ITALY: Nineteenth-century physicist and astronomer Father Pietro Angelo Secchi studied the sun and the spectra produced by stars, but also, occasionally, looked down. A marble bench mark that Secchi placed—a slab of travertine fitted with a metallic plate with a hole in the center—has been discovered near the town of Frattocchie. Along with another bench mark about 7.5 miles away, it was used to survey the Appian Way and help measure the shape of Earth. —Samir S. Patel