A rather vulgar example of the transition from Latin to the Italian vernacular.

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

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

2300-year-old Roman road connecting the empire.

Renaissance hospital featuring a rotating door into which unwanted babies were dropped.

This private skyway is filled with art and was expanded explicitly so that Hitler could appreciate a river.

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

The middle finger of modernity.

The first botanical garden, a feather in the cap of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

A medieval, mosaic-lined baptistry built by a heretical Christian sect.

An incredible mosaic-lined monument said to have held the remains of an ancient Roman empress.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung reported a paranormal experience after visiting this mosaic-lined Roman baptistry.

This 6th-century church has the largest and best-preserved collection of Byzantine mosaics outside Constantinople.

Italian poet Dante Alighieri is entombed in this small mausoleum in Ravenna, and his hometown of Florence has never been too happy about it.

Filled with goldfish swimming in a shallow pool of sea water, this ancient crypt is more wishing well than burial site.

The remains of an ancient Roman city are hidden underneath Bologna's beautiful public library.

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

In the world's oldest university is a stunning 17th century anatomical theater carved from spruce.

These delicate sand pyramids look like naturally occurring gothic spires.

Europe’s oldest natural human mummy.

Thousand-year-old Viking runes adorn an ancient Greek lion at the entrance to the Venetian Arsenal.

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

The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.

An extensive collection of reliquaries containing the bones of saints housed in the largest Catholic church in Venice.