The Salute, emblematic of the city’s piety, stands adjacent to the rusticated single story customs house or Dogana da Mar, the emblem of its maritime commerce, and near the civic center of the city.
The location was chosen partially due to its relationship to San Giorgio, San Marco and Il Redentore, with which it forms an arc. The desire to create a suitable monument at a place that allows for easy processional access from Piazza San Marco led senators to select the present site from among eight potential locations. It was not to be dedicated to a mere “plague” or patron saint, but to the Virgin Mary, who for many reasons was thought to be a protector of the Republic. Echoing the architectural response to a prior assault of the plague (1575≧6), when Palladio was asked to design the Redentore church, the Venetian Senate on October 22, 1630, decreed that a new church would be built. Repeated displays of the sacrament, as well as prayers and processions to churches dedicated to San Rocco and San Lorenzo Giustiniani had failed to stem the epidemic. In the city 46,000 people died whilst in the lagoons the number was far higher, some 94,000. Turner, John Singer Sargent and Francesco Guardi.Īt the beginning of the summer of 1629, the plague assaulted Venice, and over the next two years killed nearly a third of the population. The dome of the Salute was an important addition to the Venice skyline and soon became emblematic of the city, inspiring artists like Canaletto, J. Most of the objects of art housed in the church bear references to the Black Death. The church was designed in the then fashionable Palladian style by Baldassare Longhena, a pupil of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio, and construction began in 1631. As a votive offering for the city’s deliverance from the pestilence, the Republic of Venice vowed to build and dedicate a church to Our Lady of Health (or of Deliverance, Italian: Salute). In 1630 Venice experienced an unusually devastating outbreak of the plague.
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