Sorrento's favorite son, Torquato Tasso, was a great but paranoid poet who died in Rome, fleeing enemies he didn't have A RAINY DAY IN SORRENTO

"Return to Sorrento" has been recorded by dozens of singers, from Pavarotti to Meat Loaf. Maybe you've sung along, too? TORNA A SURRIENTO

1st century BC: Off a small Aegean island, a ship breaks up and sinks. 20th century AD: there's something strange in the wreckage THE ANTIKYTHERA SHIPWRECK

On the interior cover of a tomb lid in Paestum, there is a haunting image THE TOMB OF THE DIVER

How did so much of Pompeii's art wind up in the Naples Archeological Museum? FINDERS, KEEPERS

In ancient China, the eunuch Ts’ai Lun first made paper from cloth fibers. In the 14th century, Amalfi perfected the process RAGTIME IN AMALFI

Piranesi's dark, mysterious engravings of Paestum's Greek temples inspired generations of architects PIRANESI AND THE SHADOWS OF PAESTUM

In the Campanian village of San Leucio I found a utopian commune founded by a most unlikely reformer THE SILKWORMS OF SAN LEUCIO

Francisco Goya found the simpler side of the powerful ruler of Naples, Sicily, and Spain THE ROYAL HUNTSMAN