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Exterior from the Grand Canal.

The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (Basilica of St Mary of Health/Salvation), commonly known simply as the Salute, is a famous church in Venice, placed scenically at a narrow finger of land which lies between the Grand Canal and the Bacino di San Marco on the lagoon, visible as one enters the Piazza San Marco from the water. While it has the status of a minor basilica, its decorative and distinctive profile and location make it among the most photographed churches in Italy.

History

Starting in the Summer of 1629, a wave of the plague assaulted Venice, and over the next two years killed nearly a third of the population. Repeated displays of the sacrament, as well as prayers and processions to churches dedicated to San Rocco and San Lorenzo Giustinian, had failed to stall the continuation of the epidemic. Echoing the architectural response to a prior assault of the plague (1575-76), when Palladio was asked to design the picturesque il Redentore dedicated to Christ the Redeemer, the Venetian Senate in October 22, 1630, decreed that a new church would be built. 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.

It was also decided that the Senate would visit the church yearly, on 21 November, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, in a celebration known as the Festa della Madonna della Salute, where the city's officials parade from San Marco to the Salute in the sestieri Dorsoduro for a service in gratitude for deliverance from the plague. This involved crossing the Grand Canal on a specially constructed pontoon bridge and is still a major event in Venice.

The desire to create a suitable monument at a place that allows for an easy processional access from Piazza San Marco, led senators to select the present site from among 8 potential locations. 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. A dispute with the patriarch, Rome's representative in Venice and owner of the church and seminary at the site, was overcome, and razing of some of the buildings began by 1631. Likely, the diplomat Sarpi and Doge Nicolo Contarini shared the intent to link church to an order less-associated with the Papacy, and ultimately the Somascan Fathers, an order founded near Bergamo by a Venetian noble, were chosen.

A competition was held to select the building. Of the eleven submission (including designs by Alessandro Varotari, Matteo Ignoli, and Berteo Belli), only two were chosen for the final round. The architect Baldassare Longhena was selected to design the new church. It was finally completed in 1681, the year before Longhena's death. The other competitive, but losing, design was by Antonio Smeraldi (il Fracao) and Zambattista Rubertini. Of the proposals still extant, Belli's and Smeraldi's original plans were a conventional counter-reformation linear churches, resembling Palladio's Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore; while Varotari's was a sketchy geometrical abstraction. Longhena's proposal was a concrete architectural plan, detailing the structure and costs, although also bold in design, he wrote:

"I have created a church in the form of a rotunda, a work of new invention, not built in Venice, a work very worthy and desired by many. This church, having the mystery of its dedication, being dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, made me think, with what little talent God has bestowed upon me of building the church in the … shape of a crown."

Later in a memorandum, he wrote:

"Firstly, it is a virgin work, never before seen, curious, worthy and beautiful, made in the form of a round monument that has never been seen, nor ever before invented, neither altogether, nor in part, in other churches in this most serene city, just as my competitor (il Fracao) has done for his own advantage, being poor in invention"

Ultimately the Salute, while novel in many ways, still breathes the influence of Palladian classicism and the domes in Venice. The Venetian Senate voted 66 in favor, 29 against with 2 abstentions to authorize the designs of the 26 year old Longhena.

Exterior

The Salute is a vast, octagonal building built on a platform made of 100,000 wooden piles. It is constructed of Istrian stone and marmorino (brick covered with marble dust). While its external decoration and location capture the eye, the internal design itself is quite remarkable. The octagonal church, while ringed by a classic vocabulary, hearkens to Byzantine designs such as the Basilica of San Vitale. The interior has its architectural elements demarcated by the coloration of the material, and the central nave with its ring of saints atop a balustrade is a novel design. It is full of Marian symbolism - the great dome represents her crown, the cavernous interior her womb, the eight sides the eight points on her symbolic star.

Ultimately, the dome of the Salute was one of the main additions to the Venice skyline, and became emblematic of the city, just as the domes of the Cathedral in Florence and St.Peter's in Rome were for their respective cities; however, unlike those massive major churches, the Salute is not meant to caparison the populace. It is a pilgrimage church inside a city, it is the church that blessed the riches entering the port by commerce. While Longhena, saw the structure like a crown, the decorative circular building makes it seem more like a reliquary, a cyborium, and embroidered inverted chalice that shelters the city's piety.

The Salute is part of the parish of the Gesuati.

Interior

The Baroque high altar arrangement, designed by Longhena himself, shelters an iconic Byzantine Madonna and Child of the 12th or 13th century. The theatric statuary at the high altar, depicting the queen of heaven expelling the Plague(1670) was a theatrical Baroque masterpiece by the Flemish sculptor Josse de Corte. It originally held Alessandro Varotari's painting of the Virgin holding a church, that the painter submitted with his architectural proposal.

Tintoretto contributed Marriage at Cana in the great sacristy, which includes a self-portrait. The most represented artist included in the church is Titian, who painted St Mark enthroned with saints Cosmas, Damian, Sebastian and Roch, the altarpiece of the sacristy, as well as ceiling paintings of David and Goliath, Abraham and Isaac and Cain and Abel, and eight tondi of the Doctors of the Church and the Evangelists, all in the great sacristy, and Pentecost in the nave.

Sources

• Plans and Planning for S. Maria della Salute, Venice, Andrew Hopkins. The Art Bulletin (1997); p440-465.

Gallery

View of the Basilica from the Grand Canal	View of the Basilica from St Mark's Campanile	Exterior of Salute's dome in the afternoon light	Exterior from the Grand Canal

• Satellite image from Google Maps