A drawing of the church of the Redentore on the Giudecca in Venice.

The Franciscan church of the Redentore (‘Redeemer’) stands on the Giudecca, to the south of the main island of Venice. It was built between 1577 and 1592 to the designs of Palladio, as a votive offering for the eventual deliverance of Venice from the terrible plague of 1575-7 which killed around 50,000 people, a quarter of the city’s population. Each year on the third Sunday in July, the Doge crossed the Canale della Giudecca from the Fondamenta delle Zattere on a pontoon bridge of boats to attend a thanksgiving service in the Redentore. The festival is still held annually.

Canaletto’s view is taken from in front of the salt warehouses on the Zattere, the long quay running along the south of Dorsoduro named after the cargo rafts that unloaded into the warehouses there. The church is therefore seen from a distance of 400 metres, strongly foreshortening the building and compressing its long nave, which is better seen in the view of the church from the Riva. Several similar paintings of the Redentore exist, the first version being that at Woburn Abbey, which shows the Redentore from exactly this angle but introduces the church of San Giacomo to the right of the composition and several more boats in the foreground.

Catalogue entry adapted from Canaletto in Venice, London, 2005