Italy

Domus de Janas di Borucca

Budduso, Sassari, Italy

Near the village of Budduso in northeastern Sardinia, a burial chamber carved from granite five thousand years ago tilts on its displaced boulder — a house for the dead...

Domus de janas, Sas Concas

Onieri/Oniferi, Nuoro, Italy

In a red trachyte outcrop near Oniferi, 20 rock-cut chambers hold one of Sardinia's most mysterious collections of prehistoric art....

Doric Temple of Segesta

Calatafimi Segesta, Trapani, Italy

In the hills of western Sicily, a Doric temple stands almost complete after 2,400 years, its thirty-six unfluted columns rising against wild mountains and distant sea....

Fidenza Cathedral

Fidenza, Parma, Italy

Fidenza Cathedral is the active Catholic shrine and cathedral of Saint Domninus on the Via Francigena....

Fonte Sacra Su Tempiesu

Orune, Nuoro, Italy

In the countryside near Orune, a sacred spring flows through the only Nuragic well-temple to preserve its original elevated structures....

Genoa Cathedral

Genoa, Liguria, Italy

Genoa Cathedral is a living metropolitan cathedral in Genoa, Italy. The Archdiocese of Genoa identifies the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Lawrence as the city's...

Giant’s Grave of Sa Domu e s’Orcu

Quartùcciu/Quartucciu, Cagliari, Italy

Rising from the forested slopes of the Sette Fratelli mountains, the Giants' Grave of Is Concias preserves one of Sardinia's finest examples of Nuragic collective burial....

Giants' Grave of Sa Domu e s'Orcu

Siddi, South Sardinia, Italy

In the Marmilla region of southern-central Sardinia, a megalithic gallery grave bears a name that speaks of ancient awe: Sa Domu e s'Orcu—the House of the Ogre....

Hermitage of Montesiepi

Chiusdino, Tuscany, Italy

Hermitage of Montesiepi is a pilgrimage chapel preserving the venerated sword of Saint Galgano in Chiusdino, Italy....

Ivrea Cathedral

Ivrea, Turin, Italy

Ivrea Cathedral is the active Catholic seat of the Diocese of Ivrea and a sacred landmark in a Via Francigena city....

Lucca Cathedral (Duomo di San Martino)

Lucca, Lucca, Italy

Lucca Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Lucca and a major stop within the Italian Via Francigena landscape....

Madonna di Loreto

Inside Santa Casa di Loreto

Loreto, Ancona, Italy

Within the Holy House of Loreto stands a statue of the Madonna carved from Lebanese cedar, her face and hands dark....

Madonna di Montevergine (Mamma Schiavona)

Inside Sanctuary of Montevergine

Mercogliano, Avellino, Italy

Rising 1,270 meters above the Campanian plains, the Sanctuary of Montevergine has drawn pilgrims for nine centuries to venerate Mamma Schiavona, the Black Madonna....

Madonna of Tindari (Madonna Nera)

Inside The Sanctuary of Tindari

Tindari, Messina, Italy

The statue is the focus of Marian pilgrimage at Tindari and is represented separately from the sanctuary that houses it....

Mausoleo di Santa Costanza, Rome, Italy

Rome, Rome, Italy

Santa Costanza preserves the moment when Roman art became Christian. Built around 345 CE as a mausoleum for Constantine's daughter, this circular rotunda holds 4th-century...

Monastero di Santa Scolastica

Subiaco, Rome, Italy

Founded by Saint Benedict around 520 AD as one of thirteen monasteries in the Aniene valley, Santa Scolastica is the only one that survived....

Monte Gargano

Monte Sant'Angelo, Foggia, Italy

On the Gargano promontory, a cave has drawn pilgrims since 490 CE, when Saint Michael first appeared to a local bishop....

Necropoli a Domus de Jana's di Ludurru

Budduso, Sassari, Italy

A few hundred metres from the village of Budduso, six burial chambers carved from granite five thousand years ago compose the necropolis of Ludurru....

Necropoli di Li Muri

Alzachèna/Arzachena, Sassari, Italy

On granite landscape near Arzachena, five stone cists surrounded by concentric circles mark the earliest megalithic expression in Sardinia....

Necropolis di Montessu

Sa Baronia/Villaperuccio, South Sardinia, Italy

In a natural amphitheater of trachyte rock near Villaperuccio, over forty domus de janas—rock-cut tombs—line the curved face of a hill called the 'silent one.' For 1,500...

Necropolis of Pranu Mutteddu

Goni, South Sardinia, Italy

Across 200,000 square meters of the Gerrei countryside near Goni, approximately sixty menhirs stand in pairs, groups, and rows....

Nuraghe Arrubiu

Arrolli/Orroli, South Sardinia, Italy

In the fourteenth century BC, while Mycenaean ships plied Mediterranean waters, the Nuragic people raised a basalt fortress that would become the largest of its kind....

Nuraghe of Saint Constantine, Sa domo de su re (The house of the king)

Turalva/Torralba, Sassari, Italy

In the Valley of the Nuraghi, one structure rises above all others. The Sardinians called it Sa Domo de su Re—the House of the King....

Orvieto Cathedral

Orvieto, Umbria, Italy

Orvieto Cathedral is a living cathedral, Eucharistic pilgrimage church, and protected monument in Orvieto, Italy....

