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

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

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

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

Does this strange mural depict witches battling beneath a penis tree?

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

An underground paleo-Christian burial site composed of the remains of several cemeteries and Basilicas.

Contains some of the world's more disturbing wax anatomical models.

A dismembered holy head stares out from her beautiful reliquary at the St. Dominic Basilica.

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

This sword isn't waiting for a king to pull it out. It was placed there by a saint.

Geothermal waterfalls in Tuscany.

This 16th-century monastery has been turned into a surrealist architecture compound.

This picturesque Umbrian city has a subterranean side that has long remained hidden.

Roman-era ships unearthed...

An Italian ghost town that fought obscurity, until a mysterious illness brought it to its knees.

Rome's ancient Etruscan rival, now a park full of ruins.

Hidden beneath the famous St. Peter's Basilica is a veritable city of the dead that may hold the remains of St. Peter himself.

One of several skulls claiming to belong to the beheaded St. John the Baptist is on display at this Roman church.

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

This hill made entirely of ancient Roman jars was simply a garbage dump to the people of the time.

The underground sanctuary of a mysterious ancient cult.

The skull of the patron saint of lovers lies in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin—maybe.

This ancient Roman prison is decorated with an upside-down cross not as blasphemy but as saintly tribute.