Most visitors arrive in Agrigento looking for stone. They come to see the great Doric temples standing beneath the Sicilian sun, monumental remains of ancient Akragas, one of the richest and most powerful cities of the Greek Mediterranean. They expect…
There are buildings designed to dominate the landscape, rising above cities and announcing their presence from miles away. The Tempio del Valadier does precisely the opposite. It hides inside a mountain, protected by an immense limestone cave in the wild…
On the surface, Camerano appears to be a quiet hill town in the Marche, surrounded by vineyards and the green landscapes of Monte Conero. Its narrow streets, churches and old palaces seem to tell a familiar Italian story. Yet beneath…
In a citrus garden on the outskirts of San Sperate, a small town in southern Sardinia, stones have learned to sing. They stand among orange trees and olive branches like mysterious modern menhirs, their surfaces crossed by hundreds of precise…
A few minutes from Piazza del Popolo, behind the dignified façade of an early twentieth-century villa, Rome hides a room filled with giants. Enormous white figures stand beneath high ceilings, stretch their arms towards the light, embrace one another, raise…
Venice is a city that has spent centuries negotiating with water. It travels through the city’s canals, reflects its palaces, carries its boats and occasionally rises high enough to enter streets, squares, houses and shops. Most businesses do everything possible…
Hidden among the green hills of Umbria, in the tiny medieval village of Monte Castello di Vibio, there is a theatre so small that entering it feels almost like stepping inside an exquisitely crafted music box. It has a stage,…
In the heart of Cesena, a graceful city in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, there is a door that does something extraordinary: it takes visitors back more than five centuries. Beyond it lies the Biblioteca Malatestiana, one of the most remarkable libraries…
On the western shore of Lake Garda, where the mountains rise almost vertically from the water, there is a road that appears to have been designed by someone who refused to accept the meaning of the word “impossible.” It enters…
On the western edge of Sicily, where the island turns towards North Africa and the sun disappears behind the Egadi Islands, the sea seems to break into hundreds of pieces. Some pools are silver, others pale blue, copper, violet or…