Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The Siena Cathedral is large, but it was supposed to have become much, much bigger. Alberto Angela tells the fascinating story.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Alberto Angela explores the Piccolomini Altarpiece with sculptures by Michelangelo, and the beautiful frescoed Piccolomini Library within the walls of the Siena Cathedral
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Alberto Angela focuses on one of the floor inlays depicting the story of Siena according to tradition. Siena shares a city symbol with Rome.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The Siena Cathedral is one of the most notable examples of Italian Romanesque-Gothic cathedrals, and is well worth a visit, for both the beauty of the exterior and the unique marble artwork on the interior.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Alberto Angela brings medieval Siena to life, with the help of some breathtaking aerial shots.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
We are now in the heart of Italy: Tuscany. One of the most beautiful and important cities in Tuscany is Siena with its very particular piazza.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Alberto Angelo tells us the fascinating story of how trulli are built. Some of the most characteristic trulli can be found in Alberobello.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
We visit the land of the trulli, curious dry stone huts. Alberto Angela gives us some background about these unique dwellings.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
As opposed to the classical palaces of the powerful, with their throne rooms and great halls, Castel del Monte has some smaller and more intimate spaces, conducive to more personal encounters. Over the centuries, the castle was exploited in different ways, well into modern times.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Alberto Angela takes us inside Castel del Monte and helps us imagine what it might have looked like when it was "alive." He uses the term piano nobile, which indicates the floor of a mansion where the noblemen or landowners lived, as opposed to the floors where the servants' quarters and kitchens would have been.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Wonderful aerial photography shows Castel del Monte and its crown-like octagonal shape. Frederick II was particularly fond of the castle because it was an ideal location to hunt small game with his falcons.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The first stop is Italy's easternmost point, the Punta Palascìa and its 19th century lighthouse. Alberto Angela then shows us another site in the Apulia region, Castel del Monte, a breathtaking crown-shaped castle built by Frederick II in the early 1200s.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
We say goodbye to Agrigento's Valley of the Temples and get a close look at the awesome Riace Bronzes in Reggio Calabria. The two life-size Greek bronzes date to the 5th century BC and were discovered off Riace by a scuba diver in 1972.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The Ephebe of Agrigento is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture of the fifth century BC in Sicily. It is held in the Regional Archeological Museum of Agrigento, in which we also find a Roman sarcophagus in marble from the second century AD with scenes depicting the life of a child who died at an early age.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Although we don't know their function, the Telamons, gigantic statues alternating with the semi-columns of the Temple of Jupiter, were as high as a six-story building. A reconstruction of the temple in the Pietro Griffo Regional Archeological Museum allows us to imagine just how imposing they must have been.
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