Videoblog

How a 170-foot concrete tower — and its occupants — were brought crashing down by the cargo ship, the Jolly Nero. The fatal seconds captured by a security camera.

Dramatic footage of the moments following the shooting on Sunday outside the official residence of Italy’s prime minister

A view partly from behind the scenes in St Peter’s

… this one has to be in the premier league. Beppe Grillo leaves a Rome hotel after meeting for the first time with the parliamentarians elected for the Five Star Movement, which now holds the balance of power in Italy

Beppe Grillo, besieged by journalists in his seaside Tuscan villa following his Five Star Movement’s extraordinary performance in this week’s election, makes brief ‘appearance’ … Or maybe it’s someone else.

Scenes that no one in Rome — or, indeed, any Catholic — ever expected to see: the Swiss Guards, sworn to protect the pope, symbolically hang up their pikes at 8.00 pm local time on Thursday when Benedict XVI ceases to be their responsibility. What a strange, strange (and still, I suspect, unexplained) story this is.

I’m starting to get superstitious. I only spent a couple of days in Catania last week, and since then there has been an eruption of Etna (see below) … and now this.

Superb footage of a daunting, spectacular eruption

Lightning strikes the dome of St Peter’s just hours after pope Benedict XVI resigns