US student Amanda Knox's defence got a boost this week when a new DNA test on a kitchen knife failed to conclusively prove that it was the murder weapon used to kill her British roommate.

'When you are someone's lover, no one asks you for a ticket.' A Moldovan dancer testifies at trial that she was with the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia.

Shouting "murderer" and "executioner," hundreds of people jeered as the coffin of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke arrived Tuesday for a funeral Mass celebrated by a splinter Catholic group opposed to the Vatican's outreach to Jews.

From fair Verona, where we lay our scene, to Mantua, Padua and Rome, Shakespeare was fascinated by Italy.

Former SS captain Erich Priebke participated in one of the worst massacres of German-occupied Italy. Now he's died - and no one wants to bury him.

The head of the European Commission announced during a visit to Lampedusa that Italy would receive an additional €30 million in EU funds to help settle and receive new refugees.

A ship carrying African migrants to Europe has caught fire and capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, killing at least 114 people as hundreds were dumped into the sea.

New Zealand businessman Michael Harte has just bought his own Mediterranean island, but he won't be partying on its beach with his mates.

A New Zealand businessman has forked out nearly $5 million for a pristine island in the Mediterranean.

A court hearing Amanda Knox's second appeals trial accepted a request to run additional DNA tests on the presumed weapon in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

There's nothing like a beautifully shot film to make you feel like up-and-leaving the very next day. Here are five examples that show off their stunning destinations to full effect.

The extraordinary sight of the Costa Concordia hoisted from its watery grave helped erase the shame many Italians felt over the captain crashing it and doing a runner.

The anxiously awaited attempt to pull the crippled Costa Concordia upright from its side off Italy's Tuscan coast is under way.

Thousadns of mourners yesterday paid homage to the 38 people who died when their bus plummeted from a flyover near Naples as they returned from a weekend away.

Famous crime writer Donna Leon takes Linda Herrick on a murderer's tour of Venice.

Fifty years ago, Bruno Amitrano opened a bar half-way up the hill from the tiny beach in the seaside resort of Positano. Seventeen years ago, his daughter Ornella and her husband Mario converted the bar into a restaurant.

They symbolise the romance and unique heritage of Venice, but the lagoon city's famed gondoliers are becoming known for drunken antics and could soon be forced to take drug and alcohol tests.

The Mayor of Florence has denied that the Renaissance city is a hotbed of "bunga bunga", amid a growing scandal involving prostitutes being paid for sex by council officials and local worthies.

Giovanni Palatucci has long been praised as an 'Italian Schindler', but the US Holocaust museum is now removing Giovanni Palatucci from its exhibits after research claimed he was a zealous Nazi collaborator.

Rarely are hikers rewarded so richly for their toils as on the steep slopes of Italy's Cinque Terre region, where five ancient fishing villages cling to the sheer slate cliffs below.