the story continues to haunt the cathedral to this day.

3,158,351 views

Here's what the world looked like a century ago - thread 🧵 1. Kids on the streets of England in 1901

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Here's what the world looked like a century ago - thread 🧵 1. Kids on the streets of England in 1901

32,242,158 views

Why did we stop building wonders?

Why did we stop building wonders?

243,163 views

In South America, there is a place where 275 waterfalls cascade together. It is called Iguazu Falls, and it is the largest waterfall system in the world.

In South America, there is a place where 275 waterfalls cascade together. It is called Iguazu Falls, and it is the largest waterfall system in the world.

3,067,596 views

Thread of the most surreal sky phenomena ever caught on camera 🧵 1. The coolest meteor video ever

Thread of the most surreal sky phenomena ever caught on camera 🧵 1. The coolest meteor video ever

22,543,299 views

What we do in life, echoes in eternity. 15 architectural marvels that have withstood the test of time - a thread 🧵 1. The Colosseum, Rome

What we do in life, echoes in eternity. 15 architectural marvels that have withstood the test of time - a thread 🧵 1. The Colosseum, Rome

8,991,902 views

In 1499, Michelangelo overheard people crediting his greatest work to someone else. He snuck into St. Peter's at night and carved his name on the sculpture. He regretted it immediately and never signed anything again for the rest of his life... He was 24 years old. The year before, a French cardinal had paid him 450 gold ducats to sculpt a statue for his own tomb. The contract had one strange clause: it had to be "the most beautiful work of marble in Rome, one that no living artist could better." Michelangelo had never completed a major public commission. He accepted anyway... He carved for two years from a single block of Carrara marble that he later called the most perfect stone he ever worked. What he produced was the Pietà: the body of Christ, lifeless, across the lap of his mother. When it was unveiled, visitors refused to believe a 24-year-old Florentine had made it. They credited the work to a more famous Lombard sculptor. So according to Vasari, Michelangelo slipped into the basilica with a chisel and carved his name in Latin across the sash running between Mary's breasts: MICHAELANGELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTINUS FACIEBAT. "Michelangelo Buonarroti, the Florentine, made this." Then he vowed never to sign another work. He kept that vow. Through the David. Through the Sistine Chapel. Through the dome of St. Peter's. Through 65 more years of work, until he died at 88. Not one of them bears his name. What I can never quite get over is that he was only 23 when he started. A young man who believed he could carve the most beautiful object on earth. And then he did... If you enjoyed this, I write a newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the wonder and beauty of the past, one story at a time. You can join us here: History is more beautiful than we remember.

In 1499, Michelangelo overheard people crediting his greatest work to someone else. He snuck into St. Peter's at night and carved his name on the sculpture. He regretted it immediately and never signed anything again for the rest of his life... He was 24 years old. The year before, a French cardinal had paid him 450 gold ducats to sculpt a statue for his own tomb. The contract had one strange clause: it had to be "the most beautiful work of marble in Rome, one that no living artist could better." Michelangelo had never completed a major public commission. He accepted anyway... He carved for two years from a single block of Carrara marble that he later called the most perfect stone he ever worked. What he produced was the Pietà: the body of Christ, lifeless, across the lap of his mother. When it was unveiled, visitors refused to believe a 24-year-old Florentine had made it. They credited the work to a more famous Lombard sculptor. So according to Vasari, Michelangelo slipped into the basilica with a chisel and carved his name in Latin across the sash running between Mary's breasts: MICHAELANGELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTINUS FACIEBAT. "Michelangelo Buonarroti, the Florentine, made this." Then he vowed never to sign another work. He kept that vow. Through the David. Through the Sistine Chapel. Through the dome of St. Peter's. Through 65 more years of work, until he died at 88. Not one of them bears his name. What I can never quite get over is that he was only 23 when he started. A young man who believed he could carve the most beautiful object on earth. And then he did... If you enjoyed this, I write a newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the wonder and beauty of the past, one story at a time. You can join us here: History is more beautiful than we remember.

