If you were to stand in the Roman ruins of the Colosseum on an afternoon in July, the worst you’d face would be oppressive heat and a sweaty shuffle toward the exit. Nearly 2,000 years ago, that very same spot looked down on blood-soaked sand raked clean between slaughters, your throat itchy as the air filled with thick, rancid smells.

While we love romanticizing ancient Rome as all marble forums and philosopher-emperors, the tragedy is that, for the most part, the empire was held together by systematic killings, a sprawling sex trade, mass enslavement, and executions that doubled as public entertainment.

1. The Mamertine Prison, Rome

Beneath a church at the foot of the Capitoline is a small and thoroughly unappealing stone chamber the Romans reserved for their most loathed enemies. The lower room is shaped like a bottle and, in its earliest phase, the only way in or out was through a hole in the ceiling. Prisoners would be lowered through it and, more often than not, never brought back up. The historian Sallust called the place repellent for its “filth and darkness,” but that seems a bit redundant nowadays, given that it was arguably the entire point.

The prison’s real function was clearest at the end of a triumphant battle, spearheading the victory parade every Roman general longed to lead. While the crowd cheered and the general made his way toward the Capitol, the captured enemy leader was quietly pulled from the procession, taken down into the Mamertine, and strangled out of view.

Vercingetorix, the Gallic chieftain who gave Julius Caesar his toughest fight, was kept alive for years so he could be displayed and then eventually killed in this way. The North African king Jugurtha met a much slower and more agonizing version of the same fate, in the same cell, left to waste away.

By the Middle Ages, the dungeon had been rebranded as a shrine, on the tradition that St. Peter was held there and miraculously brought a spring up from the floor to baptize his jailers.

2. The Brothel of Pompeii

Pompeii has a dark history in every direction, a town frozen at the moment of death. But nature caused this particular disaster, so, somehow, it makes the place feel less sinister than others on this list. But that innocence is only on the surface. Head below ground and you’ll find a building that says more about everyday Roman sleaziness than any collapsed roof: the Lupanar, Pompeii’s purpose-built brothel dungeon.

This cramped two-story block had five small rooms downstairs, each fitted with a built-in masonry bed that would have held a thin mattress. Erotic frescoes, like the one pictured above, are found on the doorways. Some scholars describe them as menus of “services rendered herein,” though that reading is still very much debated. They may simply have been there to set a mood.

More than a hundred messages are scratched into the plaster of the rooms. A fair few seem to have been left by the sex workers themselves, most of them likely enslaved, many with Greek names pointing to the eastern edges of the empire. They recorded their own names and the men they’d been with, sometimes with a boast attached. The going rate, as it was scratched on the walls, was roughly the price of a couple of cups of wine.

The word lupa, “she-wolf,” was slang for a prostitute, which is where lupanar comes from. Oddly enough, the she-wolf is also the revered symbol of Rome today and the emblem of its football team, which makes the whole idea feel infinitely less romantic.

3. The Colosseum, Rome

Most people know the Colosseum as a killing ground, but below the arena floor was the machinery that turned it into something close to an industrial slaughterhouse.

The hypogeum is a two-level warren of tunnels, cages, and lifting gear that Emperor Domitian began adding to the Colosseum about a year after it opened. Around 80 vertical shafts and a set of counterweighted wooden lifts, worked by teams of laborers in torchlight with little air and no daylight, could send a starved lion shooting up through a trapdoor into the middle of the arena in seconds.

Mornings were given over to animal hunts and middays to executions, when condemned prisoners were pushed out to be torn apart by those same ravenous beasts, the punishment the Romans called damnatio ad bestias.

4. The Via Appia and Capua

The Via Appia was the showpiece road of the Republic, a dead-straight ribbon of basalt running south from Rome. In the spring of 71 BC, it became the longest execution site in Roman history.

The story begins about 120 miles south in Capua, where a gladiator school kept men like Spartacus alive only as long as they were useful in the arena. Spartacus and around 70 others broke out using kitchen knives and spits, and within two years, the revolt had swollen into an army that kept embarrassing Rome over and over.

When Crassus finally crushed it, he made sure no one would ever forget who ruled whom. According to Appian, a prominent Greek historian who served as an official in ancient Rome, some 6,000 captured rebels were crucified at intervals along the whole road from Capua to Rome. They were left hanging as a warning to anyone else who got funny ideas about revolution.

5. Baiae, Bay of Naples

If Rome had a Las Vegas, it was Baiae, a seaside resort on the Bay of Naples where the wealthy went to misbehave well out of sight of the Senate. Moralists loathed it, and Seneca grumbled that it was a place where vice ran loose and a stay could wreck a respectable reputation. Much of the old resort has since slipped beneath the sea, dragged down over the centuries by the slow rise and fall of the volcanic ground in the area, so today you can snorkel or take a glass-bottomed boat over sunken mosaics and villa walls.

The dark story attached to Baiae is more of a family saga. It was near here, in 59 AD, that Nero is said to have tried to murder his own mother, Agrippina, with a booby-trapped boat rigged to come apart and sink her at sea. The contraption failed, Agrippina swam ashore, and Nero, having run out of patience with subtlety, simply sent men to finish the job in her villa.

Standing on the stunning shoreline today, with half a Roman party town glimmering under the water just offshore, it’s an oddly peaceful spot for somewhere with that on its record.

FYI, the marble statues scuba divers see on the seabed nowadays are copies. The originals were lifted to a museum and casts set back in their places, so the underwater park still has something to show.

6. The Amphitheater of El Djem (El Jem), Tunisia

Rome did not keep its blood culture at home, of course. The games traveled with the empire as it expanded, and nowhere is that clearer than in a small farming town in central Tunisia, where a stone amphitheater almost on the scale of the Colosseum rises straight out of the flat plain. This was Thysdrus, a place grown rich on the production of olive oil, and its arena could seat something like 35,000 people, roughly the entire population of the town.

A provincial city built one of the largest killing venues in the Roman world essentially to prove it belonged, and to give the locals the same spectacle of animal hunts and staged executions that drew the crowds in the capital.

Construction is usually dated to around 238 AD, the same year Thysdrus erupted in a tax revolt so violent that the mob killed the emperor’s local finance official and declared an elderly local landowner named Gordian emperor on the spot. That ad-lib reign lasted barely a few weeks before it collapsed, and it would seem the arena was never completed. It later doubled as a fortress, sheltering the townspeople during Vandal and Arab attacks, before generations of scavengers quarried it for building stone.

7. Villa Settefinestre, Tuscany

Most of the sites on this list are monuments. This one is a farm.

Villa Settefinestre sat in the rolling countryside near Cosa in southern Tuscany. When archaeologists dug it up in the late 1970s, it became the textbook example of the thing the marble version of Rome leaves out: the large agricultural estate run on slave labor that generated so much of the Republic’s wealth.

The villa belonged to the senatorial Volusii family, and it was built for profit rather than for show, with olive presses, wine cellars, a piggery, and quarters for a workforce that rarely, if ever, got to leave.

Andrea Carandini was tasked with the excavations, and he read the layout as a kind of familiar-looking plantation. He pointed to a block of small, windowless rooms as an ergastulum, the spartan barracks where one would keep chained field slaves at night after a day spent toiling the land under the whip. He compared it openly to the slave plantations of the American South, yet whether those particular rooms really were slave cells is now one of the longest-running arguments in Roman archaeology. Plenty of historians see the comparison as a bit of a stretch, but, knowing what we now know about the ancient Romans, it might not seem such a preposterous assumption.

For most of her life, the Mona Lisa was one semi-important portrait among many, admired by the odd Renaissance scholar but seemingly overlooked by nearly everyone else. Then a handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia walked out of the Louvre with her under his coat in 1911, and the two-year manhunt that followed turned an unassuming little panel into the most famous face on Earth. Crowds have been chasing her ever since. But just a few steps away from the mob in the Salle des États are five of the museum’s masterpieces enjoying the kind of peace the Mona Lisa lost more than a century ago.

How to Beat the Crowds at the Louvre

The Louvre is quite the sprawling mammoth, set on former royal grounds. It only puts some 35,000 works on show at once, so nobody does it justice in a single day, try hard as they may. Push too hard, and all you end up being is exhausted and cranky in front of a painting behind glass, squeezed among a throng of folks.

The trick to avoid the drama is to skip the Denon wing scrum for your first hour and make for the Richelieu wing instead, which stays oddly uncrowded even at the height of summer. The museum also opens late on Friday evenings, and once the tour groups clear out, the marble halls turn blissfully empty. Pick three or four things you really want to see, then let yourself get pleasantly lost between them.

Note that the following five pieces are not secret, by any means, yet they are often sidelined, which makes seeking them out all the more rewarding.

1. The Five-Legged Lamassu of Khorsabad

Deep in the Richelieu wing, in a courtyard most people march straight through on their way to the Italian paintings, stand two giant winged bulls with bearded human faces. Look at one head-on, and it looks as if it’s planting itself on guard, yet step to the side, and it looks as if it’s striding forward. It’s a trick the sculptors pulled off by carving it with five legs instead of four, each one cut from just a single block of alabaster weighing close to 30 tons.

The pair once guarded the gates of the Assyrian king Sargon II, who grabbed the throne around 720 BC, probably as a usurper, and set out to prove the gods were on his side. His big move was building a whole new capital from scratch in under a decade, a city he modestly named Dur-Sharrukin, or Fortress of Sargon. He barely got to enjoy it, though, as he was killed in battle in 705 BC. Since his body was never recovered, his court took it as a sign the gods were not so approving after all. The omen spooked his son Sennacherib so badly that the young king abandoned the barely used city and moved the capital to Nineveh, leaving Sargon’s fortress to the wind.

You will find the pair today in Room 229, the Cour Khorsabad.

2. The Card Sharp in Georges de La Tour’s The Cheat

At first glance, The Cheat seems to show four ordinary people playing cards. Look again, and you have a sneaking suspicion you’ve just walked into a robbery. On the right, a richly dressed young man frowns at his hand, about to lose his shirt and completely oblivious. On the left, the card sharp is already sliding an ace of diamonds out from behind his belt.

Between them sit a courtesan and her maid, and here is the clever bit: you get the notion that everyone at that table is in on the scam except the victim. You can read the whole scheme in their eyes, the glances flicking between the three accomplices while the young man studies his hand. La Tour seems to suggest that cheating like this was so routine nobody needed to say a word.

