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The great domed church on the left is Santa Maria della Salute, which Venice built as a thank-offering after the plague of 1630 finally lifted. When Canaletto painted the scene around 1730, that century-old church anchored what may have been the most famous view in Europe. He made his living selling Venetian scenes like this to Grand Tourists, the young British and Irish gentlemen who came south to see Italy and wanted a souvenir grander than a sketch. He worked them up in his studio from drawings made out on the water, tuning the light and the crowd of gondolas until the city looked calmer and more ordered than it really was. This canvas left Venice almost at once for Ireland, bought by a collector named Hugh Howard, and stayed in his family for more than 200 years.