749,902 views

The most surreal beaches on Earth 🧵 1. Navagio beach in Zakynthos, Greece

The most surreal beaches on Earth 🧵 1. Navagio beach in Zakynthos, Greece

6,316,381 views

Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire, the Ming dynasty of China, the Inca Empire, the Māori settlement of New Zealand, and the Ottoman Empire.

Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire, the Ming dynasty of China, the Inca Empire, the Māori settlement of New Zealand, and the Ottoman Empire.

192,105 views

15 streets that don’t look real 🧵 1. Hanoi Train Street, Vietnam

15 streets that don’t look real 🧵 1. Hanoi Train Street, Vietnam

6,382,536 views

This mechanical masterpiece was built in Bremen, Germany in the early 1930s

This mechanical masterpiece was built in Bremen, Germany in the early 1930s

689,557 views

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This is real WWII footage of a young German soldier surrendering to the US Army in 1945.
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This is real WWII footage of a young German soldier surrendering to the US Army in 1945.

James Lucas

4,270,500 views • 3 days ago

Today at noon thousands of red rose petals will flutter down through the oculus of the Pantheon in Rome. This spectacular tradition is held each year on the feast of Pentecost.
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Today at noon thousands of red rose petals will flutter down through the oculus of the Pantheon in Rome. This spectacular tradition is held each year on the feast of Pentecost.

James Lucas

10,539,321 views • 10 days ago

The ancient world, then and now
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The ancient world, then and now

James Lucas

1,317,532 views • 4 days ago

This is what England looked like in 1905 Blackburn, Lancashire
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This is what England looked like in 1905 Blackburn, Lancashire

James Lucas

120,929 views • 1 day ago

Atomic veterans describe what nukes feel like “When the flash hit you, you could see the X-rays of your hand through your closed eyes.” “If I was looking at you now I would see all your bones, the blood vessels and everything.”
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Atomic veterans describe what nukes feel like “When the flash hit you, you could see the X-rays of your hand through your closed eyes.” “If I was looking at you now I would see all your bones, the blood vessels and everything.”

James Lucas

3,392,827 views • 2 months ago

Life in America 40 to 100+ years ago 🧵 1. This was Los Angeles in the 1950s
0:33
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Life in America 40 to 100+ years ago 🧵 1. This was Los Angeles in the 1950s

James Lucas

17,800,149 views • 9 months ago

In 1984 a German reporter in Paris explains how to cross Place de la Concorde: "Walk steadily across and never look at the drivers. If you do, they'll think you've seen them and won't stop."
0:33
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In 1984 a German reporter in Paris explains how to cross Place de la Concorde: "Walk steadily across and never look at the drivers. If you do, they'll think you've seen them and won't stop."

James Lucas

3,500,695 views • 2 months ago

Many scholars believe Rivendell was inspired by a real place. Tolkien hiked there in the summer of 1911. He was 19 years old, and the valley left a mark on him so deep that more than 50 years later he was still describing it from memory... The valley is called Lauterbrunnen. It sits in the Bernese Oberland, in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Tolkien went on foot, "carrying a great pack, in a party of twelve." They walked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, then up to Mürren, and finally to the head of the valley in what he later called a wilderness of moraines. They slept in haylofts and cowsheds. They ate in the open. They walked by map, mostly avoiding the roads. Goethe had stood at the foot of those same falls more than a century before Tolkien did. The poem he wrote about them, Song of the Spirits Over the Waters, was published in 1779. There is something about this valley that has always pulled writers toward it — as if its sheer scale and beauty demand a response, and ordinary language keeps falling short… In 1967, at the age of 75, Tolkien wrote to his son Michael describing the 1911 trip in detail. He called it the "very part of the world that had the deepest effect on me." That is what this valley does. You walk into it once, and it follows you for the rest of your life... If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter for over 50,000 readers who love rediscovering the beauty of the past: Join us!
0:24
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Many scholars believe Rivendell was inspired by a real place. Tolkien hiked there in the summer of 1911. He was 19 years old, and the valley left a mark on him so deep that more than 50 years later he was still describing it from memory... The valley is called Lauterbrunnen. It sits in the Bernese Oberland, in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Tolkien went on foot, "carrying a great pack, in a party of twelve." They walked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, then up to Mürren, and finally to the head of the valley in what he later called a wilderness of moraines. They slept in haylofts and cowsheds. They ate in the open. They walked by map, mostly avoiding the roads. Goethe had stood at the foot of those same falls more than a century before Tolkien did. The poem he wrote about them, Song of the Spirits Over the Waters, was published in 1779. There is something about this valley that has always pulled writers toward it — as if its sheer scale and beauty demand a response, and ordinary language keeps falling short… In 1967, at the age of 75, Tolkien wrote to his son Michael describing the 1911 trip in detail. He called it the "very part of the world that had the deepest effect on me." That is what this valley does. You walk into it once, and it follows you for the rest of your life... If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter for over 50,000 readers who love rediscovering the beauty of the past: Join us!

