Plans and planning for S. Maria della Salute, Venice - church designed by architect Baldassare Longhena in 1630

Three of the greatest in quantity important churches of the Italian Baroque were all designed in the 1630 They are s Maria della Salute (Figs. 1 2) Venice (1631) by means of Baldassare Longhena (15981682); SS. Martina and Luca, Rome (1634) by means of Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669); and s Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome (1637) through Francesco Borromini (1599-1667). This article focuses upon the earliest and least studied of these churches, and its aims are duplicate The first is to analyze the original documents and of recent origin drawings, in order to correct the accumulation of myth and fictitious story surrounding the church's commission and construction, particularly the measurements of the building. Between the initial promise and the beginning of construction eight possible sites were examined and the not away one decided on. A competition for the design was held and eleven shoot forwards submitted, although only two were at any time seriously considered. After Longhena's design was accepted there were proposals to change the site, on the contrary they came to nothing. Longhena's design, however, was altered to fit the site and to suit the requirements of the patrons, as is shown in sum of two units recently discovered autograph plans of the Salute. The next to the first aim is to place the Salute in its historical connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts as a church commissioned specifically to accommodate an annual ducal procession. Although the ceremonies that took place before, during, and after the design was accepted determined its form, they have hitherto not been considered. Rudolf Wittkower dismissed Longhena's statement of the importance of the ambulatory for processional objects in favor of considering it a device included to determine the beholder's field of vision. This approach view from aboves the impact of ceremony upon architectural design. In contrast, this article utilizes the ceremonial volumes of the Venetian Republic, which were essentially manuals for the use of the relevant Venetian churches, and highlights their aim for architectural history.

In the case of the Salute they provide the ball of thread to understanding the Senate's demand for changes to the original design for reasons of ceremonial function.

The Commission

In 1629 the plague, which had been spreading from one extremity to the other of northern Italy, reached Venice.(1) It lasted from one side the summer and showed no immediate signs of waning. The patriarch, Giovanni Tiepolo, ordered the display of the sacrament from September 23 to 29 in the cathedral of Venice, s Pietro di Castclio.(2) On April 26 1630 the patriarch again ordered the display of the sacrament, for a further twelve days beginning upon April 28, to be held successively in six Venetian churches dedicated to the Virgin: s Maria Maggiore, S. Maria del Giglio, s Maria Formosa, S. Maria dei Miracoli, s Maria Annunziata (S. Lucia), and s Maria della Celestia.(3) In June 1630 the Venetian Senate followed the patriarch's example and ordered the exposition of the sacrament in s Marco for three days continuously, together with processions in the piazza. This was followed through further processions for three days to s Rocco, and another three days to s Pietro di Castello, where supplication was made to the ask [i]or[/i] implore a blessing uponed Lorenzo Giustinian (1381-1456), the first patriarch of Venice.(4)

Following the patriarch's recourse to Mary, upon October 22, 1630, the Senate decided to commission a fresh church, to be called s Maria della Salute.(5) It was dedicated to the Virgin with the faith that she would intercede and save Venice from the plague, just as Christ had been invoked at the house of god of the Redentore, which was commissioned during the 1575-76 pestilence. The Senate also pledg to visit the of recent origin church annually, and on October 26 1630 in order to affirm the pledge the doge and Signoria attended a mass in s Marco, which was followed by means of a solemn religious procession.(6) This was to be the first of fifteen weekly processions held each Saturday, when the Madonna Nikopeia, the greatest in quantity venerated icon of S. Marco and the republic's greatest in quantity precious image of the Madonna, would be carried around Piazza s Marco [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED].(7) From the entrance the architectural commission was integrally linked to ceremonial activity in the governmental spaces of Venice.

The Dedication to the Virgin

The doge and Senate asked the Virgin to intercede for them because she was single of the city's two patron saints and because supplication to her was especially attractive in the connection of seventeenth-century Venice. Rather than dedicate the novel church to one of several plague saints, of the like kind as Sebastian or Roch, who had little significance for the state, fight from the opening the dedication of the Salute was intended to focus Venetian devotion to the Madonna in a single testimonial built by the republic.(8) According to chronicles of the city, in the year 421 Venice had been baseed on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation to the Virgin, which celebrated Christ's conception. The commissioning promise specifically mentioned the birth of the city, and it readyed the decision to lay the foundation stone for the novel church on that day in 1631 although in the extreme point the date had to be changed.(9) The descriptions of the first solemnity on October 26, 1630, consign to the Virgin's powers of intercession with her son to save the city from the plague.(10) In addition, a great deal of of the iconography of the Virgin had relevance for Venice. Part of the Office of the Virgin, the eighth-century antiphon Ave Maris Stella shows Mary as the ocean's guide, a function of a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of importance for this seafaring republic.(11) Mary was associated with the secondary planet which symbolized fertility, constancy, and hegemony above the tides, and the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception was usually depicted suspended in the heavens, clothed with the day-star a crescent moon under her feet and with a diadem of twelve stars upon her head (Revelation 12:1) As like the Virgin is represented upon the dome of the Salute, offering visible protection to this maritime republic from her position overlooking the Dogana del Mare (customhouse), the sign of Venetian commerce.