Rare is the traveler who won’t admit that one of the joys of exploring a “new world” is bringing home cherished souvenirs. Conversely, sometimes access to a place is limited to an armchair traveler’s fantasies about a precious relic, which signifies, imaginatively, a distant land. Such was the case for the Medici in Florence, who are known to have collected feather cloaks from Brazil, and for Albrecht Dürer, who marveled at objects exhibited in Brussels...