James Lucas

1,020,681 views • 1 month ago

This is a New York City newsstand in the 1930s Genuine question: why no overweight people?
0:29
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This is a New York City newsstand in the 1930s Genuine question: why no overweight people?

James Lucas

2,434,846 views • 2 months ago

The beauty of Italy, region by region 🧵 1. Campania: an evening on the Amalfi Coast
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The beauty of Italy, region by region 🧵 1. Campania: an evening on the Amalfi Coast

James Lucas

14,808,802 views • 11 months ago

Colorized historical photos and videos that will make you feel like you're in a time machine 🧵 1. Jerusalem, April 1897
0:48
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Colorized historical photos and videos that will make you feel like you're in a time machine 🧵 1. Jerusalem, April 1897

James Lucas

25,541,809 views • 1 year ago

A hilarious April fools video made by the police
1:16
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A hilarious April fools video made by the police

James Lucas

1,657,662 views • 2 months ago

Cleopatra (1963) cost so much it nearly sunk 20th Century Fox. What started as a $2M movie exploded into a $44M epic due to delays and Elizabeth Taylor's record salary, forcing the studio to sell off land just to stay afloat. 44 million in 1963 is about 460 million in 2026
0:35
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Cleopatra (1963) cost so much it nearly sunk 20th Century Fox. What started as a $2M movie exploded into a $44M epic due to delays and Elizabeth Taylor's record salary, forcing the studio to sell off land just to stay afloat. 44 million in 1963 is about 460 million in 2026

James Lucas

1,624,347 views • 2 months ago

Robin Williams would’ve turned 74 today This thread will brighten up your day 🧵 1. His improvised scene in Good Will Hunting made the cameraman laugh so hard the camera started shaking. Matt Damon's reaction is authentic.
1:24
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Robin Williams would’ve turned 74 today This thread will brighten up your day 🧵 1. His improvised scene in Good Will Hunting made the cameraman laugh so hard the camera started shaking. Matt Damon's reaction is authentic.

