This immaculate and historic water garden culminates in a massive stone dining table with an inset fountain for chilling the wine of the Cardinal's guests.

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

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

Natural cathedral designed by Italian artist Giuliano Mauri.

The final resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats.

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

An ossuary built in 1210 to collect bones from the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan.

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

2300-year-old Roman road connecting the empire.

A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

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

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

As can be expected from a centuries old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

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

Geothermal waterfalls in Tuscany.

A master of trompe-l'oeil creates a stunning, tourist-fooling dome out of a flat ceiling.

Renaissance villa and gardens complete with a tormented colossus.

Stalactites and stalagmites in a beautifully lit cave.

Thousands of well-dressed mummies below a monastery.

Architectureal fantasy quarter of Rome.

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

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

A submerged archeological park still holds the wonders of a Roman Sodom.