Georges de La Tour was a star in his own lifetime, then slid so far out of view after he died in 1652 that scholars only pieced his story back together in the 20th century. This canvas helped a great deal. It surfaced in 1926 with a dealer on the Île Saint-Louis, signature still in the lower left, and hauled his reputation back from three centuries of darkness. Look for it in Room 912 of the Sully wing.

3. Vermeer’s Tiny Masterpiece: The Lacemaker

Vermeer is a household name today, but he had been reduced to something akin to a myth for nearly two centuries after his death. He worked slowly and rarely strayed from Delft, selling most of what he painted to a small circle of local buyers, so even in his lifetime his fame barely reached past his home town. Then came 1672, the year the Dutch still call the Rampjaar, or Disaster Year, when the armies of Louis XIV poured into the Republic and the art market collapsed along with the economy. Vermeer dealt in other painters’ work as well as making his own, and the crash ruined him. He died three years later at 43, woefully deep in debt, leaving his widow Catharina and their 11 surviving children, dealing with a long line of creditors banging at the door. To settle years of unpaid bills, she is said to have even handed the local baker two of her late husband’s paintings just so the family could eat.

For almost 200 years thereafter, the painter all but vanished from the record. Then a French critic named Théophile Thoré-Bürger became obsessed in the 1860s, hunting down the scattered canvases and publishing the research that pulled Vermeer back into the light.

The smallest masterpiece Vermeer ever painted is the one hanging at the Louvre that you ought to seek out. At about 24.5 by 21 centimeters, or roughly 9.6 by 8.3 inches, The Lacemaker is smaller than a sheet of paper, and its strange, almost photographic clarity probably owes something to a camera obscura, the lens-and-box device Vermeer seems to have used to study how light really falls, long before a camera could do the job for him.

4. The Sleeping Hermaphroditus and Bernini’s Marble Mattress

Stare at this reclining marble from one side, and you’ll see a beautiful woman asleep on her front. Walk around to the other side, however, and the body turns out to be both female and male, an astonishing bit of artistic sorcery. The figure is Hermaphroditus, child of Hermes and Aphrodite, who in the myth is fused with a besotted water nymph named Salmacis into a single body.

The sculpture is a Roman copy of a lost Greek bronze, though the real highlight is what lies underneath. In 1620, Bernini, barely into his 20s, was paid 60 scudi to carve the mattress the figure rests on, and he made the stone look so plump and yielding, buttoned and dimpled under the weight of the sleeper, that you’ll probably be tempted to reach out and touch it to double-check.

The Borghese family clearly missed it once it was gone, because a second sleeping Hermaphroditus, fitted with its own carved marble mattress, soon took its place back in Rome. The Louvre’s original waits among the Roman antiquities.

5. Poussin’s Arcadian Shepherds and That Conspiracy

Most of this painting’s fame rests on four words carved into the tomb, “Et in Arcadia ego.” The Latin is deliberately unfinished, so it works two ways. It can be Death speaking, “Even in Arcadia, I am here,” or the person in the tomb, saying they too once lived in this paradise. Either way, the conveyed message is the same: that however lovely the setting, death is already part of it. The phrase has never been found on any ancient text. Antiquarians in 17th-century Rome seem to have coined it, and it first appears in a 1618 Guercino painting. Art historians have puzzled over that small ambiguity ever since; Erwin Panofsky most famously of all.

Now, none of that is what made the painting famous with the public. From the mid-1900s, conspiracy theorists decided the tomb in the picture was a real one, standing in the south of France near a village called Rennes-le-Château, with a secret clue hidden in it by Poussin himself.

The wildest version, spread by The Da Vinci Code, said that clue pointed to the Holy Grail, reimagined as a hidden bloodline rather than a cup. Believers even found a roadside tomb near the village that looks a lot like the painted one! The snag is that it was built in 1903, and Poussin died in 1665, so if anything copied anything, the modern tomb copied the painting. You can judge the likeness yourself in front of the painting in the Louvre’s French galleries.

Around AD 150, a Greek named Pausanias set out on foot to describe his whole country and left what many call the first travel guide ever written. Read it now, and you’ll notice how the places he singled out 18 centuries ago, Acropolis included, are the same ones pulling the biggest crowds today. Venture past Athens, though, and Greece opens up like a historical atlas. The five sites in this guide run from Delphi, where Greeks came for prophecies, to Delos, an all-but-empty island treated as holy ground. Four filled his pages. The fifth he never reached.

But you can.

First, a Word on Exploring Greece Beyond Athens

Greece might be infamous for boasting some of the biggest tourist crowds in Europe, especially in summer. While this is true to some extent, it really only concerns Athens and some of the most famous islands, like Santorini. The country is expansive and bursting at the seams with UNESCO-listed archaeological sites, and no matter where you drive, you’ll come across a brown heritage sign pointing one out. The local joke is that nobody dares dig a basement pool, for fear of turning up something priceless and losing the land to the archaeologists.

I was absolutely amazed to have had Delphi to myself until mid-morning on my visit, which left me wondering how somewhere this important can stay so quiet. In reality, precious sites are so abundant that the country, outside the Acropolis, absorbs tourist crowds into near oblivion.

So do explore the five ancient Greek sites below and know that you’ll discover so many more along the way.

1. Delphi, Central Greece

For roughly a thousand years, Delphi was where the Greeks would come in search of answers as to what the future held. Kings and generals climbed the slopes of Mount Parnassus to put their questions to the Pythia, the priestess who spoke for Apollo, something they’d usually do before starting a war or founding a colony. The Greeks reckoned this was the center of the world, a spot Zeus had marked with a stone called the omphalos, or navel.

The catch was that the oracle dealt in riddles, which led to some “lost in translation” moments. When King Croesus of Lydia asked whether he should attack Persia, for example, he was told that if he did, he would destroy a great empire. Delighted to no end, onward he marched, only to discover that the great empire he was destined to destroy ended up being his own. Carved at the temple entrance was a sobering piece of advice he should have read first: “know thyself.”

The ruins climb the hillside in tiers, from the Temple of Apollo up to a theater and stadium with a spectacular view over a valley of olive trees. Come early, ahead of the Athens tour buses, and give yourself a couple of hours.

2. Theater of Epidaurus, The Peloponnese

Epidaurus is famous for its theater, but it was actually once a side attraction. It sat inside the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and people came here sick, hoping to be cured. The treatment was mostly sleep, which sounds immensely reasonable.

Patients bedded down in a hall called the abaton and waited for the god to appear in a dream with a diagnosis, while non-venomous snakes sacred to Asclepius were left to glide through the wards. That snake, by the way, coiled around a staff, is the rod you still see on ambulances and pharmacy signs.

The theater appeared later and seats around 14,000 across 55 rows of limestone. Guides love to stand at the center and drop a coin to prove that a whisper carries to the back. The truth is a little less kitsch than the sales pitch. The limestone does filter out low background rumble and carry a raised voice unusually far, but an actual whisper could never reach row 55, and that hardly matters. The proportions and the peacefulness of the hills make it one of the loveliest ruins in the country. FYI: Search for “Ancient Theatre at the Asklepieion of Epidaurus” on Google Maps, or you might end up at its smaller namesake on the coast.

3. Olympia, The Western Peloponnese

The Olympic Games began at Olympia in 776 BC, and during the festival, the city-states were meant to lay down their weapons and travel in safety to honor Zeus. That was the idea, anyway, although the reality is written into a row of statue bases near the entrance to the stadium.

These were the Zanes: bronze statues of Zeus paid for with fines levied on athletes caught cheating, whether because they had taken bribes or fouled an opponent. Each base carried the offender’s name and his offense, placed so that every competitor had to pass this wall of shame on the way in, and spectators reportedly spat on them as they filed by.

The Temple of Zeus once held Phidias’s gold-and-ivory statue of the god, one of the Seven Wonders and long since lost. So, although you cannot see it, you can still walk onto the original stone starting line in the stadium and stand where the runners crouched, toes wedged into the grooves cut for grip. You can also, if you were so inclined, challenge your fellow travel companion to a 100m sprint. It is tradition, after all. Although…

Did you know? The ancient sprint was not 100 meters but the “stade,” one length of the track, which stretched about 192 meters (629 feet) and is where “stadium” comes from. For the first 13 Olympiads, it was the only race on the program. Now the fun part: competitors ran stark naked and lathered in olive oil (not sure if it was extra virgin or just the regular kind), and a false start earned a public flogging from the judges. You might want to mention that to your companion before you both toe the line.

4. Mycenae, The Argolid

Long before classical Athens, Mycenae was a Bronze Age fortress and, in Homer’s telling, the seat of Agamemnon, the very same who led the Greeks to Troy. You still enter through the Lion Gate, whose stones have been unnerving visitors for more than 3,000 years. Almost everything else about the place, funnily enough, comes wrapped in a wrong name.

When Heinrich Schliemann dug here in 1876, guided by his own copy of Pausanias, he pulled a gold funerary mask from a grave and decided on the spot it belonged to Agamemnon. He supposedly telegraphed that he had gazed upon the face of the king, a line that looks to be a later embellishment. The mask is real and truly magnificent, yet it predates any Agamemnon by some 300-400 years.

If you are based in Athens, you could potentially visit Mycenae and Epidaurus on one long but rewarding day trip. Buy your tickets to both online before heading off.

5. Delos, The Cyclades

A short boat ride from party-hard Mykonos lands you on Delos, its polar opposite in every way: windswept, uninhabited, and blissfully silent. The Greeks believed this was the birthplace of Apollo and his twin Artemis, which made it holy ground, and holy ground came with an abundance of rules. In 426 BC, Athens ordered the island purified, so every grave was dug up and bones shipped to a neighboring islet. From then on, no one was permitted to be born or to die on Delos. Expectant mothers and the dying were ferried off before either could happen.

The purity doubled as a cover for political control, and it did not stop Delos from later becoming a booming port and one of the ancient world’s biggest slave markets. What you can admire today is an entire open-air city of mosaic floors and roofless houses, watched over by the marble beasts of the Terrace of the Lions. The ones on site are copies, as most originals sit in the museum. And one, hauled off many moons ago, still guards the gate of the Venetian Arsenal.

