The idea that the disparate nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea represent a single region is the product of the nineteenth century.

The marchese's 1939-1940 diary, detailing the months before Italy's armed alliance with Nazi Germany, is now available as A Chill in the Air.

Since the 16th century, anonymous authors have been posting provocative political messages on or near these Roman statues.

Constructed in the mid-16th century by Pier Francesco "Vicino" Orsini, this bizarre pleasure garden features twelve strange, disturbing statues--and no one knows why.

In 79 C.E., Mt. Vesuvius covered Pompeii with ash and pumice, preserving the remains of people trying to escape. Researchers have made a haunting new find.

Mother Superior Benedetta Carlini, a visionary nun of Renaissance Italy, was accused of heresy and “female sodomy.”

Design can facilitate the worst of human instincts, including forcing animals into servitude and violence. Cricket cages tell stories about how people have treated the insects throughout time.

The astrolabe was a revolutionary tool for calculating celestial positions and local time. The device's design dates back to Islamic antiquity.

Michelangelo, perhaps the greatest artist the world has produced, wasn't a child prodigy like Mozart. He learned on the job. So maybe there's still hope for the rest of us.

Buon fresco, perhaps the best-known kind of wall painting, is the result of a chemical reaction turning paint and wet plaster into a single, solid surface.