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

Macabre symbols of death and mummies on display set the tone of this Italian purgatory church.

Stone memorial that's said to predict the death of the pope and the site of the Cadaver Synod.

The Roman Emperor's lost summer home and grotto full of enormous sculptures sit along the Italian seashore.

Charles Dickens was not a fan of the ghastly wall dressings in this 6th century church.

Roman-era ships unearthed...

St. Francesca Romana, patron saint of drivers, resides in the church she founded.

Beautiful views and Roman-style statues on the Italian coast.

This historic recreationist school churns out warriors that may very well have had a fighting chance in Rome's pits of the day.

A modern sliver of architecture in Roma.

Largest necropolis in the Mediterranean.

The Emperor Tiberius' palace of debauchery.

A cave in southern Italy adorned with thousand-year-old Biblical frescoes existed in obscurity until fairly recently.

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

Gods clash with machines in a power plant regenerated as a museum.

A 1,000-year-old church holds the bones of the Christian martyrs who died hiding inside it.

An enigmatic modern marker left next to a historic Roman site.

The martyr's wax-enhanced skeletal remains lie preserved in a glass case in the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.

The "Greatest Sewer" of ancient Rome is one of the oldest sewer systems in the world, and is still in use.

The studio built by fascists in the hopes of "reviving the film industry" with the occasional propaganda film opportunity thrown in.

Geometry and mystery come together in an epic show of octagonal masonry.

One man's quest to fix his toilet unearthed over 5,000 artifacts spanning more than 2,000 years of history.

Southern Italy's spinning top village.

The Pope’s secret escape route.