The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, also commonly known simply as The Salute, is one of the largest and most beautiful churches of Venice and has the status of Basilica minor. Basilica stands in a prominent position at the junction between the Grand Canal and the Bacino di San Marco on the lagoon.
In October 1630, the Venetian Senate decreed that if the city was delivered from the currently raging plague that had killed about a third of Venice's population then a new church would be built and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The city was so delivered, and Baldassare Longhena, then only 26 years old, was selected to design the new church. It was finally completed in 1681, the year before Longhena's death.
Every year, on 21 November, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, the city's officials processed from San Marco to the Salute for a service of thanksgiving for deliverance from the plague. This involved crossing the Grand Canal on a specially constructed pontoon bridge. The Festa della Madonna della Salute is still a major event in Venice.
The Basilica is a vast Baroque 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). The church 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.
The altarpiece of the Baroque high altar, designed by Longhena himself, is a Byzantine Madonna and Child of the 12th or 13th century. Tintoretto contributed Marriage at Cana in the great sacristy, which includes a self-portrait and is considered one of his best works.
The most represented artist is Titian, who painted St Mark enthroned with SS Cosmas, Damian, Sebastian and Roch, the altarpiece of the great 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.