James Lucas

8,830,719 views • 10 months ago

Napoleon studied Caesar. Caesar wept before a statue of Alexander. Alexander wanted to be Achilles. The greatest men the West ever produced were all trying to become the same Greek warrior... Alexander the Great kept a copy of the Iliad under his pillow. His tutor Aristotle had personally annotated an edition for him. According to Plutarch, when Alexander arrived at the ruins of Troy in 334 BC, he sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles and ran naked around it. He told the priests offering to show him Paris's harp that he had no interest in seeing the harp of a coward. "I would far rather see the lyre of Achilles," he said, "which he used to sing the glories of brave men." Three centuries later, in 69 BC, Julius Caesar was serving as quaestor in Spain when he stood in front of a statue of Alexander in the temple of Hercules at Cadiz. He was thirty-two: the same age at which Alexander had died, having already conquered most of the known world. Caesar wept. When his friends asked why, he answered, according to Plutarch: "Do you not think it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?" Eighteen centuries after that, Napoleon Bonaparte sat for his coronation portrait wearing a golden laurel wreath, modelled on the wreath of Julius Caesar. He carried with him on campaign the works of Plutarch and Caesar's own commentaries. Each of these men was reaching back, through the centuries, to the figure who came first. And that figure was a half-mortal Greek warrior who, when offered the choice between a long, quiet life and a short, glorious one, chose glory. The Greek name Akhilleus is most plausibly derived from akhos, meaning grief, and laos, meaning people. The grief of the people. The greatest hero of the Western imagination is not named for victory or for strength. He is named for sorrow... But that is the bargain: to choose greatness in the Achilles tradition is to choose a particular kind of suffering. Alexander died at thirty-two. Caesar was murdered by his closest friends. Napoleon ended his life on an island in the South Atlantic, looking at the sea. Each of them got what Achilles got: a name that has outlasted empires, and a life that was paid for in full. What drove the men who built Western civilization was not happiness. It was something older, deeper, and harder to name. The Greeks called it kleos: the glory that survives death. Achilles got there first. Three thousand years later, men are still trying to follow him... -- -- -- If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.
1:27
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Napoleon studied Caesar. Caesar wept before a statue of Alexander. Alexander wanted to be Achilles. The greatest men the West ever produced were all trying to become the same Greek warrior... Alexander the Great kept a copy of the Iliad under his pillow. His tutor Aristotle had personally annotated an edition for him. According to Plutarch, when Alexander arrived at the ruins of Troy in 334 BC, he sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles and ran naked around it. He told the priests offering to show him Paris's harp that he had no interest in seeing the harp of a coward. "I would far rather see the lyre of Achilles," he said, "which he used to sing the glories of brave men." Three centuries later, in 69 BC, Julius Caesar was serving as quaestor in Spain when he stood in front of a statue of Alexander in the temple of Hercules at Cadiz. He was thirty-two: the same age at which Alexander had died, having already conquered most of the known world. Caesar wept. When his friends asked why, he answered, according to Plutarch: "Do you not think it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?" Eighteen centuries after that, Napoleon Bonaparte sat for his coronation portrait wearing a golden laurel wreath, modelled on the wreath of Julius Caesar. He carried with him on campaign the works of Plutarch and Caesar's own commentaries. Each of these men was reaching back, through the centuries, to the figure who came first. And that figure was a half-mortal Greek warrior who, when offered the choice between a long, quiet life and a short, glorious one, chose glory. The Greek name Akhilleus is most plausibly derived from akhos, meaning grief, and laos, meaning people. The grief of the people. The greatest hero of the Western imagination is not named for victory or for strength. He is named for sorrow... But that is the bargain: to choose greatness in the Achilles tradition is to choose a particular kind of suffering. Alexander died at thirty-two. Caesar was murdered by his closest friends. Napoleon ended his life on an island in the South Atlantic, looking at the sea. Each of them got what Achilles got: a name that has outlasted empires, and a life that was paid for in full. What drove the men who built Western civilization was not happiness. It was something older, deeper, and harder to name. The Greeks called it kleos: the glory that survives death. Achilles got there first. Three thousand years later, men are still trying to follow him... -- -- -- If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

James Lucas

402,690 views • 22 days ago

This Robin Williams thread will brighten up your day 🧵 1. His improvised scene in Good Will Hunting made the cameraman laugh so hard the camera started shaking. Matt Damon's reaction is authentic.
1:24
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This Robin Williams thread will brighten up your day 🧵 1. His improvised scene in Good Will Hunting made the cameraman laugh so hard the camera started shaking. Matt Damon's reaction is authentic.

