Installed in an act of one-upsmanship, the annual sundial in this church is also a symbolic victory for the Gregorian calendar.

A labyrinth of ancient tunnels hidden below the city holds the ruins of 2,500 years of history.

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

A hospital where antique dolls are given new life.

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

A Nesting Doll of Churches.

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

Virgil's many-mouthed gateway to the underworld.

This hidden Art Nouveau courtyard is an opulent feast for the eyes.

These "anatomical machines" are only one of the many strange items in this Italian crypt.

Jesus' footprints and the first catacombs in the world.

Five candy-colored villages on the Italian Riviera.

A collection of objects supposedly singed by the hands of souls in purgatory.

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.

A fairy tale castle in modern Rome.

The final resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats.

An Italian hillside ghost town.

2300-year-old Roman road connecting the empire.

The only "Egyptian" pyramid in Europe and the legendary tomb of Remus.

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

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

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.