UNESCO has added another Italian site to its list of unique and irreplaceable cultural and natural heritage, the Italian culture minister announced Sunday. The new World Heritage site is called the Venetian Works of Defence, a complex enclave of fortifications designed and built by the ancient seafaring Republic of Venice between the 15th-17th centuries to control its territories and the commercial routes leading to the East, according to the UNESCO website.

On Friday, the UNESCO committee also added a stretch of 600-year-old beech forests in a national park in Italy's central Apennines mountain range to its list of irreplaceable natural heritage. "Ancient beech forests and Venetian Defense Works added to UNESCO heritage. Italy consolidates its primacy with 53 sites," Culture Minister Dario Franceschini tweeted Sunday.