Designed by Baldassare Longhena in 1631-83, Santa Maria della Salute is a Baroque masterpiece. With an octagonal shape and small chapels on the sides, the church's façade is embellished with 125 statues.
Exploring Santa Maria della Salute: Venice's Baroque masterpiece
From the moment you enter the church you are overwhelmed by the church's spaciousness and luminosity. The space is defined by robust arches and composite pilasters sustaining the tambour of the cupola and separating the large nave from the ambulatory, onto which the various chapels face. Opposite the main entrance there is a large presbytery with side apses and covered by a smaller cupola.
Venice Santa Maria della Salute Highlights
- The main altar, by Longhena, where the marvellous Byzantine icon, The Image of the Virgin, is held. The complex plastic scenario is by Le Court and depicts Venice kneeling before the Virgin Mary vanquishing the Plague and surrounded by St Mark and Lorenzo Giustinian.
- Another incredible element is the polychrome marble floor, which extends in concentric waves from the central area, forming inlaid patterns in the shape of roses and Stars of David.
- One of the six altars is adorned with Titian's Pentecost (1559), an enormous painting which was originally in the deconsecrated Santo Spirito church. In this Tintoretto-esque work, Titian uses his entire suggestive chromatic palette, using explosions of light to illuminate the monumental group of subjects.
- Sacristy: works by Titian. These are from his mature period, as can be seen from the mobility of the characters, the audacious scenes and the plasticity, all of which reveal Titian's later abrupt conversion to a more markedly expressive mode.
- The church also holds many paintings by Sassoferrato, Tintoretto and Luca Giordano.
Festa della Madonna della Salute
The church is used each year for a procession during the Feast of the Salute, which is still one of the Venetians' favourite events.
Santa Maria della Salute Opening hours
The Basilica is open all year round for the prayer of the faithful and also for visits by tourists and guests of Venice.
- Basilica opening hours (April 1 - October 31): 9.00 -12.00 / 15.00 -17.30
- Sacristy opening hours (April 1 - October 31)
- Monday and Tuesday morning: CLOSED
- Tuesday afternoon: 14.00 -15.30 / 16.40 -17.30
- Wednesday to Friday: 10.00 -12.30 / 14.00 -15.30 / 16.40 -17.30
- Saturday: 10.00 -12.30 / 14.00 -17.30
- Sunday: 10.00-10.30 / 14.00-17.30
- Basilica opening hours (November 1 - March 31): 9.30 -12.30 / 15.00 -17.30
- Sacristy opening hours (November 1 - March 31)
- Monday to Friday: 10.00 -12.00 / 15.00 -15.30 / 16.40 -17.30
- Saturday: 10 -12.00 / 14.00 -17.30
- Sunday: 10 -10.30 / 14.00 -17.30
Santa Maria della Salute Ticket
Entrance to the main rotunda is free and without a ticket or offering, while the smaller rotunda is reserved for the personal prayer of the faithful and for the various liturgical celebrations.
- Tickets for the Sacristy: 6 €.
History of Santa Maria della Salute
On 1630, the government of the Serenissima Republic decided to build a votive temple dedicated to the Virgin Mary to celebrate the end of the Plague. The Plague had decimated more than a third of the Venetian population. The site chosen was one of the most prestigious. And the building, evoking the themes of heaven and water, was to be a symbol of victory over death and the rebirth of the republican city. Of the eleven projects presented, Baldassare Longhena's was considered the best, mainly because of the opulent magnificence of the language, which was seen as a stark contrast to the sober solidity of the Redentore that had been built only fifty years before.
In 1631, once the pre-existing religious complex known as the Trinity had been demolished, work began on the "round Baroque machination" which, with its conceptually innovative design, was to assume a specific meaning for Venice, underlining its symbolic function and acting as a visual link within the enormous void of St Mark's Basin. The church was given an octagonal form and raised almost theatrically onto a sort of platform preceded by a series of steps. This stupefying composition of volumes forms a "crown" that was supposed to refer directly to the crown worn by the Virgin Mary as an emblem of victory. The construction, externally punctuated by the prospects of the six chapels, has a grandiose Palladio-like facade dominated by a large cupola, surrounded by a flock of angels and sustained by eight robust pilasters and elegant spiral volutes.
Santa Maria della Salute Location