Boats run from Mykonos most mornings, and you get a few hours on the island before the last one back. There is nowhere to stay the night, by ancient decree and modern practice alike. Head off on the first boat across because cruise line passengers and most other tourists coming from Mykonos don’t usually arrive before mid-morning. At the very least, you will have some peace for the first hour of your visit.

It is easy to look at a stunning Italian castle and see only the beauty of its frescoed halls and courtyards made for postcards (or Instagram). Yet, behind those impossibly thick walls, tragedy never roamed too far, and not only in the supposedly dark Middle Ages. This was the other side of the Italian Renaissance, where a marquis could behead his teenage wife for adultery, or a king could invite his rebellious barons to a feast and bolt the doors behind them. Because the Red Wedding had to come from somewhere.

1. Castello Estense, Ferrara

The Este family ran Ferrara for three centuries from this moated brick fortress, the same court that would later claim Lucrezia Borgia as its duchess. The beautiful Italian castle was the scene of many famous and infamous historical happenings, but is best known for the one about love and tragedy that played out in 1425. It was the year the reigning Marquis Niccolò III d’Este, after marrying the young Parisina Malatesta, discovered she’d been having an affair with his illegitimate son, Ugo, who was much closer to her in age. Enraged by the betrayal, even though his own affairs could be counted by the dozen, the Marquis reportedly had the young lovers beheaded in the cold dungeons beneath the Lion Tower.

Expect to spend at least two, if not three, hours here, exploring the seedy dungeon cells, the stunning halls with their priceless artworks, and leave time at the end to climb the tower for the most stunning views of Ferrara’s skyline.

2. Castel Nuovo, Naples

Naples’s great seaside fortress, which locals call the Maschio Angioino, earned its grandest room a sinister name. Through the mid-1480s, the kingdom’s barons plotted against Ferrante of Aragon, who was busy stripping away their feudal power. Rather than fight them in the field, Ferrante played host, inviting the leading conspirators to his niece’s wedding at the castle in 1486.

The barons, who clearly hadn’t seen the infamous Game of Thrones episode, happily joined the feasting, and once they had settled in, Ferrante had the doors bolted and the men arrested. The ringleaders were executed, and macabre rumors soon spread that Ferrante had their mummified bodies dressed in fine clothes and placed on display in a private chamber as a warning.

The room has been the Sala dei Baroni, the Hall of the Barons, ever since. It was meant as a lasting show of strength, though the control it advertised did not last long. When Charles VIII of France marched into Naples a few years later, the Aragonese grip Ferrante had fought (and killed) for fell apart.

3. Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome

Rome’s round fortress on the Tiber started life as Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum and spent the Renaissance as a papal fortress and prison. Its most famous inmate was Beatrice Cenci, a young noblewoman who had plotted with her stepmother and brothers to have her abusive father, Francesco, murdered.

The plot faltered, and Pope Clement VIII refused every plea for mercy, possibly with one eye laser-focused on the flush Cenci estate, most of which duly passed to his own nephew, Cardinal Aldobrandini, once the family was gone.

The executions in 1599 were staged on a scaffold on the bridge in front of the castle. Beatrice’s brother Giacomo was tortured on the way there, then killed with a mallet, and his body quartered, while Beatrice and her stepmother were beheaded with an axe. Only the youngest brother, 18-year-old Bernardo, was spared, made to watch the others die before being sent off to the galleys. The crowd was huge and openly on Beatrice‘s side, and very few locals accepted the verdict.

Climb to the top terrace, where Puccini set the last act of Tosca, and you get one of the best views in Rome.

4. Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Milan‘s enormous red-brick citadel was the seat of the Sforza dukes, and it grew up around one of the smoothest power grabs of the age. The rightful duke was young Gian Galeazzo Sforza, whose uncle Ludovico ruled in his place as regent and never quite got around to relinquishing power. When Gian Galeazzo died in 1494, conveniently clearing the path to the title, Milan whispered poison, though the young man’s lifelong ill health meant the conspiracy theory was only that.

Ludovico kept a dazzling court here and employed Leonardo da Vinci as everything from portraitist to party engineer. The clever plotting came at a price, though. To outflank his Italian rivals, il Moro invited the French across the Alps, and the invasion he set in motion eventually swallowed Milan in its entirety and left him to die a prisoner in France.

5. Castello di Carini, Sicily

High above the coast near Palermo, Castello di Carini is remembered for a single December night way back in 1563. Laura Lanza, the Baroness of Carini, had been married off at 14 and had taken a lover, Ludovico Vernagallo, who happened to be her husband’s cousin.

When word reached her father, Cesare Lanza, he rode to the castle, killed them both, and then wrote a strikingly calm letter to King Philip II of Spain confessing to the honor killing. He was promptly pardoned.

A famous Sicilian poem, the bitter tale of the Baroness of Carini, kept the story alive for centuries as the story of a tragically doomed romance. The less romantic reading, which several historians now prefer, is that Cesare owed Vernagallo money and stood to swallow his estate and reclaim his daughter’s dowry, and that “honor” was simply the cheapest cover. Interestingly, Italian law traditionally kept a softer sentence for honor killings until the early 1980s.

6. Castello Orsini-Odescalchi, Bracciano

This lakeside fortress north of Rome was the stronghold of the Orsini and the marital home, in theory, of Isabella de’ Medici, the brilliant and independent daughter of Cosimo I. Her husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini, spent most of the marriage in Rome with his own affairs, while gossip in Florence tied Isabella to his cousin Troilo.

She stayed safe as long as her powerful father lived, yet soon after he died, in July 1576, Paolo called her away on a hunting trip, and she turned up dead at one of the Medici’s villas in Tuscany (most likely Cerreto Guidi).

Her own brother put out that she had collapsed while washing her hair, but not many believed him. The Ferrarese ambassador reported she had been strangled, and chillingly, her cousin Leonora had died the same way at another villa just days earlier. A recent study of the couple’s letters has muddied the story even more, hinting she may have died of a long illness instead.

If there’s one thing that can be said about the crowds at the Vatican Museums, it is that they are delightfully predictable. Almost everyone moves en masse in the same direction, carried along a single slow current toward Michelangelo’s jaw-dropping ceiling.

Yet the walls they pass on the way hold some of the finest Renaissance masterpieces in Rome, and most are barely noticed. Side step that current and head into the quieter Pinacoteca to see artwork that carries stories even the headline attractions find difficult to match.

Here are five pieces worth seeking out.

1. The Painted Borgia Apartments Meant to Sell a Fake Bloodline

On the way up to the Raphael Rooms, most tour groups pour through several dimly lit rooms without slowing down, which suits the rooms’ history. These are the Borgia Apartments, the private quarters Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) had decorated with frescoes by Pinturicchio between 1492 and 1494, and they later fell out of regular use for centuries before becoming part of the museum complex.

The man who sealed them shut was Julius II, who disliked his Borgia predecessor so fiercely that he refused to live among his things and moved one floor up, into the rooms Raphael would later make famous. The Borgia frescoes have been the forgotten downstairs ever since, now sharing the space with the Vatican’s modern religious art.

The room you ought to hunt down is the Sala dei Santi, the Hall of Saints. The walls carry the expected lineup of martyrs, but the ceiling tells a far odder story, with the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris painted alongside the sacred bull Apis. None of that was a simple decorative whim. Alexander VI had allegedly relied on a theologian named Annio da Viterbo, a man with a well-earned reputation for forging ancient documents, to concoct a family tree tracing the Borgias back to the Egyptian gods. Apis happened to be a bull, and a bull happened to sit on the Borgia crest, so the ceiling appears less as mythology and more as a pope documenting his own divine pedigree. On the wall below, the young saint in the Disputation of Saint Catherine is widely thought to be Lucrezia Borgia, though this has never really been proven.

2. Leonardo’s Unfinished Saint Jerome

Of the five entries on this list, this may be the one you may already know, since it turns up on nearly every list of the Vatican’s quieter treasures. But it earns the repeat. The stunning piece hangs in Room IX of the Pinacoteca, just a short detour off the route most visitors take.

Leonardo da Vinci left this Saint Jerome unfinished, and after his death in 1519, the panel dropped out of the record for the better part of three centuries. When it resurfaced in 19th-century Rome, it had been sawed apart. The lower section had reportedly served as the lid of a box in a junk shop, while the piece bearing the saint’s head was found doing duty as the seat of a cobbler’s stool.

Cardinal Joseph Fesch, an uncle of Napoleon, hunted down the scattered fragments and had them rejoined, and the repair lines still run visibly across the surface. Accounts disagree on how many pieces it was cut into, somewhere between two and five, so the exact butchery stays fuzzy. Fesch treasured the reassembled panel for the rest of his life, reportedly hanging it above his favorite armchair. Soon after his death, the masterpiece was discovered in a pawnshop in Rome and promptly rescued by the Vatican.

3. Raphael’s Tapestries Intended as Wall Art for the Sistine Chapel

Most people picture the Sistine Chapel as Michelangelo’s ceiling and little else, but it was meant to be seen with a set of woven hangings on the lower walls, and those were designed by his great rival. Around 1515, Raphael drew full-scale cartoons for a series of tapestries showing scenes from the lives of Saints Peter and Paul, made to hang beneath the ceiling on feast days.

The designs went to Brussels to be woven in wool, silk, and gold thread, an enormously costly commission. Then came the 1527 Sack of Rome, when mutinous imperial troops looted the city, and the tapestries were scattered and damaged.

Of the ten original tapestries, most were eventually recovered. The Vatican still owns them, and you can see them in rotation in the aptly named Gallery of Tapestries. But it’s interesting to know that the room nearly everyone comes to photograph is, strictly speaking, only half-dressed. The cartoons Raphael drew for them ended up in London’s V&A, where they are treated as masterpieces in their own right.

4. Melozzo da Forlì’s Angels Rescued From a Demolished Apse

Around 1480, Melozzo da Forlì covered the apse of the church of Santi Apostoli with a soaring Ascension of Christ, the kind of dramatic upward-looking perspective that later caught the eye of Michelangelo. The fresco survived for roughly two centuries. Then, in 1711, the church was rebuilt, and the old apse came down, and the painting with it.

