He stumbled upon an underground Benedictine chapel that had been buried and forgotten for several hundred years. The discovery - and the secrets it held - would alter the course of his life forever.

Photographs by Mario Mazziol

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ROBERTO NINI was 20 years old when he tumbled through a hole and into the twelfth century. The year was 1979, and the setting was Narni, Italy: Nini and five friends were humoring an old man who had told them there were treasures on the other side of a hole that had opened in an ancient wall next to his garden plot. Nini and his friends dug with their hands until the dirt gave way - and then they fell through the wall.

At first Nini thought he was in a cave - that is, until his eyes adjusted to the light and he saw what remained of the religious paintings on a stone wall above an altar.

It turned out that the old man was right. There was a treasure of sorts on the other side of the wall: an underground Benedictine chapel that had lain buried for centuries. That night, Nini and his friends returned to the site - this time carrying sledgehammers. They had noticed an arched door that had been bricked up, and they wanted to tear it down; there was a better chance that no one would hear them in the dead of night. The adjacent church had been abandoned for 200 years. They would be alone.