James Lucas

19,989,126 views • 1 year ago

In 1863, on a remote Greek island, a worker digging in the ruins of a 2,000 year old sanctuary stopped and shouted to the French diplomat supervising the excavation: "Monsieur, we have found a woman." What he had found was not a woman. It was a giant marble torso. No head. No arms. But a pair of broken wings... She is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, carved around 190 BC. The statue depicts the goddess Nike, the personification of victory in the ancient Greek world. She is shown alighting on the prow of a warship: the moment of triumph caught in stone. The marble is so finely worked that the fabric of her tunic appears wet, pressed against her body by an invisible wind, while heavy folds billow behind her as if still moving. She originally stood high above the Aegean Sea, in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace, set at a deliberate angle to be seen from afar... Charles Champoiseau, the French vice-consul who supervised her excavation, sent her to Paris in pieces. Around 110 fragments were recovered. The head and arms were never found. He thought the grey marble blocks scattered around her were the remains of a tomb, and left them on the island. It took twelve more years before Austrian archaeologists realized those blocks were the prow of the ship she had been standing on. Today, she watches over the top of the Daru Staircase in the Louvre, where ten million people walk up to her every year. There is something almost mystical about her presence — a sense that what is missing is more powerful than what remains. The absent head and arms, the broken wings: they don't weaken her. They free her. She is no longer a goddess in stone. She is the moment of victory itself, and you can finish her story in your own mind... If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter for over 50,000 readers who love rediscovering history through the beauty of art. You can join us here: There is so much more waiting to be seen.
0:21
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In 1863, on a remote Greek island, a worker digging in the ruins of a 2,000 year old sanctuary stopped and shouted to the French diplomat supervising the excavation: "Monsieur, we have found a woman." What he had found was not a woman. It was a giant marble torso. No head. No arms. But a pair of broken wings... She is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, carved around 190 BC. The statue depicts the goddess Nike, the personification of victory in the ancient Greek world. She is shown alighting on the prow of a warship: the moment of triumph caught in stone. The marble is so finely worked that the fabric of her tunic appears wet, pressed against her body by an invisible wind, while heavy folds billow behind her as if still moving. She originally stood high above the Aegean Sea, in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace, set at a deliberate angle to be seen from afar... Charles Champoiseau, the French vice-consul who supervised her excavation, sent her to Paris in pieces. Around 110 fragments were recovered. The head and arms were never found. He thought the grey marble blocks scattered around her were the remains of a tomb, and left them on the island. It took twelve more years before Austrian archaeologists realized those blocks were the prow of the ship she had been standing on. Today, she watches over the top of the Daru Staircase in the Louvre, where ten million people walk up to her every year. There is something almost mystical about her presence — a sense that what is missing is more powerful than what remains. The absent head and arms, the broken wings: they don't weaken her. They free her. She is no longer a goddess in stone. She is the moment of victory itself, and you can finish her story in your own mind... If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter for over 50,000 readers who love rediscovering history through the beauty of art. You can join us here: There is so much more waiting to be seen.

James Lucas

638,900 views • 1 month ago

One of the greatest and oldest special effects in history can be witnessed in Rome today And it has been playing out, on cue, for nearly 2000 years... Each year on April 21, the traditional birthday of Rome — the legendary date Romulus founded the city in 753 BC — the midday sun pierces the oculus at the crown of the Pantheon's dome and casts a perfect disk of light that settles squarely on the temple's entrance. For roughly two minutes and fifty seconds, the bronze doors blaze gold... At that exact moment, the Emperor would step across the threshold, his body swallowed in sunlight, as though the heavens themselves were handing him the city. Hadrian's engineers designed the entire building as a cosmos in miniature: the interior is exactly 43.3 metres wide and 43.3 metres tall, meaning a perfect sphere fits inside it. The Roman senator Cassius Dio wrote that the vaulted roof was meant to resemble the heavens themselves...
0:41
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One of the greatest and oldest special effects in history can be witnessed in Rome today And it has been playing out, on cue, for nearly 2000 years... Each year on April 21, the traditional birthday of Rome — the legendary date Romulus founded the city in 753 BC — the midday sun pierces the oculus at the crown of the Pantheon's dome and casts a perfect disk of light that settles squarely on the temple's entrance. For roughly two minutes and fifty seconds, the bronze doors blaze gold... At that exact moment, the Emperor would step across the threshold, his body swallowed in sunlight, as though the heavens themselves were handing him the city. Hadrian's engineers designed the entire building as a cosmos in miniature: the interior is exactly 43.3 metres wide and 43.3 metres tall, meaning a perfect sphere fits inside it. The Roman senator Cassius Dio wrote that the vaulted roof was meant to resemble the heavens themselves...