Rather than lose the work outright, restorers cut what they could from the wall in sections. That is why the figures now hang as separate fragments, the calm musician angels and watching apostles in the Vatican Pinacoteca, and the central figure of Christ over in the Quirinal Palace on the other side of the city.

What looks like a gallery of individual heads is really the wreckage of one enormous scene, salvaged in panels. Even the patron is uncertain now, with names ranging from Cardinal Bessarion to the future Pope Julius II attached to the commission over the years.

5. A Painted Celestial Globe That the Vatican Long Credited to the Wrong Man

On the way toward the exit, in the old library wing, sits a large painted wooden globe from 1567, mapping the heavens as the ancient astronomer Ptolemy understood them, with the constellations drawn as the mythological figures they were named after. For a long stretch, the Vatican credited the work to Giulio Romano, Raphael’s most gifted pupil, a famous name to attach to a beautiful object. That attribution appears to have grown out of a misread line in Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance biographer whose word was often taken as gospel.

The globe is now widely credited instead to Giovanni Antonio Vanosino, a specialist Renaissance mapmaker who helped decorate grand rooms such as the Vatican’s own hall of maps. He was never a household name by any means, which is probably the point.

The piece sat for centuries under a borrowed reputation, admired as the work of someone who, as far as we can tell, never even touched it.

Museums play a vital role in preserving history and educating the public about people, places, animals, art, and artifacts from all around the world. While there are museums in just about every major city across the globe, some are vast institutions that you could spend days wandering through, poring over the depth and diversity of their collections. Join us as we explore the world’s largest museums based on factors such as footprint, collection, and visitor numbers.

You can also explore our lists of must-visit History and Art museums, or find out which are the most visited museums in the world.

1. The Louvre Is the Largest Museum in the World

Of all the museums in the world, the Louvre in Paris is the largest by gallery space, covering more than 780,000 square feet, while the full complex is 2.3 million square feet. The museum was once a medieval fortress and the home to French kings before being converted into a vast Parisian Museum. It was opened to the public during the French Revolution in 1793 with just 537 paintings, many of which had been confiscated from the royal family and church during the Revolution.

In the 1980s, President François Mitterrand launched the “Grand Louvre” renovation project and commissioned Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei to design a new central entrance. Unveiled in 1989, the striking modern Glass Pyramid stirred significant public debate before becoming an internationally recognized architectural landmark.

The Louvre is home to some of the most important art and artifacts in the history of human civilization, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, and Eugène Delacroix’s iconic masterpiece Liberty Leading the People. Because of its incredible scale, you could literally spend days wandering through the Louvre, which is why so many people come back again and again to take in more.

2. The Smithsonian Institution Is the Largest Museum Complex

The Smithsonian Institution is the largest complex of museums in the world, with 21 different galleries and museums spread across the United States, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African Art, and the National Air and Space Museum. Together they hold more than 155 million items and specimens, less than 1% of which are on display.

The Smithsonian also runs a large zoological park, containing a long A to Z of animals from the tiniest insects to the largest mammals. And, alongside these sites, there are eight different research stations where diverse fields are explored, including marine biology, astrophysics, environmental research, and American art.

The collections include many icons of American history, including the Star-Spangled Banner (the actual flag that inspired the national flag), the Apollo 11 Command Module, Dorothy’s ruby slipper from The Wizard of Oz, and the legendary Hope Diamond. It also has the only Leonardo da Vinci painting on public display in the Americas, Ginevra de’ Benci.

3. Russia’s State Hermitage Museum Has the Largest Collection of Paintings 

While other museums have achieved record-breaking scale and floor space, the State Hermitage Museum in Russia currently houses the largest collection of any single museum in the entire world. They own more than three million artifacts that date from the Stone Age to the early 20th century.

Once the home of Russian Tsars, this impressive stretch of six buildings running along the river Neva was converted into a court museum in 1764 by Catherine the Great to house her impressive collection of paintings. One of the museum’s star attractions is its Gold Rooms, showcasing priceless gold masterpieces from Eurasia, the Orient, and the Black Sea Littoral. They also own masterpieces by Western artists, including Rubens, Titian, Goya, Picasso, and Van Gogh. It is estimated that if you looked at everything for just one minute, it would take 11 years to see the full collection.

Since the 18th century, the museum has maintained an official resident population of around 50 to 70 cats to guard the vaults and galleries against rodents. Empress Elizabeth ordered the first cats from Kazan in 1745, and today they even have their own press secretary, medical staff, and annual celebration day.

4. The National Museum of China Is the Largest Single-Building Museum 

The National Museum of China, located on the eastern side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, holds the record as the largest single museum building in the world. Formed in 2003 through the merger of the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, it now stands as one of the most important cultural institutions in Asia.

Inside its 48 exhibition halls, visitors can explore more than 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, from Neolithic jade carvings to Qing dynasty relics. The halls are structured around a central forum 260 meters long. There is also a subterranean level that houses the primary permanent collection, showcasing 5,000 years of dynastic relics, including the famous Shang bronzes and Han dynasty jade suits.

Upper gallery floors feature themed galleries dedicated to subjects such as calligraphy, classical furniture, and diplomatic gifts. With its sheer scale and unrivaled collection of Chinese cultural treasures, the museum continues to draw millions of visitors each year.

5. The Grand Egyptian Museum Is the Largest Museum for a Single Civilization

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza is the largest museum in the world devoted to a single civilization. Situated just two kilometers from the Giza Pyramid Complex, the GEM represents a monumental investment in preserving Egypt’s heritage. Construction began in 2005 and was completed in 2023 for $1 billion, with the museum’s grand opening in November 2025.

The museum displays the complete collection of Tutankhamun’s treasures for the first time, alongside colossal statues and artifacts spanning Egypt’s 5,000-year history. Other highlights include the 110-ton pink granite obelisk of Ramesses II, mounted on an elevated pedestal at the entrance, and a colossal 11-meter-tall statue of Ramesses II in the Grand Hall. There is also Khufu’s solar boat, originally buried next to his pyramid to carry him into the afterlife. The Grand Staircase is lined with 60 colossal statues, sarcophagi, and architectural elements from pharaonic history.

The GEM is designed not only as an exhibition space but also as a major research and conservation center, redefining how the world engages with ancient Egyptian culture.

6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Is the Largest Museum in the Americas 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest museum in the Americas. While its gallery space is smaller than the Louvre, at 630,000 square feet, the Met’s total floor area stretches to an extraordinary 2.2 million square feet, making it the most expansive museum in the Western Hemisphere.

Opened in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum’s aim was “to bring art and art education to the American people.” Since this time, it has more than fulfilled its role, housing an impressive array of around 50,000 different objects spanning more than 5,000 years of human history. These range from the columns of ancient Greek temples to indigenous African wood carvings, along with Canova’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa, 1804-6, and John Singer Sargent’s infamous Madame X, 1883-84.

For fashion lovers, the museum houses the Anna Wintour Costume Institute, which holds over 33,000 historic and modern garments. The annual Met Gala, held on the first Monday in May, serves as the primary fundraiser for the department and is one of the fashion world’s most high-profile red carpet events.

7. The Vatican Museums Display Centuries of Papal Collecting

The Vatican Museums in Vatican City are an extraordinary public art complex displaying treasures assembled by the Roman Catholic Church and successive popes over more than 500 years. If you follow the official visitor route through the various interconnected corridors, wings, and courtyards, you will cover a distance of around seven kilometers, or over four miles. The interior exhibition space covers over 43,000 m² (460,000 sq ft) across 54 distinct galleries and 1,400 individual rooms and chapels.

There are several distinct museums within the complex, including the Pio-Clementino Museum of classical Greek and Roman sculpture, where you can see Laocoön and His Sons; the Gregorian Egyptian and Etruscan Museum; the Raphael Rooms, which are four monumental papal suites painted by the Renaissance master; and the Sistine Chapel, famously decorated by Michelangelo. There is also the Vatican Historical Museum and Carriage Pavilion, with historic papal carriages and cars.

The collection ranges from ancient Egyptian sarcophagi and classical Greco-Roman statuary to High Renaissance masterpieces, contemporary religious art, and global ethnographic collections. This makes it a pilgrimage site for art and history lovers alongside the faithful.

8. Tokyo National Museum Houses Imperial Treasures of East Asia

The Tokyo National Museum, located inside Ueno Park in Tokyo, is Japan’s oldest national museum. Established in 1872, it combines an expansive architectural complex with a collection of extraordinary cultural significance. While 120,000 objects might seem modest when compared with some other museums on this list, they cover Japanese history from prehistoric times to the modern era, and there are also artifacts from across the Silk Road. This includes 10% of all designated national treasures in Japan.

It is a multi-building complex in Ueno Park. The Honkan main gallery was built in 1938 and houses prehistoric Japanese pottery, samurai armor, ukiyo-e prints, and Buddhist sculpture. The Toyokan is a five-floor gallery dedicated to Asian art. The Heiseikan delivers archaeology collections and special exhibitions. The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures is a modern gallery showing religious artifacts donated by the ancient Hōryū-ji temple in Nara.

Collection highlights include the Prehistoric Dogū & Haniwa, intricate terracotta figurines from the prehistoric period, samurai swords and armor, woodblock prints by old masters, and gilt bronze Buddhist statues.

9. Museo Nacional de Antropología Celebrates Indigenous Mexico

The Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Museum of Anthropology) in Mexico City is Mexico’s most visited museum and widely regarded as one of the most important anthropology and archaeology museums in the world. Located within Chapultepec Park, it houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of pre-Columbian Mexican art and heritage.

The museum complex is enormous, covering around 915,000 square feet, including 23 permanent exhibition halls connected by a vast central courtyard. Many halls open directly into outdoor gardens containing reconstructed ancient monuments and ruins.

The museum holds more than 600,000 artifacts, including treasures such as an Aztec Sun Stone used for cosmology and to measure calendar cycles; Olmec colossal heads; the reconstructed tomb of the Maya ruler Pakal the Great; and a replica of Moctezuma’s elaborate feather crown (the original Penacho is housed at the Weltmuseum Wien in Austria)

10. British Museum Holds Eight Million Objects of Global Cultural Heritage

The British Museum in London is the world’s first national public museum, established in 1753 and opened to the public in 1759. Dedicated to human history, art, and culture, it chronicles the story of human civilization from its earliest beginnings to the modern day. Initially holding just 71,000 objects, it expanded quickly, so much so that collections had to break away to form independent institutions, including the Natural History Museum (1881) and the British Library (1973). Today it has over eight million objects and almost one million square feet of display space.

