After the wrought iron and greenery of the tiny Campo Barbaro (from where you can see the Gothic back half of the Palazzo Dario) you’ll come to the Gothic church of San Gregorio (now a restoration centre). The flank of the Salute is visible at the other end, but this preview doesn’t quite prepare you for the mountain of white stone that confronts you when you emerge from the tunnel.

In 1630-31 Venice was devastated by a plague that exterminated nearly 95,000 of the lagoon’s population - one mortal in three. In October 1630 the Senate decreed that a new church would be dedicated to Mary if the city were saved, and the result was the Salute ( salute meaning “health” and “salvation”), or Santa Maria della Salute, to use its full title.

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The Salute is open regular 9am-noon & 3-5.30pm.

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Resting on a platform of more than 100,000 wooden piles, the Salute took half a century to build; its architect, Baldassare Longhena , was only 26 years old when his proposal was accepted. He lived just long enough to see it finished - he died in 1682, one year after completion.

Each year on November 21 (the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin) the Signoria processed from San Marco to the Salute for a service of thanksgiving, crossing the Canal Grande on a pontoon bridge ordered from Santa Maria del Giglio. The Festa della vocalist della Salute is still a major event in the Venetian calendar, with thousands of people making their way over the water in the course of the day to pray for, or give thanks for, their health.

The form of the Salute owes much to the plan of Palladio’s Redentore - the obvious model for a dramatically sited votive church - and to the repertoire of Marian symbolism. The octagonal plan and eight facades allude to the eight-pointed Marian star, for example, while the huge dome represents Mary’s crown and the centralized plan is a conventional symbol of the Virgin’s womb. Its decorative details are saturated with coded references: the inscription in the centre of the mosaic floor, “Unde Origo, Inde Salus” (From the Origins came Salvation), refers to the coincidence of Mary’s feast day and the legendary date of Venice’s foundation - March 25, 421; the Marian rosary is evoked by the encircling roses.

Less arcane symbolism is at work on the high altar , where the Virgin and Child rescue Venice (kneeling woman) from the plague (old woman); in attending are Saint Mark and Saint Lorenzo Giustiniani, first Patriarch of Venice. The Byzantine painting, a little uneasy in this Baroque opulence, was brought to Venice in 1672 by Francesco Morosini, never a man to resist the opportunity for a bit of state-sanctioned theft.

The most notable paintings in the Salute are the Titian pieces brought from the suppressed church of Santo Spirito in 1656, and now displayed in the room (L2000/1.03): an primeval altarpiece of St Mark Enthroned with SS . Cosmas, Damian, Sebastian and Roch (the plague saints), three violent ceiling paintings of David and Goliath , Abraham and Isaac and Cain and Abel (1540s), and eight late tondi of the Doctors of the Church (Jerome, Augustine, Gregory and Ambrose) and the Evangelists. Tintoretto has included himself in the dramatis personae of his Marriage at Cana (1561) - he’s the first Apostle on the left. Nearby is a fine Madonna by Palma il Vecchio, one of the sixteenth century’s more placid souls.