Pantheon, Rome, Italy

Rome, Rome, Italy

The Pantheon stands as ancient Rome's most complete survival—a temple to all gods that became a church to Mary and the martyrs, preserved through continuous use for nearly...

Piacenza Cathedral

Piacenza, Piacenza, Italy

Piacenza Cathedral is the active Catholic church of Santa Maria Assunta and Santa Giustina in a historic Via Francigena city....

Pozzo Sacro di Santa Vittoria

Part of Santuario Nuragico di Santa Vittoria

Ìsili/Isili, South Sardinia, Italy

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta has anchored Christian worship in Rieti since at least the sixth century....

Sacra di San Michele

Sant'Ambrogio di Torino, Piedmont, Italy

Sacra di San Michele is a mountaintop abbey sanctuary entrusted to the Rosminian Fathers in Sant'Ambrogio di Torino, Italy....

Sacred Well of Saint Christina

Paulle/Paulilatino, Oristano, Italy

Every 18.6 years, moonlight descends a perfectly carved staircase to touch the sacred spring at its base....

Sacro Monte di Belmonte

Valperga, Turin, Italy

Belmonte holds two devotional histories at once: a Marian sanctuary first documented in 1197, and a Via Crucis chapel complex begun in 1712 by the Franciscan friar...

Sacro Monte di Crea

Serralunga di Crea, Alessandria, Italy

Sacro Monte di Crea crowns the highest hill of the Basso Monferrato with twenty-three chapels and five hermitages built from 1589 around a Marian shrine already centuries...

Sacro Monte di Domodossola

Domodossola, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Italy

Sacro Monte Calvario di Domodossola stages the Passion of Christ across fifteen chapels ascending Mattarella hill, built from 1656 by two Capuchin friars as a local...

Sacro Monte di Ghiffa

Ghiffa, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Italy

Sacro Monte di Ghiffa is the smallest and most unfinished of the nine Sacri Monti, a Counter-Reformation sanctuary raised over a medieval oratory and dedicated, unusually,...

Sacro Monte di Oropa

Biella, Biella, Italy

At 1,159 meters in the Biellese Alps, the Sanctuary of Oropa houses a Black Madonna statue venerated for some sixteen centuries and, above it, a Baroque devotional path...

Sacro Monte di Orta

Orta San Giulio, Novara, Italy

On a green hill overlooking Lake Orta and the island of San Giulio, twenty chapels narrate the life of St....

Sacro Monte di Ossuccio

Ossuccio, Como, Italy

Fourteen Baroque chapels climb a wooded crag some 200 meters above Lake Como to the Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso, built between roughly 1635 and 1710 as a...

Sacro Monte di Varallo

Varallo, Vercelli, Italy

In 1491, a Franciscan friar who had served as rector of the Holy Land set out to bring Jerusalem to those who could not reach it....

Sacro Monte di Varese

Varese, Varese, Italy

A two-kilometer cobbled path called the Via Sacra rises from the edge of Varese through fourteen Baroque chapels, each holding a sculpted and frescoed scene from a Mystery...

Sacro Speco di San Benedetto

Subiaco, Rome, Italy

Around 500 AD, a young man named Benedict withdrew to a cave on Mount Taleo above the Aniene Valley, seeking solitude from the corruption of Rome....

San Giovanni Battista

Cervo, Savona, Italy

In the summer of 1223, Saint Francis of Assisi retreated to a cave on the forested slopes of Monte Rainiero, five kilometers from Rieti, and spent forty days writing the...

San Nicola in Carcere, Rome, Italy

Rome, Rome, Italy

San Nicola in Carcere preserves Rome's sacred stratigraphy in visible form. A medieval church literally incorporates the columns and foundations of three Roman Republican...

Sanctuary of Montevergine

Mercogliano, Avellino, Italy

Rising 1,270 meters above the Campanian plains, the Sanctuary of Montevergine has drawn pilgrims for nine centuries to venerate Mamma Schiavona, the dark-skinned Madonna...

Sanctuary of Vicoforte

Vicoforte, Cuneo, Italy

The corrected record treats Vicoforte as the physical sanctuary visitors enter. The devotional image remains part of the building's history without being confused with the...

Santa Casa di Loreto

Inside Santuario della Santa Casa di Loreto

Loreto, Ancona, Italy

At the center of Loreto's basilica, enclosed within Bramante's marble screen, stand three rough stone walls....

Santa Maria Assunta, Assergi

Assergi, L'Aquila, Italy

At the base of Gran Sasso, Assergi's parish church conceals a secret beneath its modest Romanesque facade....

Santuario della Santa Casa di Loreto

Loreto, Ancona, Italy

Three stone walls, tradition holds, once formed the house where the angel appeared to Mary in Nazareth....

Santuario delle Divinità Ctonie

Part of Valle dei Templi

Agrigento, Agrigento, Italy

The Sanctuary of the Chthonic Deities occupies the western end of the Valle dei Templi, a monumental sacred area divided into three terraces of altars, enclosures, and...

Santuario di N.S. di Oropa, Italy

Biella, Biella, Italy

Oropa rises in the Biellese Alps at 1,159 meters, the largest Marian sanctuary in the Alpine world....