Collection highlights include the Rosetta Stone, a stele carved with Hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Ancient Greek text, unlocking the translation of Egyptian Hieroglyphics. There are also the controversial Elgin Marbles, taken from the Parthenon in Athens. There is the treasure of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

The museum also holds extensive collections covering Egypt and the Sudan; Greece and Rome; the Middle East; Britain and Europe; Asia; Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; Prints and Drawings; and Coins and Medals. Only about 1% of the collection is on public display.

Oxford is often referred to as a living open-air museum, as the history of the university town is on display through its 1,000 years of architecture. Settled by the Saxons in the 8th century AD, the city became a center of learning starting around the 11th century. Since then, successive generations of intellectuals and architects have consciously left their mark on the city’s skyline, known as the Dreaming Spires because of the number of medieval, Gothic, and romantic buildings dotting the skyline. If your time in Oxford is short, but you want to discover the highlights of its architectural history, these are your ten must-visit places. You will discover Saxon towers, Norman crypts, medieval churches, Victorian innovations, and modern imagination.

1. St. Michael at the North Gate (c. 1040)

11th-century Saxon Utility (Corner of Cornmarket and Ship Street)

St. Michael at the North Gate is the oldest building still standing in Oxford. The Anglo-Saxon tower was built between 1000 and 1050 AD as a lookout post over the ramparts as part of the city’s original northern defenses. At the time, the locals were worried about Viking attacks. In 1002 AD, the Anglo-Saxon king massacred a group of Danes inside the city as part of the St Brice’s Day Massacre.

Standing 63 feet high, with 97 steps up for visitors, the tower is characterized by the characteristic Anglo-Saxon “long and short” stonework, with coral rag rubble stone pieced together erratically with larger and smaller pieces mixed. The walls are four feet thick, and there is evidence of blocked-up arches and windows. The tower is a prime example of pre-conquest architecture, which tends to be functional and sturdy rather than ornate.

While a Saxon church may have already stood on the site, a new church was built there and attached to the tower in the 13th century. The church today still contains some of the earliest surviving stained glass in the city, featuring St. Nicholas, St. Edmund of Abingdon, St. Michael, and the Virgin and Child.

The Oxford Martyrs, Protestants tried for heresy in 1555, were burnt at the stake nearby on Broad Street. Their cell door is now on display in the church tower. The church also holds some of the country’s oldest church warden accounts, dating back to the 15th century.

2. Oxford Castle and Prison (c. 1071)

11th-century Norman Might, overlaid by 900 years of construction (Oxford Castle Quarter, between New Road and Paradise Street)

Now one of Oxford’s nicest hotels, Oxford Castle was originally built by a friend of William the Conqueror, the Norman baron Robert D’Oyly, between 1071 and 1073. Oxford had been stormed during the invasion, and D’Oyly constructed the Norman castle to dominate the surrounding region, which William had entrusted to him. His holdings are mentioned in the Doomsday Book as “meadow 30 acres, one mill, value ten shillings.” This is presumably the Castle Mill, which was only demolished in 1930.

Like St. Michael’s, the castle formed part of Oxford’s defenses. St George’s Tower, which was probably originally Saxon, was incorporated into the Norman structure. The original castle probably also had a motte and bailey. We can only say probably because, by the early 13th century, the original wooden keep was replaced by a ten-sided stone shell keep. St George’s Crypt is a Norman underground structure, probably built by D’Oyly, which was restored in the 18th century.

In 1074, St George’s Chapel was built as part of the complex. It was the first collegiate church inside a castle and served scholars such as the Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth, one of our earliest sources of King Arthur. This chapel is believed to be the seed from which Oxford University grew.

The castle played a role in the Anarchy, when Robert D’Oyly the younger, the architect’s nephew, declared for Matilda, and she marched her forces to Oxford as her new base in 1141. But Stephen quickly took Oxford and besieged Matilda in the castle tower. In December 1142, Matilda escaped from the castle, apparently dressing in white to camouflage herself with the snow.

In the middle of the 13th century, King Henry III turned the castle into a prison, especially for troublesome university clerks, as Oxford was a major university town from at least the 12th century. The Royalists chose Oxford as their capital during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century. After the war, this made Oxford Castle the perfect setting for a prison again. Hundreds of people were hanged on the gallows over the centuries. More modern facilities were constructed at the end of the 18th century, and the castle served as an active prison until 1986.

In 1996, Oxford Castle and Prison was converted into a multi-use site with a hotel, restaurants, bars, and a historic visitor center. Prison cells were converted into hotel rooms, and visitors can explore the 900-year-old Norman crypt and hear the site’s many ghost stories.

3. Christ Church Cathedral (12th Century)

A Blend of Late Romanesque to Gothic Styles (St Aldate’s, through Tom Tower and the Christchurch Quad)

Inside one of Oxford’s most splendid colleges, the cathedral predates the college itself. It was built in the 12th century as a cathedral for the diocese of Oxford and later became the college chapel. This dual role is unique within the Church of England.

The site was initially a nunnery and parish church, probably founded in the 8th century, burnt with Danes inside during the St Brice’s Day massacre in 1002 AD. It was re-established in 1122. The first parts constructed were the Augustinian Priory and the Shrine of St Frideswide, both dating to the 12th century and constructed in Norman Romanesque style. The Becket Window in the Lucy Chapel dates to 1320 and is one of the few images of Thomas Becket to survive the Reformation.

The cathedral’s iconic perpendicular Gothic pendant vault was constructed in the 15th century. It uses a two-tiered arch system that gives the impression of increased height, which is rarely seen in England.

The building was modified again in the early 16th century when Cardinal Wolsey started constructing his college around the cathedral. He initially planned to demolish the cathedral, but it was saved by Henry VIII, though significantly diminished in size. The cathedral was then left to fall into decay, but underwent major restoration in 1870.

Other painted glass windows were installed in the 1630s and the Victorian era, including the St Frideswide window designed by the famous pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. The cathedral has had an active choir continuously since 1526.

4. Merton College Chapel (1290s)

Decorated Gothic with Geometric Tracery (Corner of Merton Street and Grove Walk)

In 1266, the Church of St John the Baptist in Oxford was granted to Merton College as their new college church. However, records suggest that by the 1280s, the church had fallen into decay. Construction of a new church began in 1290. Many features of this church have survived until the modern day.

Original features include the choir (the seating area for the clergy and choir) and the east windows. These windows feature early Geometric tracery, which marks a shift from the lancet style of the Early English period that was happening exactly in this decade. They feature scenes of the Annunciation with the Angel Gabriel meeting the Virgin Mary.

Other parts of the church, including the central tower and lectern, were built in the 14th and 15th centuries. The church was then hit hard by the austerity of the Reformation, and most of the stained glass was hidden or removed. Some of the glass and wall paintings were saved by being boarded over and whitewashed. Even traditional service books, vestments, furnishing, and other features were removed, considered offensive to the new religion. This meant that the church was in poor condition by the 17th century, when restoration was led by Christopher Wren.

In 1967, the chapel celebrated a Roman Catholic Mass again, for the first time since the Reformation. Since then, the chapel has been rejuvenated, with installations such as a fine chapel organ.

5. The Divinity School (1488)

Perpendicular Gothic Perfection (Broad Street, Old Bodleian Library)

Built in the 15th century as part of the Bodleian Library, the Divinity School was the university’s first dedicated teaching and exam space. It also served as parliament several times, for example, hosting the House of Commons when London was overrun by plague in 1625, and the Royalist parliament of Charles I during the English Civil War. It is no longer a teaching space, but an event and tour space for the library.

The open space is built in Perpendicular style with a very elaborate lierne vaulted ceiling featuring 455 bosses designed by William Orchard. The ceiling is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture with lace-like stone ribs that seem to defy gravity, hanging in a heavenly stone canopy. The carved bosses depict scenes from the Bible, crests of patrons and benefactors, and mythical beasts.

At the eastern end of the room, you can see pulpits where students and tutors once stood during debates. There is also a wooden armchair carved from the wood of Sir Francis Drake’s ship. There is also a chest that belonged to Sir Thomas Bodley, the patron of the Bodleian Library.

Today, the Divinity School is famous as a set in the Harry Potter films, serving as the infirmary, and where Professor McGonagall taught the students to dance for the Triwizard Cup’s Yule Ball.

6. The Bodleian Library and Old Schools Quad (1613–1624)

Jacobean Renaissance Teaching Space (Corner of Catte Street and Broad Street)

The Bodleian Library was founded by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602 as the university’s main research library. It was built on an older library established in the 14th century, known as the Duke Humfrey’s Library, and the Bodleian occupied its buildings. You can still visit this original section where the books are chained to the tables to prevent theft.

The Bodleian is now the second-largest library in Britain, behind the British Library, thanks to a 1610 agreement with the Stationers’ Company to provide the library with copies of every book published in England. This was later replaced by the Legal Deposit Act, which is still in force today.

The Old Schools Quad was built as an extension of the library, starting in 1613, in Jacobean architectural style with some traditional Gothic elements. Three wings were added to the existing Proscholium to form a quadrangle. Its tower forms the main entrance to the library and is known as the Tower of the Five Orders because it is ornamented with columns from each of the five orders of classical architecture: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. They are stacked vertically in order as a teaching tool.

The wings were originally used as lecture spaces, and the subjects covered are still indicated on the inscriptions over the doors. They include moral and natural philosophy, law, medicine, rhetoric, logic, and music.

7. The Sheldonian Theatre (1664)

Christopher Wren’s Baroque Masterpiece (Broad Street, Old Bodleian Library)

The Sheldonian Theater was built between 1664 and 1669 based on a design by the renowned architect Christopher Wren, then a professor of astronomy at Oxford. He remains one of England’s most highly acclaimed architects, especially known for his Baroque style. He was responsible for rebuilding more than 50 churches in London after the Great Fire of 1666, including St Paul’s Cathedral.

But before that, he built the Sheldonian Theater for Oxford University, named after its main financial benefactor, Gilbert Sheldon, then the Warden of All Souls College and the Chancellor of the university. He wanted a place to host graduation and degree ceremonies, infamously rowdy events that seemed inappropriate in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, where they were held at the time.

