The dome from the water
Best seen from a canal vaporetto or the San Marco bank opposite at sunset.
This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY-SA 3.0 · This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY-SA 3.0 · This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY 3.0 · This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY 3.0
The Salute — "health and salvation" — is the great white dome closing the mouth of the Grand Canal, one of the defining shapes of the Venetian skyline. The city built it to honour a vow: when the plague of 1630 killed a third of its people, the Republic promised the Virgin a church if the epidemic lifted — and delivered this Baroque masterpiece. The building is an octagon under a vast dome held by giant stone scrolls, standing on more than a million timber piles driven into the lagoon bed. Inside are Titians and a Tintoretto, the best of them in the small sacristy for a token fee. Its position on Dorsoduro's tip makes it the perfect station on a quiet-bank walk: Punta della Dogana is steps away, with the Accademia and Peggy Guggenheim on the way there.
Best seen from a canal vaporetto or the San Marco bank opposite at sunset.
Built to honour a vow after 1630 — Venice still processes here every November.
The whole mass stands on a forest of timber piles driven into the lagoon bed.
Dorsoduro 1, 30123 Venice
Punta della DoganaThe old customs house at Venice's point: Punta della Dogana is a triangular buil1 minute walk4.7
Peggy Guggenheim CollectionThe Peggy Guggenheim Collection is Italy's most important modern-art museum, and3 minutes walk4.5
Teatro La FeniceOne night in January 1996, fire took Teatro La Fenice down to its outer walls. T4 minutes walk4.6
Museum of Music (San Maurizio), VeniceSan Maurizio has not been a working church for a long time. Under its neoclassic5 minutes walk4.3
Giardini RealiA small garden between St Mark's Square and the waterfront in Venice, among the 5 minutes walk4.4On 21 November Venice lays a temporary floating bridge across the Grand Canal to the church, and the city processes over with candles as it has for four centuries — Venice's most genuine, least touristic feast if your dates align.
Vaporetto line 1 to Salute lands you in front, or walk Dorsoduro from the Accademia bridge in ten lovely minutes past the Guggenheim.
Half an hour for church and sacristy, then add the stop at Punta della Dogana's tip — its view over both canals and the lagoon is among Venice's widest.