Palazzo Grimani (Santa Maria Formosa)

Palazzo Grimani di Santa Maria Formosa -- not to be confused with Palazzo Grimani di San Luca, a separate Grimani-family palace on the Grand Canal -- is a Renaissance patrician palace built around one of the most remarkable rooms in Venice: the Tribuna, a domed chamber designed specifically to display more than 130 ancient Roman and Greek sculptures. Restored as a museum, it remains one of the city's genuine hidden gems -- a working demonstration of how a 16th-century Venetian patrician actually lived among his own antiquities collection.

Palazzo Grimani sits in Castello, close to Campo Santa Maria Formosa and a short walk from Piazza San Marco, and is open to the public as a state museum with an admission fee. It draws a fraction of the crowds of the Doge's Palace or the Accademia, making it a genuinely quiet stop for anyone interested in Renaissance interiors and classical antiquities.