Benaki Museum of Islamic Art

This guide to the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art in Athens opens inside a reception room built for a wealthy Cairo mansion three to four hundred years ago, complete with marble floor, fountain, and carved screens for a host to watch the street unseen. It follows Antonis Benakis, raised in Alexandria as the son of a Greek cotton merchant, who spent decades buying Cairo's carved doors, glazed tiles, and painted glass before settling in Athens. Listen for how, in 1930, he gave his entire collection away, and for the older buildings where it later found this room a new home.