Historic fortifications form the boundary of Vatican City, but it’s not entirely surrounded by walls.

The first statue to be added to Saint Peter's Square in over 350 years is an ode to migrants and refugees around the world.

Breathtaking and huge 430 year old maps of Italy.

A Nesting Doll of Churches.

A rather vulgar example of the transition from Latin to the Italian vernacular.

This hydrochronometer was invented by a Dominican monk and is a prime feature in this garden.

The remains of this 2nd-century Roman temple are incorporated into a modern building.

This bustling Italian plaza is built on the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheater.

Fortified medieval tower house with lovely roof garden.

The only visible reminders of an elaborate engineering project that kept the tower from reaching the tipping point.

The first botanical garden, a feather in the cap of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

In Florence's great Duomo, a 26 foot fresco honors a mercenary famous for attacking Florence.

This strange bovine gargoyle is said to have been put in as a passive aggressive form of revenge.

A slightly creepy gallery of plaster cast models in the same museum as Michelangelo's David.

Drink wine handed out through a window as part of an age-old tradition.

The largest and most famous wax anatomical collection anywhere in the world.

An incredible menagerie of more than 3 million taxidermied animals at the oldest science museum in Europe.

This private skyway is filled with art and was expanded explicitly so that Hitler could appreciate a river.

A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

The middle finger of modernity.

This bronze boar's snout has been rubbed to a golden sheen by visitors seeking good fortune.

Memorials at a Florence railway station remember the citizens who were deported from Italy and sent to extermination camps.

A freedman baker’s lavish tomb has a relief showing various stages of Roman bread making.

Believed to be the remains of the lost Temple of Minerva, this nymphaeum has been known by its misnomer to this day.