ROME, Italy — One night last September, Francesco Zanardi walked toward the back of a gay nightclub on the Greek island of Mykonos. Before he reached his moped, four men came from behind, pulled him to the ground and beat him unconscious. The next day Zanardi awoke in the ER wing of a Mykonos clinic with severe internal bleeding and an unshakeable anxiety. Had he died, his young partner would have been left without the home they share in Italy and all legal rights spouses are granted under Italian law.

NAPLES, Italy — In downtown Naples, a group of rowdy men crowd around a tall blond woman, yelling at her in a throaty Italian. Luckily for her, they’re armed with brochures, not guns. “You should speak English,” says the woman, as she stands at the entrance of the Spanish Quarter holding a map of the city.

Compay Segundo, "the grandfather of Cuban Son," lives on through the legacy of his music. His band, now led by his youngest son, Salvador Repilado, recently performed in a seaside town north of Rome.