Description

Essentials about Santa Maria della Salute in brief

Located directly at the entrance to the Grand Canal and only a short distance from Piazza San Marco, the church of Santa Maria della Salute is one of the most famous churches in Venice and a real eye-catcher. With the exception of St. Mark’s Basilica, probably no other church in the city is as frequently immortalized in photos and postcards as Santa Maria della Salute. The imposing Baroque church is one of the two votive churches of Venice, built on the occasion of the plague epidemic that raged in the lagoon city in the 17th century.

The history of Santa Maria della Salute

On October 22, 1630, the Doge Nicolò Contarini vowed to build a church to the Mother of God if she ended the plague that had been ravaging Venice since 1630, killing almost 50,000 inhabitants (and about a third of its population at the time). The church was to be built in a prominent position on the Bacino di San Marco opposite the Doge’s Palace. The Venetian Baldassare Longhena was the winner of the competition.

With the construction of the church, a fundamental urban reorganization of this area was initiated, which would shape the image of Venice to this day. The old development at the entrance to the Grand Canal, with residential buildings and the convent and church of San Trinità, was demolished to make room for the church, the new customs station and the conventual building of the Somascans, who had to care for the church. These buildings are essential components of a unique urban ensemble around the Bacino. They are the result of careful planning by the Senate and the Venetian building authorities, who were able to draw on a centuries-old knowledge of urban architecture and urbanistic staging.

Longhena worked on the construction of the church, with interruptions, throughout his life. The architect did not live to see the dedication in 1687. He died five years earlier. Since 1921, Santa Maria della Salute has held the title of papal basilica minor.

The architecture of Santa Maria della Salute

The building plan of the then 33-year-old architect Baldassare Longhena for Santa Maria della Salute was simply revolutionary. The exterior, with an eight-sided floor plan, two domes and two campanili, and also clad entirely in marble, was intended to be particularly impressive. With the church, Longhena created a clear alternative to the Roman Baroque, placing particular emphasis on multi-layered light and shadow effects. Light has always been of outstanding importance in Venetian architecture.

Santa Maria della Salute is an octagonal central building with the main facade facing the Grand Canal. The design of the floor plan and the arrangement of the rooms take up early medieval and ancient models such as San Vitale in Ravenna or the Palatine Church in Aachen: the center is an octagonal room accompanied by a gallery with six side altars. The floor, like that in St. Mark’s Basilica, has elaborate but large-scale and simpler marble decorations.

The windows of the two exedras brightly illuminate the sanctuary, along with the tall windows of another, smaller dome above the presbytery. The portal, to which a representative fifteen-step staircase leads in allusion to Solomon’s Temple and the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, is formed by a triumphal arch facade. A distinctive feature of the exterior architecture are the huge volutes that seem to support the high windowed tambour of the dome, but have only a decorative-pathetic function and serve as pedestals for the many figures of saints. On the larger dome stands the Immaculata with twelve stars from the Revelation of John, on the smaller one a figure of St. Mark.

Longhena had to overcome great technical problems during the construction of the domed church. More than 10,000 oak piles were used to fortify the foundation. In order to reduce the weight of the huge dome as much as possible, Longhena constructed a light, double-shell dome made of wood, which was then plastered. The material used in the construction of the church is Istrian stone, as well as the light bricks popular in Venice, which were covered with a layer of powdered marble.

The interior of Santa Maria della Salute

The church interior appears rather sober due to the use of white plaster and gray stone. Its splendor comes from a precious marble floor with inlays and from the magnificent altars in the chapels, which are connected to the gallery of the central room. The sculptures of the high altar in the presbytery recall the plague: in front of the Madonna and Child kneels the allegorical figure of Venezia, while the plague, in the form of an ugly old woman, is chased away by a child figure. Integrated into the altar is an image of the Virgin Mary of Byzantine origin, considered miraculous by the Venetians.

In the church, in addition to paintings by Tintoretto, Salviati and various other artists, there are six paintings by Titian, which were placed there after the dissolution of the monastery of Santo Spirito in Isola in the 17th century. Every year, on November 21, in gratitude to the Madonna for saving us from the plague, a boat bridge is built for a procession from the church of Santa Maria del Giglio across the canal to the church, and a festival lasting several days is celebrated with lively participation, especially by the inhabitants of Venice. On all feast days, services are held in uninterrupted succession from morning to evening.

Website

turismovenezia.it/Basilica-di-Santa-Maria-della-Salute

Opening hours

Admission fees

Free.

Address

Getting there

By public transport:

Vaporetto line 1: Stop Salute

By car:

Inaccessible.