Wren reportedly based his design on 16th-century drawings of the D-shaped Theater of Marcellus, built in Rome in the 1st century BC. The main difference was that he replaced the Roman theater’s temporary awnings with a permanent roof suitable for rainy England. This was a challenge, as the roof was over 70 feet across, and no timbers of sufficient size were available.

As a solution, Wren designed a series of trusses that were built up in shorter sections and then held in place by their own weight. This was highly innovative at the time and earned Wren significant credit in architectural circles, paving the way for his future fame. The roof is surmounted by a prominent eight-sided cupola that has large windows, offering stunning views over central Oxford.

Internally, the ceiling was decorated with 32 oil-on-canvas panels painted by Robert Streater that show an allegorical story of Truth descending upon the Arts and Sciences and expelling ignorance from the university. This was meant to give the illusion from below that the theatre was open to the sky. The decoration also includes Roman symbols, such as the fasces, an axe in a bundle of rods that was a sign of political power in the Roman world.

The theater is still used for matriculation and graduation ceremonies, and it also hosts music recitals, lectures, and conferences. It is also the regular meeting place of Congregation, the body that governs the university.

8. The Radcliffe Camera (1737–1749)

English Palladianism and Baroque (Radcliffe Square, Corner of Catte Street and Brasenose Lane)

The Radcliffe Camera is an ornate circular Palladian and Baroque structure built by James Gibbs to house the university’s science library collections. Because of the building’s central location, round design, and the fact that it is one of the few buildings that sits separate from others, it has become one of the most iconic symbols of the university. It is considered a Neo-Classical jewel in Oxford’s strong architectural landscape.

The library was posthumously funded by John Radcliffe, an Oxford alumnus with a successful medical career, even attending William III and Queen Anne. He had been making plans for a library in the years before his death in 1714. Even with Radcliffe’s fortune, it took several years and an act of parliament, the Radcliffe Camera Act of 1720, to acquire the necessary land. After several preferred architects, such as Christopher Wren, died, they hired Gibbs to do the job.

The result was a 140-foot round structure that is considered one of the best examples of English Baroque architecture. There were plenty of issues along the way. For example, Gibbs intended for the dome of the reading room to be made of stone, but it was abandoned after significant stone work had already been done. The roof was ultimately constructed in timber with plaster coffering to make it look like stone.

The internal design started after the external structure was complete. Stonemasonry rather than traditional plaster was used, showcasing exceptional craftsmanship. This part of the process also faced its fair share of challenges. Part of this was because the university’s Trustees ensured that no work proceeded by candlelight. This was because, since around 1600, users of Oxford’s libraries must swear an oath of admission that they will not damage books, including promising not to bring fire or flame into the library. The oath is still sworn today.

9. The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (1860)

Neo-Gothic Revival and Cathedral of Science (Parks Road)

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History is one of the most important science museums in the world. It holds unique artifacts, such as the remains of a dodo bird, made famous by the works of Charles Darwin. The museum’s construction was spearheaded by Henry Acland to create a space dedicated to teaching science within the university. It was envisioned as a cathedral of science. The museum contains the statues of 19 great scientists dotted around the court, including Aristotle, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Linnaeus.

The building itself is considered a striking example of Victorian neo-Gothic architecture and is particularly noted for its glass and iron roof, akin to that of the Crystal Palace in London. It took two attempts to get the design right. When the first roof was almost complete, it had to be scrapped as it could not hold its own weight. It was replaced with the cast iron columns with wrought iron work seen in the museum today.

The museum’s design owed much to the ideas of the 19th-century art critic John Ruskin, who believed that architecture should be shaped by the energies of the natural world. As such, the museum’s decoration, also inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites, reproduces elements from the natural world, both as decoration and a teaching tool. The court’s 126 columns are each made from different British decorative rock, labelled with the stone and its source. The capitals and corbels are carved into plants representing all the botanical orders. The ironwork spandrels represent the branches of trees, including species such as sycamore, walnut, and palm.

Shortly after opening in 1860, the museum hosted the great debate on evolution. While inspired by Darwin’s work, the debate was between biologist Thomas Huxley and bishop Samuel Wilberforce.

10. St. Catherine’s College (1962)

Danish Modernism and Green Space (Manor Road)

While Oxford is known for its historic buildings, it is also home to modern architectural achievements. St Catherine’s College was built in 1962 by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen. He wanted to design a modern solution for a modern world that integrated aesthetically pleasing and functional architecture into the natural environment. He considered every element, not just the buildings themselves, but also designed the cutlery, furniture, and even the lampshades.

He stuck with Oxford’s classic rectangular quadrangle design used by most colleges, but rather than stone, constructed his buildings from glass and concrete. But unlike most Oxford quads, it is not closed off. Instead, hedge-lined walks lead to other buildings and to garden areas, creating a very green space. The gardens are now Grade I listed, just like many of Oxford’s buildings. Though unlike buildings, plants cannot be static, so the listing refers more to the spirit of the design than the exact plants.

Inspired by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Roman poet Virgil composed his own epic poem between about 30 and 19 BC, when Augustus ruled as the first Roman Emperor. Left unfinished at the poet’s death, the Aeneid follows the Trojan prince Aeneas as he flees from the ruins of Troy and sails toward his promised new homeland: present-day Italy. In the Aeneid, Virgil included mythical locations, but also used many real places that his Roman readers would have recognized. Most of them still exist today. Here are 12 stops on Aeneas’ route, in order, from Troy to Lavinium, Italy.

1. Troy, Hisarlik, Türkiye

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“I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores.” Aeneid, Book I

Virgil’s epic poem begins with the fall of Troy. After a ten-year war, the Greeks, thanks to Odysseus’ cunning trick of the Trojan Horse, have entered the city. As everything around him is in flames, the Trojan prince Aeneas, carrying his father Anchises on his back and holding his young son Ascanius’ hand, flees from his motherland. He will never return.

Today, the city of Hisarlik, in present-day northwestern Türkiye, is widely believed to be the location of Troy. After the first excavations headed by Heinrich Schliemann in the 19th century, subsequent digging campaigns have uncovered at least nine layers of cities built one on top of another.

The layer of Troy commonly identified as the city mentioned by Virgil and Homer is Troy VIIa, dating to the Bronze Age. It was demolished by a fire around 1180 BC. Subsequently rebuilt, the city was again destroyed in the 7th century BC.

2. Thrace, Southeastern Balkans

“There I was building a city—my people were eager—and I called the place Aeneadae, from my own name,” Aeneid, Book III

After fleeing from the burning Troy, Aeneas and the other Trojan exiles reach Thrace (an area comprising present-day Bulgaria and parts of Romania, Greece, and Turkey), where they start building a city: Aeneadae.

While Aeneas hopes to have found a place to settle, an eerie event changes his mind. As he tries to uproot a tree from a burial mound, the ground and bark start to bleed. The tree then speaks to him with the voice of Polydorus, Priam’s youngest son.

During the Trojan War, King Priam sent the young prince to the allied Thrace for safety. After Troy’s defeat, however, the Thracians sided with the victorious Greeks and killed Polydorus. Now, the murdered prince’s spirit tells Aeneas to leave Thrace.

3. Delos, Cyclades, Greece

“Seek out your ancient mother. There the house of Aeneas shall rule over all regions, as shall his sons,” Aeneid, Book III

After re-burying Polydorus, Aeneas sets sail again and lands on the sacred island of Delos in the Aegean Sea. In ancient Greece, Delos was an economic and religious hub, and, according to myth, the birthplace of the gods Apollo and Artemis.

On Delos, Aeneas receives a prophecy from the oracle of Apollo: he must seek his “ancient mother,” the land from which his ancestors came.

Today, Delos is a largely uninhabited archaeological site, where visitors can admire the Temple of Apollo and the Terrace of the Lions. The granite island, about 1.3 square miles in area, is one of the smallest of the Cyclades. The island group forms a rough circle around Delos, hence the name Cyclades, “encircling islands.”

4. Crete, Greece

“There is a place, Crete, the island of great Jupiter, lying amid the sea, where Mount Ida is, the cradle of our race,” Aeneid, Book III

Upon receiving Apollo’s prophecy, Aeneas sets sail to Crete, mistakenly identifying it as the ancestral homeland mentioned by the god. Dominated by mountains (Mount Ida, its highest point, is more than 8,000 feet tall), Crete is the fifth-largest island of the Mediterranean Sea and was home to the Minoan civilization, a Bronze Age culture.

When the Trojans reach their new destination, they begin to build a settlement. However, once again, misfortune strikes. A plague strikes and crops fail. Then, the gods appear to Aeneas in a dream to inform him of his mistake: the “ancient mother” of the prophecy is not Crete but Italy, the homeland of his ancestor Dardanus.

5. The Strophades, Ionian Sea, Greece

“Suddenly, with a horrible swoop, the Harpies are upon us from the mountains, shaking their wings with a loud clatter.” Aeneid, Book III

After leaving Crete, black storm clouds hinder the Trojan refugees’ voyage. In search of food, they land on the Strophades, two tiny islands in the Ionian Sea, west of the Peloponnese. There, Aeneas and his crew held a feast after killing several cows and goats roaming free on the island.

Their meal, however, is soon spoiled by the arrival of unwanted and unpleasant guests: the Harpies, winged, bird-like creatures with women’s faces, and the local residents. Furious, their leader, Celaeno, curses the Trojans, delivering a rather grim prophecy: they will reach their destined land, but they will be so hungry that they will “eat their own tables.”

The real Strophades are remote, largely uninhabited islands. In the 13th century, the emperor of Nicaea, Theodore I Laskaris, built a fortress-like monastery there.

6. Buthrotum, Butrint, Albania

“Could it be that a second Pergamum has risen here, built by some Hector’s hand?” Aeneid, Book III

On the next stop on his long journey, Aeneas finds some familiar faces. Indeed, a group of fellow Trojans has already settled in Buthrotum, present-day Butrint, under the leadership of Helenus, one of Priam’s sons. After being captured by Pyrrhus, Helenus and his wife, Andromache, managed to gain their freedom and succeed to a portion of Pyrrhus’s kingdom after his death.

