Beginning in the summer of 1630, a
wave of the plague assaulted Venice, and until 1631 killed nearly a third of the population. In the city, 46,000 people died whilst in the lagoons the number was far higher, some 94,000. 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. The end of the 1630 plague was attributed to the
intercession of an icon of the Virgin Mary that was brought to Venice in 1670 by sea captain
Francesco Morosini as a trophy following the peace terms obtained with the Turks in the
war of Candia (present-day
Crete). The icon was placed in its current position inside the basilica on
21 November, the patronal feast day. It was also decided that the Senate would visit the church each year. On November 21 the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, known as the
Festa della Madonna della Salute, the city's officials parade from
San Marco to the Salute for a service in gratitude for deliverance from the plague is celebrated. 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 easy processional access from Piazza San Marco led senators to select the present site from among eight potential locations. The location was chosen partially due to its relationship to
San Giorgio, San Marco, and Il Redentore, with which it forms an arc. 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, owner of the church and seminary at the site, was resolved, and razing of some of the buildings began by 1631. Likely, the diplomat
Paolo Sarpi and Doge
Nicolo Contarini shared the intent to link the church to an order less closely associated with the patriarchate, and ultimately the Somascan Fathers, an order founded near
Bergamo by a Venetian nobleman
Jerome Emiliani, were invited to administer the church. A competition was held to design the building. Of the eleven submissions (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 design to make it to the final round was by Antonio Smeraldi (
il Fracao) and Zambattista Rubertini. Of the proposals still extant, Belli's and Smeraldi's original plans were 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. He wrote: 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." The Salute, while novel in many ways, still shows the influence of Palladian classicism and the domes of Venice. The Venetian Senate voted 66 in favor, 29 against with 2 abstentions to authorize the designs of the 26-year-old Longhena. While Longhena saw the structure as crown-like, the decorative circular building makes it seem more like a
reliquary, a
ciborium, and embroidered inverted
chalice that shelters the city's piety. ==Exterior==