What to See in Venice - Top Sights and Attractions

Iconic 1600s church with a vast cupola. Santa Maria della Salute, commonly known simply as the Salute, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana in the Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of Venice, Italy.

It stands on the narrow finger of Punta della Dogana, between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal, at the Bacino di San Marco, making the church visible when entering the Piazza San Marco from the water. The Salute is part of the parish of the Gesuati and is the most recent of the so-called plague churches.

In 1630, Venice experienced an unusually devastating outbreak of the plague. As a votive offering for the city's deliverance from the pestilence, the Republic of Venice vowed to build and dedicate a church to Our Lady of Health. The church was designed in the then fashionable Baroque style by Baldassare Longhena, who studied under the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi. Construction began in 1631. Most of the objects of art housed in the church bear references to the Black Death.

The dome of the Salute was an important addition to the Venice skyline and soon became emblematic of the city, inspiring artists such as Canaletto, J. M. W. Turner, John Singer Sargent, and the Venetian artist Francesco Guardi.^[3]

Landmark cathedral with gilded domes. The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark, commonly known as St Mark's Basilica, is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Patriarchate of Venice; it became the episcopal seat of the Patriarch of Venice in 1807, replacing the earlier cathedral of San Pietro di Castello. It is dedicated to and holds the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of the city.

The church is located on the eastern end of Saint Mark's Square, the former political and religious centre of the Republic of Venice, and is attached to the Doge's Palace. Prior to the fall of the republic in 1797, it was the chapel of the Doge and was subject to his jurisdiction, with the concurrence of the procurators of Saint Mark de supra for administrative and financial affairs.

The present structure is the third church, begun probably in 1063 to express Venice's growing civic consciousness and pride. Like the two earlier churches, its model was the sixth-century Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, although accommodations were made to adapt the design to the limitations of the physical site and to meet the specific needs of Venetian state ceremonies. Middle-Byzantine, Romanesque, and Islamic influences are also evident, and Gothic elements were later incorporated. To convey the republic's wealth and power, the original brick façades and interior walls were embellished over time with precious stones and rare marbles, primarily in the thirteenth century. Many of the columns, reliefs, and sculptures were spoils stripped from the churches, palaces, and public monuments of Constantinople as a result of the Venetian participation in the Fourth Crusade. Among the plundered artefacts brought back to Venice were the four ancient bronze horses that were placed prominently over the entry.

The interior of the domes, the vaults, and the upper walls were slowly covered with gold-ground mosaics depicting saints, prophets, and biblical scenes. Many of these mosaics were later retouched or remade as artistic tastes changed and damaged mosaics had to be replaced, such that the mosaics represent eight hundred years of artistic styles. Some of them derive from traditional Byzantine representations and are masterworks of Medieval art; others are based on preparatory drawings made by prominent Renaissance artists from Venice and Florence, including Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Uccello, and Andrea del Castagno.^[5]

Modern art museum in 18th-century palace. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century palace, which was the home of the American heiress Peggy Guggenheim for three decades. She began displaying her private collection of modern artworks to the public seasonally in 1951. After her death in 1979, it passed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which opened the collection year-round from 1980.

The collection includes works of prominent Italian futurists and American modernists working in such genres as Cubism, Surrealism and abstract expressionism. It also includes sculptural works. In 2017, Karole Vail, a granddaughter of Peggy Guggenheim, was appointed Director of the collection, succeeding Philip Rylands, who led the museum for 37 years.^[8]

Vast 1300s church and works by Titian. The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, usually just called the Frari, is a church located in the Campo dei Frari at the heart of the San Polo district of Venice, Italy. The largest church in the city, it has the status of a minor basilica. The church is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.

The imposing edifice is built of brick, and is one of the city's three notable churches still mostly retaining their Venetian Gothic appearance. In common with many Franciscan churches, the exterior is rather plain, even on the front facade. The interior is notable for many very grand wall monuments to distinguished Venetians buried in the church, including a number of Doges and the painter Titian. Many of these are important works in the history of Venetian sculpture, and the many paintings include two large and important altarpieces by Titian, the Assumption of the Virgin on the high altar and the Pesaro Madonna. It also contains the only rood screen still in place in Venice.^[9]

Imposing landmark cathedral tower. St Mark's Campanile is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy. The current campanile is a reconstruction completed in 1912, the previous tower having collapsed in 1902. At 98.6 metres in height, it is the tallest structure in Venice and is colloquially termed "el paròn de casa". It is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city.

Located in Saint Mark's Square near the mouth of the Grand Canal, the campanile was initially intended as a watchtower to sight approaching ships and protect the entry to the city. It also served as a landmark to guide Venetian ships safely into harbour. Construction began in the early tenth century and continued sporadically over time as the tower was slowly raised in height. A belfry and a spire were first added in the twelfth century. In the fourteenth century the spire was gilded, making the tower visible to distant ships in the Adriatic. The campanile reached its full height in 1514 when the belfry and spire were completely rebuilt on the basis of an earlier Renaissance design by Giorgio Spavento. Historically, the bells served to regulate the civic and religious life of Venice, marking the beginning, pauses, and end of the work day; the convocation of government assemblies; and public executions.

The campanile stands alone in the square, near the front of St Mark's Basilica. It has a simple form, recalling its early defensive function, the bulk of which is a square brick shaft with lesenes, 12 metres (39 ft) wide on each side and 50 metres (160 ft) tall. The belfry is topped by an attic with effigies of the Lion of St Mark and allegorical figures of Venice as Justice. The tower is capped by a pyramidal spire at the top of which there is a golden weather vane in the form of the archangel Gabriel.^[15]

Neo-classical events and exhibition venue. Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti is a palace in Venice, Italy, not far from the Ponte dell'Accademia and next to the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal of Venice. Since 1999 it has been the seat of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and frequently houses cultural events.

