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Chiesa di Santa Felicità
Possibly founded by Syrian merchants as early as the 2nd century, the current church is largely a Renaissance construction. Its most extraordinary feature is Brunelleschi’s small Cappella Barbadori, which is adorned by frescoes by Jacopo Pontormo (1494–1557) of the Annunciation and
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Civico Museo Archeologico
The 8th-century Monastero Maggiore, once the most important Benedictine convent in the city, is now home to Milans archaeological museum. Access is via a cloister, where fragments of the citys Roman walls can be seen. Ground-floor rooms display important artefacts from Roman Mediol
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Eremo di Sant’Onofrio al Morrone
This cliff-clinging hermitage with its 15th-century frescoes, narrow oratory and arched porticoes literally cowers under a massive rock face in the Morrone Mountains. It was here in a grotto beneath the present church that Pietro da Morrone was apparently told he was to become pope
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Museo delle Icone
Glowing colours and all-seeing eyes fill this treasure box of some 80 Greek icons made in 14th- to 17th-century Italy. Keep your own eye out for the expressive San Giovanni Climaco, which shows the saintly author of a Greek spiritual guide distracted from his work by visions of sou
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Chiesa di San Costanzo
This is the island’s oldest church and the only real sight around the marina. Dating from the 5th century, this whitewashed chiesa is dedicated to the island’s patron saint, who settled on Capri after escaping a vicious storm en route from Constantinople to Rome. Its original incar
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Chiesa di San Giovanni in Bragora
This serene, 15th-century brick church harmonises Gothic and Renaissance styles with remarkable ease, setting the tone for a young Antonio Vivaldi, who was baptised here. Look for Bartolomeo Vivarini’s 1478 Enthroned Madonna with St Andrew and John the Baptist, which shows the Mado
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Torre Civica delle Ore
Break from the boutiques of Via Fillungo with a hike up the 207 wooden steps of Luccas 13th-century clock tower – at 50m tall, the highest of the citys 130 medieval towers. Legend has it the tower is inhabited by the ghost of Lucida Mansi, a Lucchese lass who sold her soul to the d
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Terme Suburbane
Marking Herculaneums southernmost tip is the 1st-century-AD Terme Suburbane, one of the best-preserved Roman bath complexes in existence, with deep pools, stucco friezes and bas-reliefs looking down upon marble seats and floors. This is also one of the best places to observe the so
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Necropoli di Anghelu Ruju
Some 10km northwest of Alghero, just off the road to Porto Torres, lie the scattered burial chambers of the Necropoli di Anghelu Ruju. The 38 tombs carved into the sandstone rock, known as domus de janas (fairy houses), date from between 3300 BC and 2700 BC. Most of the sculptural
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Biblioteca e Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Europe’s first public library, built in 1609, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana was more a symbol of intellectual ferment than of quiet scholarship. It houses more than 75,000 volumes and 35,000 manuscripts including Leonardo da Vincis priceless collection of drawings, the Atlantic Codex .
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Basilica di SS Giovanni e Paolo & Case Romane
While there’s little of interest at this much-tweaked 4th-century church, the Roman houses that lie beneath it are fascinating. According to tradition, the apostles John and Paul lived in the Case Romane before they were beheaded by Constantine’s anti-Christian successor, Julian.
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Villa della Porta Bozzolo
In the unassuming town of Casalzuigno, about 9km east of Laveno, generations of nobles have swanned about the magnificent gardens of Villa della Porta Bozzolo, completed in 1690. The grand, two-storey building, surrounded by various outbuildings, has a calm, self-assured feel. Insi
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S’Abba Frisca
Around 5km from Grotta di Ispinigoli, on the country road towards Cala Gonone, S’Abba Frisca is an ethnographic treasure trove. Centred on a lake and waterfalls, its gardens bristle with centuries-old olive trees, macchia and medicinal plants. As you wander, look out for rare Sardi
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Palazzo Municipale
The Palazzo Municipale or Palazzo Senatoriale was built in 1629 by the Spanish architect Juan Vermexio, nicknamed Il Lucertolone or the lizard. On the left corner of the cornice is the architects signature: a small lizard carved into a stone. In recent years, excavations beneath th
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Domus Augustana
This, the emperors private residence, was built on two levels, with rooms leading off a peristilio (peristyle or porticoed courtyard) on each floor. You cant get down to the lower level, but from above you can see the basin of a big, square fountain and beyond it rooms that were pa
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Fontana dell’Acqua Paola
Just up from the Chiesa di San Pietro in Montorio, this monumental white fountain was built in 1612 to celebrate the restoration of a 2nd-century aqueduct that supplied (and still supplies) water from Lago di Bracciano, 35km to the north of Rome. Four of the fountain’s six pink-sto
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Casa Rossa
The striking Moroccan-style ‘Red House’ was built by American colonel John Clay MacKown in 1876. Constructed around a 16th-century defensive tower, the building houses an eclectic collection of 19th-century paintings, including some evocative scenes of Capri by Gonsalvo Carelli (18
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Castello Scaligero
This atmospheric museum packs a wealth of history into the rough stone walls of a 14th-century castle. The fortification was built in 1338 as part of the Della Scala familys attempts to fend off the Venetian Republic. Exhibits scattered around the castles rooms explore traditional
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Chiesa di Santa Fosca
The Chiesa di Santa Fosca was founded in the 11th century to house the body of St Fosca. How this Roman girl raised in Libya wound up a saint is a tragic tale: when Fosca announced her conversion to Christianity at 15, her enraged father turned the teenager over to local authoritie
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Città dell’Acqua
The little-known excavations of Vicus Caprarius (the name of the ancient street) include a Roman house and a Hadrian-era cistern that connected with the Aqua Virgo cistern. Eight metres deep, they lie just a few paces from the eternal hubbub of the Trevi Fountain – the spring water
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