Thousand-year-old Viking runes adorn an ancient Greek lion at the entrance to the Venetian Arsenal.

Hanging within this medieval church are the bones of a beast allegedly slain by a fourth-century saint.

Venice's island of the dead.

Those who own or stay at this 500-year-old, allegedly cursed house often meet terrible fates.

Renaissance hospital featuring a rotating door into which unwanted babies were dropped.

100 year tradition of fist fights, marked by marble footsteps.

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

A sinister pyramid in the Frari contains the heart of the famous neoclassical sculptor.

Secret refuge and museum of the Duke of Florence.

This palatial spiral staircase was so unusual the name "snail" was given to the noble family who built it.

This ritzy Italian market is built around a statue of an unforgiven heretic who was burned for his belief in an endless universe.

Over 50 exquisite hand-painted Renaissance maps decorate a Medici storage room.

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

As can be expected from a centuries-old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

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

This community on a small Venetian island has taken to painting their houses in bright neon hues.

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.

An Italian crevasse filled with abandoned buildings gives visitors a look at the world without humans.

A rare example of a medieval house in Rome adorned with a melancholic inscription.

A sculpture serving as an homage to Pope John Paul II.

These hut foundations are believed to be the residence of Romulus, founder of Rome.

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

A fortified medieval basilica on the Caelian Hill preserves extraordinary frescoes and one of Rome's most beautiful hidden cloisters.

Remnants of a 4th-century church with vivid medieval frescoes and ancient sarcophagi hide beneath this old basilica.