Santa Maria della Salute, Minor basilica in Dorsoduro, Venice, Italy.
Santa Maria della Salute is an octagonal church with a large hemispherical dome on a drum ringed by paired columns, six smaller chapels, and scroll-shaped buttresses topped with statues. A lantern with a statue of the Virgin crowns the dome. The main facade has a tall arched portal flanked by columns and statues along the cornice. It stands on the Punta della Dogana between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal, beside the Dogana da Mar customs house.
The Venetian Senate decided on construction in 1631 after the plague ended, which had killed a third of the population. Work continued until 1687 and followed the design of Baldassare Longhena.
On 21 November, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, the city's officials parade from San Marco to the Salute over a pontoon bridge that for centuries was made of boats. The feast is still a major event, and Venetians traditionally eat castradina, a mutton dish, on this day.
The church is open every day from 9 am to noon and from 3 pm to 5:30 pm. You can reach it by vaporetto lines 1 and 2, which stop at Salute.
The church's main altar holds a Byzantine icon of the Virgin, the Mesopanditissa, brought from Crete by Francesco Morosini in 1670 as part of the peace terms with the Turks. It was placed there on 21 November, the feast day. The icon is credited with ending the plague.
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