The oldest of Venice's plague quarantine stations, designed to keep the medieval city safe from disease.

Originally a leper colony, the island is now an Armenian monastery that's home to an incredible manuscript library and eclectic museum.

One of the most well-preserved castles in Italy also contains a rare medieval example of a port fortification.

The ruins of the largest gladiatorial school in Rome are largely hidden under modern streets.

In the early Roman Empire, people deemed traitors and criminals were tossed to their deaths from this rock.

This ancient trail climbs the mountain where a Latin League cult worshipped Jupiter, its main deity.

Over 100 towers were built in Bologna during the Middle Ages, but only 22 survive.

This precariously perched fortress was once ruled by a crow-worshipping baron.

The burial place of an obscure North African saint was turned into a macabre body preservation factory for the 17th-century Neapolitan elite.

A star-shaped fortress town fort built in the geometric model of the Renaissance utopian city.

Europe’s oldest natural human mummy.

These medieval skyscrapers dominate the skyline of this small Tuscan town.

This abandoned island off the Venetian coast has been a radical monastery, a political prison, and a secret Nazi base.

People have been living in the cave houses on this Italian hillside since the Neolithic era.

A fake medieval village in the middle of Turin.

Venice's island of the dead.

This real life asylum of horrors is now an abandoned ruin that hides the unbreakable code to one patient's insanity.

An underground paleo-Christian burial site composed of the remains of several cemeteries and Basilicas.

This hill made entirely of ancient Roman jars was simply a garbage dump to the people of the time.

This medieval Italian town is a sheer (and beautiful) cliffside defense.

This ancient Roman prison is decorated with an upside-down cross not as blasphemy but as saintly tribute.

A fairytale island floats in the middle of Italy's little-known Lake Orta.

This Roman arch marks the location of an ancient gate at one of the Seven Hills of Rome.

The location of the last witch trials of Italy, known as "The Salem of Europe."