The palace was erected in 1565. In the 19th century it was internally modernised and externally enriched in Venetian Gothic style, with rich window framing, by a series of grand owners. The first neo-Gothic improvements were made after 1840, when the young Archduke Frederick Ferdinand of Austria (1821–1847) reassembled the property, the Palazzo Cavalli-Gussoni, which had become divided among heirs, and embarked on a complex project intended to give a more prominent Habsburg presence along the Grand Canal, as Austria-Hungary had been awarded the territories of Venice after the Napoleonic Wars. At his premature death, unmarried, in 1847 the palazzo was bought by Henri, comte de Chambord, styled "Henri V" by Bourbon legitimists, who entrusted further restorations to Giambattista Meduna; his portrait on the balcony, with Santa Maria Della Salute in the background, is in the Ducal Palace of Modena.

In 1878 Baron Raimondo Franchetti (1829–1905), who had married Sarah Luisa de Rothschild (1834–1924), daughter of Anselm Salomon Rothschild of the Vienna Rothschilds, bought the palazzo and commissioned further works by architect Camillo Boito, who constructed the grand staircase. In September 1922 it was sold to the Istituto Federale di Credito per il Risorgimento delle Venezie by Franchetti's widow.^[16]

Sculpture. The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs is a porphyry sculpture group of four Roman emperors dating from around 300 AD. The sculptural group has been fixed to a corner of the façade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy since the Middle Ages. It probably formed part of the decorations of the Philadelphion in Constantinople, and was removed to Venice in 1204 or soon after.

Spolia from the Fourth Crusade, the statues were originally designed as two separate sculptures, each consisting of a pair of armoured late Roman emperors embracing one another. The paired statues stand on plinths supported by a console of the same stone, and their backs are engaged in the remains of large porphyry columns to which the statues were once attached, carved all of a piece. The columns no longer exist, and one emperor pair is missing part of the plinth and an emperor's foot, which has been found in Istanbul. One statue pair has been sliced vertically and is missing a large portion of the right-hand emperor's right side, while another vertical slice divides the two figures and has sawn through their embracing arms.

The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs probably depicts the four rulers of the Empire instituted by Emperor Diocletian - the first Tetrarchy. He appointed as co-augustus Maximian; they chose Galerius and Constantius I as their caesares; Constantius was father to Constantine the Great. There is disagreement as to the identity of these statues and their placement, but it is suggested that the Eastern rulers form a pair and the Western rulers form the other pair, each pair consisting of the senior augustus and the junior caesar. Another possibility is that the two augusti are depicted in one pair and the two caesares in the other. A third, older theory is that they represent a dynastic group of the Constantinian dynasty.^[18]

Basilica in Venice, Italy. The Basilica di San Pietro di Castello, commonly called San Pietro di Castello, is a Roman Catholic minor basilica of the Patriarch of Venice located in the Castello sestiere of the Italian city of Venice. The present building dates from the 16th century, but a church has stood on the site since at least the 7th century. From 1451 to 1807, it was the city's cathedral church, though hardly playing the usual dominant role of a cathedral, as it was overshadowed by the "state church" of San Marco, and inconveniently located. During its history the church has undergone a number of alterations and additions by some of Venice's most prominent architects. Andrea Palladio received his first commission in the city of Venice from the Patriarch Vincenzo Diedo to re-build the facade and interior of St Pietro, but Diedo's death delayed the project.

After St Mark's Basilica became Venice’s official cathedral (it had previously been the private church of the Doge), San Pietro fell into a state of disrepair. It was firebombed during the First World War and only through the efforts of conservation organisations has it been restored to its former state. Its ongoing conservation is now managed through its membership of the Chorus Association of Venetian churches.

The church is located on San Pietro di Castello (from which it derives its name), a small island off the eastern end of the main city of Venice.^[22]

Quaint wood-&-metal bridge with views. The Ponte dell'Accademia is one of only four bridges to span the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It crosses near the southern end of the canal, and is named for the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, which from 1807 to 2004 was housed in the Scuola della Carità together with the Gallerie dell'Accademia, which is still there. The bridge links the sestieri of Dorsoduro and San Marco.

A bridge on the site was first suggested as early as 1488. The provveditore Luca Trum proposed in the council to build two bridges across the Grand Canal, one here and the other at Santa Sofia. The members of the council, however, laughed at him, and the motion was not even put to the vote. The original steel structure, designed by Alfred Neville, opened on 20 November 1854, but was demolished and replaced by a wooden bridge designed by Eugenio Miozzi and opened in 1933, despite widespread hopes for a stone bridge.

Lovers have attempted to attach padlocks to the metal hand rails of the bridge, but Venetian authorities have successfully cracked down on this.^[26]

Government office. The Zecca is a sixteenth-century building in Venice, Italy which once housed the mint of the Republic of Venice. Built between 1536 and 1548, the heavily rusticated stone structure, originally with only two floors, was designed by Jacopo Sansovino in place of an earlier mint specifically to ensure safety from fire and to provide adequate security for the silver and gold deposits. Giorgio Vasari considered it the finest, richest, and strongest of Sansovino's buildings.

Coin production continued after the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797 but ceased in 1852 during the second period of Austrian domination (1814–1866). The building was subsequently adapted and served as the seat for the Chamber of Commerce from 1872 until 1900. Since 1904, it has housed the main part of the Marciana Library whose historical building, next door is now largely a museum.^[27]