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

This Roman statue is missing a limb from when the Venetians stole it from Constantinople during the Crusades.

A new sculpture calls attention to climate change in the centuries-old city it threatens.

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

Two stone columns flank the grand Venice square, but there were supposed to be three.

Secret refuge and museum of the Duke of Florence.

The middle finger of modernity.

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

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

High in the clouds of San Marino sits an ancient tower with some curious prisoner graffiti.

Ancient snack bar of the Roman Empire re-opened.

Erotic art covers the walls of the largest ancient pleasure palace.

The last moments of the ill-fated Pompeiians, frozen forever in plaster.

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

This former Roman Catholic Church still contains the embalmed hearts and organs of 22 popes.

2300-year-old Roman road connecting the empire.

Hundreds of lucky felines haunt the ruins where Caesar was murdered.

Breathtaking and huge 430 year old maps of Italy.

Dynastic Home of the De Piro Family.

This famous archeological mystery may be an ancient example of movable type.

This prison on the Maltese island of Gozo is almost 500 years old, and they have the graffiti to prove it.

A 2,000-year-old computer demonstrates remarkable engineering and astronomical precision.

A quirky bookstore hidden beneath a sea of whitewashed Greek villas.

A Bronze age settlement on the Greek island of Santorini might have been the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis.