Burano

This guide to Burano in the Venice lagoon opens with the legend islanders tell about how their women learned needle lace — a fisherman, a siren, and thread that hardens from sea foam. It traces the real history behind the story, from Cyprus-taught needlework in the 1500s that made Burano lace famous across Europe, through the craft's near-death after the fall of the Venetian Republic, to the school that revived it on Piazza Galuppi in 1872. Listen for the square where that lace school first opened its doors.