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In 1638, she read both sides of a debate written by Giovanni Francesco Loredano and Matteo Dandolo about whether tears or song are more powerful weapons in love.

Both feature sumptuous frescoes, the most notable of which may be a 26-foot-tall scene in the Palazzo Liviano that depicts man’s pursuit of knowledge, and that Ponti painted with his daughter Lisa and artist friends Fulvio Pendini and Giovanni Dandolo.

A whole room of the exhibition, titled Welcome to Iraq, in the exquisite Ca' Dandolo on the Grand Canal, is furnished with furniture made from old packaging: a cardboard bed with cardboard pillow and eiderdown; a cardboard lamp, clock and a whole bookshelf loaded with cardboard books.

A thousand miles away in the magnificent former church of Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, there is a plaque on the upper gallery bearing the name Henricus Dandolo.

This plaque marks the probable site of the tomb of the man who looted those horses in 1204, better known to history as Enrico Dandolo.