Five candy-colored villages on the Italian Riviera.

This 16th-century monastery has been turned into a surrealist architecture compound.

An Italian hillside ghost town.

2300-year-old Roman road connecting the empire.

Architectural monsters are devouring this palace's every door and window.

The engineering wonder and pleasure dome of a much-maligned emperor still holds undiscovered secrets.

The underground sanctuary of a mysterious ancient cult.

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

The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.

The small peaceful island off the Venice tourist circuit is where the city began more than 1,500 years ago.

Go inside to really appreciate this 500-year-old technological masterpiece.

An alchemist's "magic door" stands in the middle of a Roman park.

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

The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."

The middle finger of modernity.

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

The doodles of a genius line the walls of a secret room under the Medici Chapel, where they were hidden for nearly 500 years.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.