Before his departure, Helenus and Andromache advise Aeneas to take the long way around Sicily to sail past the Strait of Messina, where Scylla (a multi-headed monster) and Charybdis (a deadly whirlpool) lurk. Part of Odysseus’s crew, on its way home, had already fallen victim to the hazardous passage.

Today, Butrint is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Layered with Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian ruins, the city is wrapped in forest and overlooks a lagoon.

7. Sicily, Italy

“A port there is, untouched by winds’ approach; but nearby Etna thunders with appalling crashes, and sometimes hurls a dark cloud to the sky,” Aeneid, Book III

Following Helenus’ advice, Aeneas lands safely in Sicily near Mount Etna. As the tired Trojans are resting on a beach, they encounter a ragged Greek soldier named Achaemendes. He landed on the island before them as part of Odysseus’s crew, but was left behind when the others managed to flee from the Cyclops Polyphemus.

As he finished telling his misfortunes to the Trojans, Polyphemus, blinded by Odysseus, stumbled down the shore. Achaemendes and the Trojan run to safety as the other Cyclopes follow Polyphemus to the beach. They will make a second stop in Sicily after leaving Carthage (more on that later). Here, they hold a series of games to commemorate the anniversary of Anchises’ death.

Today, Mount Etna is still Europe’s most active volcano, and the Strait of Messina, though thankfully free of the mythical Scylla and Charybdis, has strong currents. As for the island of Sicily, its position as a crossroads of Mediterranean civilizations (Greek, Phoenician, Roman, Arab, and Norman) left behind traces of Italy’s long (and fragmented) history.

8. Carthage,  Tunis, Tunisia

“O queen, the grief you bid me to renew is unspeakable… But if you have such longing to know sour disasters, I will begin,” Aeneid, Book II

When Aeneas’ crew sets sail from Sicily, the goddess Juno, who harbors no love for the Trojans, whips up a storm that blows the refugees off course, leading them to the coast of North Africa. There, they reach Carthage, ruled by Queen Dido. According to tradition, the African city was founded by the Phoenicians, probably in 814 BC. In the Aeneid, however, Virgil traces the origin of Carthage to Dido herself, who, according to the Roman poet, founded the settlement after fleeing from her brother Pygmalion, who murdered her husband.

In Carthage, the Trojan prince shares with the queen the tale of the fall of Troy and his subsequent voyage through the Mediterranean Sea. Queen Dido falls in love with Aeneas, even though she vowed never to love again. During a storm caused by Venus (Aeneas’ mother) and Juno, Dido and Aeneas consummate their love.

Their relationship, however, is not destined to last. Indeed, Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his mission: to found a new Troy in Italy. Despite Dido’s plea to remain in Carthage, the Trojan prince leaves, telling her he must obey the gods, even when their plans do not align with his desire. Distraught, Dido builds a pyre and, after cursing Aeneas, takes her own life. The curse foreshadows a future enmity between Rome and Carthage: the Punic Wars.

Today, the ruins of Carthage are an extensive archaeological site belonging to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

9. Cumae, Campania, Italy

“The descent to the Underworld is easy; the door of dark Dis stands open night and day. But to retrace your steps and escape to the upper air—that is the task, that is the toil,” Aeneid, Book VI

Like Odysseus, Aeneas must journey to the underworld before fulfilling his destiny. After finally reaching the Italian shores, the Trojan prince arrives at Cumae, near present-day Naples. There, he consults the Sibyl, a prophetess who lives in a cave carved into the rock. The priestess warns him that he will face more trials in Italy, but agrees to guide him into the underworld to speak with his dead father.

Anchises rests in the Elysian Fields among the souls of the virtuous. During their reunion, he shows his son that from the line of Ascanius a Caesar will come, who will guide Rome into a “Golden Age.” In the Underworld, Aeneas also meets the soul of Dido, who refuses to speak to him.

Today, the “official” Sibyl’s cave (Antro della Sibilla) at Cumae is a long, trapezoidal tunnel cut into volcanic rock, with shafts of light cutting through from its sides. Probably of Etruscan origin, the cave is located near the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and the Acropolis that look out over the Tyrrhenian Sea.

10. The Tiber Mouth, Lazio, Italy

“Here at last, worn out by the seas, by every hazard of land, by long wandering, the Trojans set foot on the shore of Latium,” Aeneid, Book VII

After years of wandering and trials, Aeneas lands on the shores of Latium, the area around the Tiber River in present-day Lazio, central Italy, and sails up the stream. Ravenously hungry, they bake flatbreads (the antecedents of modern pizza) and pile them with fruits. When they finish the toppings, they devour the flatbreads too, prompting Ascanius to joke that they have even eaten their tables. This fulfills the Harpies’ prophecy and confirms to Aeneas that he has finally reached his promised land.

The mouth of the Tiber River is located near present-day Fiumicino, mostly known for its international airport. Just south of the town is the ancient harbor of Ostia Antica, where visitors can walk through some of the best-maintained Roman ruins.

11. Pallanteum, Palatine Hill, Rome

“This forest, this hill with its leafy crown—some god inhabits it, which god we know not… We Romans believe that Jupiter himself we have often seen here,” Aeneid, Book VIII

When Aeneas and the Trojans land at the mouth of the Tiber River, they are welcomed by the king of the region, Latinus. Other local rulers, however, resent their presence and the prospective marriage between Aeneas and Lavinia, Latinus’ daughter. Among the resentful is Turnus, leader of the Rutuli tribe and Lavinia’s suitor.

As war between the Trojans and Turnus is about to break out, the god of the Tiber River tells Aeneas to form an alliance with the Arcadians and their King Evander, a Greek who founded the city of Pallanteum in Italy. During his visit, Evander leads Aeneas through the site of the future city of Rome.

Virgil identifies Pallanteum as the Palatine Hill, one of the settlements that will form Rome and the very site of its mythical birthplace. Indeed, according to Roman legend, the infants Romulus and Remus, abandoned on the Tiber River, were deposited at the foot of the Palatine.

Today, the Palatine Hill is a plateau located near the Roman Forum. It houses mostly ruins dating back to Imperial Rome and offers a sweeping view of the Forum and the Capitoline.

12. Lavinium, Lazio, Italy

“He shall build a city for Lavinia his bride, and shall call it Lavinium. Wars, horrid wars I see, and the Tiber foaming with blood,” Aeneid, Book VI

After defeating King Turnus in single combat, Aeneas marries Lavinia and fulfills his destiny by erecting a new city of the Trojan refugees: Lavinium, named after his wife. It is from Lavinium that his son Ascanius will eventually found Alba Longa.

Located southeast of Rome, near present-day Castel Gandolfo (the town where the popes’ summer residence was built in the 17th century), Alba Longa is, according to legend, the birthplace of the future founders of Rome: Romulus and Remus. Indeed, their mother, Rhea Silvia, was the daughter of Numitor, the King of Alba Longa.

In the 20th century, archaeological excavations on the site where Virgil places Lavinium have revealed 13 altars, Bronze Age artifacts, and a shrine that may have been associated with Aeneas by the Romans. These findings confirm that the area was occupied long before the birth of Rome.

Source

• Virgil. Aeneid.  Trans. H. Rushton Fairclough. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1916 (rev. 1934).

Certain objects throughout history have earned a reputation so dark that even the most rational minds hesitate before dismissing them as nonsense. Ancient curses, after all, were serious business: priests and craftsmen inscribed spine-chilling warnings on tombs and sacred talismans to deter anyone foolish enough to interfere. Whether those warnings retained any power across the millennia is a question these seven artifacts have done their best to answer.

1. The Hope Diamond, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Few objects have inspired as much awe and dread as the Hope Diamond. This 45.52-carat blue diamond, on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, has a documented history that stretches back to 17th-century India, where it was allegedly stolen from a Hindu idol. You can probably already deduce what happened next.

The stone passed through the hands of French King Louis XIV (who reportedly died of gangrene), then Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (both guillotined during the French Revolution), and later a string of European aristocrats who fared not much better. In the 20th century, eccentric American socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean purchased the diamond from Pierre Cartier and wore it frequently and rather flamboyantly. She had the diamond blessed by a priest to cleanse it of its ancient curse, laughing off the concern of essentially every single person in her life.

In totally unrelated news, McLean went on to suffer the untimely deaths of both her son and her daughter, suffered through her husband’s mental breakdown, and her own early death by pneumonia in 1947. Her extensive jewelry heritage was sold off to prominent jeweler Harry Winston, who eventually donated a perhaps-truly-not-so-lucky gem to the Smithsonian in 1958. He mailed it to them in a plain brown paper package. Make of that what you will.

FYI: The Hope Diamond is one of the most visited artifacts in the US. Visit on a weekday morning to stand closest to the display case and witness the stone’s remarkable red phosphorescence under ultraviolet light, a quality unique among blue diamonds.

2. Tutankhamen’s Tomb Objects, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

When Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon broke the seal of Tutankhamen’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, they made one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in history. They also, according to popular legend, made a significant personal error in judgment, and this is the one mysterious curse you’ve probably already heard about.

Apparently, an inscription found in the tomb warned that “death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the king,” although historians debate whether any such inscription actually even existed (now widely believed to have been a bit of media-created fake news).

What is beyond dispute is what followed. Lord Carnarvon died just five months after the opening, from an infected mosquito bite. Not quite swift wings, but close enough. Within a mere decade, around a dozen people connected to the excavation died under circumstances considered more than a little “unusual.” Scientists have proposed plenty of rational explanations, of course, including toxic mold or ancient bacteria inside the sealed tomb. Despite many such theories being tested, none were definitively proven.

3. The Unlucky Mummy (Priestess of Amen-Ra), British Museum, London

Of all the objects in the British Museum’s vast collection, one has generated more ghost stories than any other: the decorated inner coffin lid of a young Egyptian priestess of Amen-Ra, dating to around 950 BC. Worth noting, however: it is not actually a mummy on display; it is just a painted lid. The British Museum insists you know this.

Since arriving in Britain in the 1880s, the object has been linked to the deaths of multiple owners, a photographer who reportedly died shortly after taking its picture, and, most dramatically, the sinking of the Titanic. According to one widely circulated account, the coffin lid was secretly transported on the ship’s maiden voyage. The British Museum has owned the object since 1889 and firmly disputes this, noting it never left the collection during the period in question.

Whether you find that reassuring is entirely up to you.

