Santa Maria della Salute, Venice

In 1630 plague reached Venice, and in about a year and a half it killed roughly a third of the city. The Senate vowed a church to the Virgin if the sickness ended, and Santa Maria della Salute, Our Lady of Health, rose at the mouth of the Grand Canal to the design of a young architect, Baldassare Longhena. It was consecrated in 1687. The vow was renewed every year on 21 November, when Venetians crossed the Grand Canal to the church on a temporary bridge of boats, and they still cross on that day over a pontoon bridge.

Guardi painted this view late in his career, after 1770, as a pair with a view of San Giorgio Maggiore of the same size. Both came to the gallery in 1930 from the collection of the Turin industrialist Riccardo Gualino.