Chiesa di Santa Maria della Salute

Shows of appreciation don’t get much more monumental than Venice’s magnificent baroque church to the Sainted Mary of Health, dedicated by Venice’s Senate to the Madonna for sparing the city further devastation after a brutal 1630–31 bout of plague killed a third of the city’s population in 18 months. At least 100,000 pylons had to be driven deep into the barene (mud banks) to shore up the tip of Dorsoduro and support the weight of this baroque engineering marvel. Baldassare Longhena’s unusual domed octagon is an inspired design that architectural scholars have compared to Graeco-Roman temples and Jewish cabbala diagrams, and the site of Venetians’ annual pilgrimage to pray for health. Inside, you’ll spot Tintoretto’s surprisingly upbeat The Wedding Feast of Cana en route to the sacristy, which features no fewer than 12 Titians, including a vivid self-portrait in the guise of St Matthew, and his earliest known work, the precocious vermilion Saint Mark on the Throne from 1510.