Anthony Bourdain Explores Rome On Sunday's Parts Unknown

In the Sunday season finale of Parts Unknown, host Anthony Bourdain zooms in on Rome. Not the Rome of the Pantheon and the ancient ruins, but the Rome that once served as the backdrop to the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. "This is not a show about monuments, or statues, or the treasures of antiquity," Bourdain says in the episode, which airs Sunday night on CNN at 9 p.m. (ET/PT). "This is a show about people."

One of those people is Asia Argento, the accomplished actress and director who has lived in the city her entire life. She takes Bourdain to her favorite neighborhood restaurant, shares a family lunch at her sister's house, and joins him ringside to slurp spaghetti while watching amateur boxing.

Along the way, Bourdain reminisces about Italian film and directors like Pier Paulo Pasolini and Dario Argento (Asia's dad), and dines in a trattoria with New York expat director Abel Ferrara. (Bourdain writes about the filmic inspirations behind the episode in a great little essay on Medium.) And throughout, he reflects thoughtfully on what can happen to a beautiful place when a once-ignored "buffoon" rises to power and becomes a dictator — and the impact it has on people, even decades later. Here's a preview of the episode and another clip below, and be sure to turn in Sunday night for the season finale of Parts Unknown.

Note: Parts Unknown is produced by Zero Point Zero Production, the parent company of Food Republic.