Arco della Costa

Standing under the Arco della Costa in Verona means standing beneath a gray, rib-curved bone that has hung from an iron chain since the sixteenth or seventeenth century, said to fall only on the first truly honest person who passes beneath it. The guide traces the arch's working past first, an elevated walkway that let Verona's judges cross from the Domus Nova to the Palazzo della Ragione without setting foot among petitioners and grudge-holders in the square below. It then lays out the competing stories collected over the centuries for what the bone actually is, from crusader trophy to apothecary's sign. Look up before you walk on.