Piazza Bellini

This guide to Piazza Bellini in Naples starts with four missing women. When sculptor Alfonso Bazzico raised this 1886 monument to the composer Vincenzo Bellini, he surrounded him with heroines from Bellini's operas, Norma, Giulietta, Amina and Elvira, each carrying a piece of old superstition into stone. At some point the city took them down and never explained when or why, leaving the base in front of you empty. The guide also traces a second disappearance nearby, a stretch of Greek defensive wall from the fourth century before Christ, uncovered by chance beneath the square.