4. The Delhi Purple Sapphire (Cursed Amethyst), Natural History Museum, London

The stone known as the Delhi Purple Sapphire is not an actual sapphire but rather an amethyst of no particular visual distinction. What distinguishes it is its paperwork.

Reportedly looted from the Temple of Indra in Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the stone moved hands several times over the following decades. And every single time, coincidence or not, it brought misery and ruin to its owner.

When scientist and occultist Edward Heron-Allen had it posthumously donated to the Natural History Museum in London in 1944, he included a handwritten note calling the stone “trebly accursed” and instructing that it be locked away and never worn. For good measure, he wrapped it in seven bags, sealed it with a Solomon’s seal charm, and sent it over. The museum obliged.

The amethyst sits in vault storage and surfaces for public display only occasionally, which is almost certainly how Heron-Allen would have preferred things.

5. The Busby Stoop Chair, Thirsk Museum, Yorkshire, England

Not all cursed artifacts come from ancient civilizations; some are positively more modern. The Busby Stoop Chair, an ordinary-looking 17th-century wooden chair in the Thomas Lord Room at the Thirsk Museum in North Yorkshire, proves that more recent history was perfectly capable of producing its own supernatural baggage.

Thomas Busby was a murderer who was hanged in 1702 near Thirsk, who, according to local legend, declared before his execution that anyone who sat in his favorite chair would die. The chair spent years in the Busby Stoop Inn, where generations of locals dared each other to sit in it. An alarming number of those who did so subsequently died, including Royal Air Force pilots stationed nearby during World War II.

The pub’s owner donated the chair to the Thirsk Museum in 1978, where it was immediately hung on the wall so that nobody could sit in it. A practical solution, and perhaps, quite a wise one, too.

6. The Ring of Silvianus (The Vyne Ring), The Vyne, Hampshire, England

Of all the artifacts on this list, the Ring of Silvianus may have the strongest case for cultural immortality. This 4th-century Roman gold ring, found in a field in Silchester in 1785, is believed by many scholars to have been the possible inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien’s One Ring. That alone earns it a proud place on this list.

The ring’s connection to a curse predates Tolkien by roughly 1,600 years. Discovered nearby was a defixio, a Roman curse tablet, reading (roughly translated): “Senicianus, do not enjoy good health until you bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens.” Tolkien, who had intimate knowledge of the ring’s story, consulted on excavations near Nodens’s temple in 1929 and seems to have put that knowledge to remarkable use.

The ring is now held at The Vyne, a National Trust property in Hampshire. It is smaller and plainer than you might expect, and all the more interesting for it.

Insider tip: The Vyne is a beautiful Tudor mansion well worth visiting in its own right, with the ring displayed inside the house. If you are a Tolkien devotee, pair this with a visit to the Tolkien archive at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, about an hour’s drive north.

7. Ötzi the Iceman’s Belongings, South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, Bolzano, Italy

Ötzi the Iceman is not, strictly speaking, an artifact. He is a 5,300-year-old mummified man found frozen in the Alps in 1991, and the objects recovered with him, including a copper ax, bow and arrows, are extraordinary windows into Copper Age life. They are also, according to a growing body of anecdotes, not entirely safe to be around.

Seven people connected to the discovery or early study of Ötzi have since died in ways described as premature or unusual, including the mountaineer who guided researchers to the body and a forensic examiner. Scientists are quick to note that the sample size is too small to constitute a meaningful pattern, and they are probably right. It is worth noting, though, that Ötzi himself was murdered: shot with an arrow and possibly finished with a blow to the head.

The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano is one of the finest regional museums in Europe. Ötzi’s preserved body is viewable through a small porthole window in a refrigerated cell. Plan at least two hours for a thorough visit, and combine the trip with a walk through Bolzano’s beautiful medieval town center.

Fashion museums have graduated so far beyond the idea of “look, a pretty dress on a mannequin” that the best now rival any fine art institution on Earth for sheer emotional impact. It takes a particular kind of person to stand before a vintage Christian Dior evening gown and not feel overawed by its sheer artistry.

If you, likewise, think that fashion is an art all its own and that a single piece of clothing can make a social impact, then these ten fashion museums are the ones worth booking a flight for.

1. The Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Costume Institute is arguably the reason fashion is taken seriously as an art form. Since Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty broke attendance records in 2011, the department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Anna Wintour Costume Center has been the world’s most influential venue for fashion exhibitions.

The permanent collection includes more than 33,000 costumes and accessories spanning seven centuries. The latest show, Costume Art, opens May 10, 2026, in the new Condé Nast Galleries and pairs nearly 400 garments and artworks from across the Met.

2. Palais Galliera, Paris, France

Paris has a fashion museum, and then it has the Palais Galliera, which is something else entirely. Built in extravagant Beaux-Arts style between 1879 and 1894, the building alone is worth the price of admission; the garden, framed by the Eiffel Tower, is one of the city’s quieter, pleasant surprises.

Inside, around 200,000 garments, accessories, photographs, and graphic works make up one of Europe’s great fashion collections, with the Gabrielle Chanel galleries anchoring a program of rotating exhibitions. A short walk from the Galerie Dior, this corner of the 16th arrondissement is as concentrated a stretch of fashion pilgrimage as you’ll find anywhere on Earth.

3. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

The V&A’s fashion credentials are almost unfairly greedy, housing the largest and most comprehensive collection of dress in the world (spanning five centuries) and boasting a track record of blockbuster shows that other institutions spend decades trying to replicate. Vivienne Westwood researched her Pirate collection in these very archives.

The permanent Fashion Gallery is closed during a major transformation due for completion in autumn 2028, but fashion material is still accessible through V&A East Storehouse and temporary exhibitions at South Kensington.

4. The Museum at FIT, New York, USA

The Museum at FIT is the New York fashion secret that somehow never gets the tourist foot traffic it truly deserves. The only museum in the city dedicated entirely to fashion, it is completely free, and under the directorship of historian Valerie Steele, it has built a permanent collection of over 50,000 garments with a focus on avant-garde work.

The space was an early champion of designers like Rei Kawakubo, long before the rest of the world caught on. The temporary exhibitions consistently punch above their weight, exploring the relationship between art and dress with scholarly rigor.

5. Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa, Getaria

Getaria is a Basque fishing village in Spain, consisting of 2,500 people, quaint cobble-stoned streets, phenomenal local wine, and arguably the most extraordinary small fashion museum in the world.

The Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa opened in 2011 as one of the world’s first museums dedicated to a single couturier. The striking contemporary extension sits beside the Aldamar Palace, closely tied to Balenciaga’s early life in Getaria, and the museum focuses as much on construction, materials, and technique as on spectacle.

Coco Chanel reportedly once said Balenciaga was the only true couturier because he alone could cut, assemble, and sew a garment entirely by hand. A visit makes you understand exactly what she meant.

6. MoMu, Fashion Museum Antwerp

In the 1980s, a group of graduates from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts arrived in London and nearly revolutionized the rules of European fashion. Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela, Walter Van Beirendonck … the names alone constitute a world-class curriculum.

MoMu makes sense of that tradition, with immersive exhibitions that make other fashion museums look like they’re just hanging clothes on hangers. The museum holds the world’s largest collection of contemporary Belgian fashion, and its wider collection now totals more than 38,000 items. Each exhibition is built with distinctive scenography, so the space itself becomes part of the show.

7. The Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI), Kyoto

The Kyoto Costume Institute functions less like a conventional museum and more like one of the world’s great fashion research foundations. Founded in 1978 with support from Wacoal, it has built a collection of more than 13,000 Western garments from the 17th century to the present, including around 1,000 pieces gifted by Comme des Garçons.

Important parts of its work happen through research, publications, loans, and traveling exhibitions. In Kyoto itself, the KCI Gallery hosts small rotating displays selected from the collection rather than a large permanent public exhibition. Check the exhibition schedule before visiting and note that they frequently co-organize major shows elsewhere in Japan.

8. Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto

The Bata Shoe Museum is not really a museum about shoes, the way a car museum is about cars. It is a museum about the 4,500-year human story that shoes tell, about status, culture, gender, ceremony, and even power. The collection backs up its claims by holding nearly 15,000 exhibits, from ancient Egyptian sandals to Madonna’s red patent pumps.

Raymond Moriyama’s building looks like a giant shoebox, which is either a deeply satisfying visual pun or an exercise in deep literalism, depending on your mood.

9. Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech

When Yves Saint Laurent first visited Marrakech in 1966, he described it as a paradise of color and light, and the city proceeded to reshape his entire aesthetic vocabulary.

The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, which opened in 2017 next to the Jardin Majorelle that Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé rescued from demolition in 1980, is one of the most visually arresting museum buildings of its generation.

Studio KO wrapped the 4,000-square-meter (43,000-square-foot) building in terracotta brickwork inspired by woven fabric. Inside, the permanent exhibition rotates fifty pieces from the Yves Saint Laurent collection around themes such as Masculine-Feminine, Black, Africa and Morocco, Gardens, and Art.

10. Fashion and Textile Museum, London

The Fashion and Textile Museum is the underdog on this list. It is smaller, less famous, hot pink and bright orange on the outside, and it makes the list precisely because of those qualities.

Founded by Zandra Rhodes in 2003, the Fashion and Textile Museum is the UK’s only museum devoted to contemporary fashion and textile design. Rather than relying on a large permanent display, it runs a changing program of exhibitions that often gives postwar and contemporary material more room than larger encyclopedic museums do. The changing program has tackled everything from the history of the swimsuit to the legacy of Mary Quant with a refreshing willingness to take fashion seriously without solemnizing it.

Bermondsey Street has incidentally become one of London‘s more interesting cultural strips, and combining a visit with the neighborhood’s galleries and restaurants makes for a very enjoyable day out.

A Few Things Worth Knowing Before You Go

Note that most fashion museums keep light levels quite low to protect the delicate, fragile fabrics. For the same reason, many also restrict photography because flash can degrade silk and dyes over time. If you allow your eyes to adjust to the indoor ambient light, then you’ll see considerably more. Also, the major exhibition catalogs produced by the Costume Institute and the V&A are extraordinary books in their own right, available secondhand for very little money.

Fashion museum catalogs make for fantastic souvenirs and are about the only ones you can be sure won’t break on the trip back home.