VENECIA © Detlef Voigt/Getty Images ENG Venice is veiled in mist and water, blurring its outlines and shrouding it in a mystery that never fades. Lord Byron, poet and romantic traveller, saw the city as a mirage born of an illusion-ist’s magic wand. Its fragility is inherent to its maritime condi-tion, making it susceptible to shipwreck. But Venice lives on. It lives on in its churches, its bridges and its palaces. It survives and is in a constant state of renewal. The tourist limbo of the pandemic has provided an opportunity for the restoration and opening to the public of museums frequent-ed only by connoisseurs and the initiated. Mattia Agnetti, head of the Fondazione di Musei Civici, highlights the importance of these places: “Most visitors stick to the attractions we all know, such as the Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge. These other museums, which I prefer to call ancient collections, attract a different kind of public, which is not limited to the tour- Fachada del palacio Vendramin Grimani. // he façade of the Palazzo Vendramin Grimani.