James Lucas

681,349 views • 1 month ago

This is what New York City looked like in March of the year 2000 exactly 26 years ago
3:38
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This is what New York City looked like in March of the year 2000 exactly 26 years ago

James Lucas

1,126,296 views • 2 months ago

When this sculpture was unveiled in 1753, people refused to believe it was made of marble. They were convinced the artist had used alchemy... The veil draped over the body of Christ was rendered with such impossible precision that the only explanation was that some chemical process had been used to turn a real cloth into stone. The sculptor was a 33-year-old Neapolitan named Giuseppe Sanmartino. He had carved the entire figure, including the veil, from a single block of white marble. We know this because the original commission documents survive, preserved in the Historical Archive of the Bank of Naples. A receipt signed by the patron, Prince Raimondo di Sangro, dated 16 December 1752, refers to "the statue of Our Lord in death covered by a veil also of marble." The patron himself only deepened the mystery: Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, was a Grand Master of the Neapolitan Masonic Lodge and a practicing alchemist... He had commissioned the sculpture for the Cappella Sansevero, his family chapel in the heart of Naples, a space he had spent his life transforming into one of the strangest interiors in Europe, filled with allegorical statues and symbols of esoteric knowledge. The legend that he had laid a real cloth over the figure and "marbleized" it through a secret chemical process took root almost immediately. And it has never fully died. But the truth is stranger than the legend. Sanmartino did this with a hammer and a chisel... Antonio Canova himself tried to buy the sculpture. According to tradition, when he was unable to, he said he would gladly have given ten years of his life to have produced something of similar perfection. The Marquis de Sade, passing through Naples, paused to praise "the folds, the finesse of the veil… the beauty, and the regularity of the overall proportions." The Veiled Christ has not left the city in over 270 years. To see it, you have to go there. I have, and I can tell you that no photograph prepares you for the moment you stand in front of it. Sculpture, at its highest, really is a kind of alchemy. The transformation of cold stone into real flesh. As Alexander Pope wrote: "Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm." I started this newsletter because human beings once made things that look impossible, and we have largely forgotten how. Every week, I share one of those stories. If that is something you would like to be part of, you can join 50,000 readers here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.
0:21
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When this sculpture was unveiled in 1753, people refused to believe it was made of marble. They were convinced the artist had used alchemy... The veil draped over the body of Christ was rendered with such impossible precision that the only explanation was that some chemical process had been used to turn a real cloth into stone. The sculptor was a 33-year-old Neapolitan named Giuseppe Sanmartino. He had carved the entire figure, including the veil, from a single block of white marble. We know this because the original commission documents survive, preserved in the Historical Archive of the Bank of Naples. A receipt signed by the patron, Prince Raimondo di Sangro, dated 16 December 1752, refers to "the statue of Our Lord in death covered by a veil also of marble." The patron himself only deepened the mystery: Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, was a Grand Master of the Neapolitan Masonic Lodge and a practicing alchemist... He had commissioned the sculpture for the Cappella Sansevero, his family chapel in the heart of Naples, a space he had spent his life transforming into one of the strangest interiors in Europe, filled with allegorical statues and symbols of esoteric knowledge. The legend that he had laid a real cloth over the figure and "marbleized" it through a secret chemical process took root almost immediately. And it has never fully died. But the truth is stranger than the legend. Sanmartino did this with a hammer and a chisel... Antonio Canova himself tried to buy the sculpture. According to tradition, when he was unable to, he said he would gladly have given ten years of his life to have produced something of similar perfection. The Marquis de Sade, passing through Naples, paused to praise "the folds, the finesse of the veil… the beauty, and the regularity of the overall proportions." The Veiled Christ has not left the city in over 270 years. To see it, you have to go there. I have, and I can tell you that no photograph prepares you for the moment you stand in front of it. Sculpture, at its highest, really is a kind of alchemy. The transformation of cold stone into real flesh. As Alexander Pope wrote: "Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm." I started this newsletter because human beings once made things that look impossible, and we have largely forgotten how. Every week, I share one of those stories. If that is something you would like to be part of, you can join 50,000 readers here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

James Lucas

328,114 views • 25 days ago