"Of all the colors, none is more proper for churches than white,
since the purity of the color, as of life itself, is particularly
satisfying to God."
Andrea Palladio, The four books of Architecture, 1570
The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore floats
on its own island in icy majesty, surrounded by the low brick building of
its monastery and guarded by its tall soldierly bell tower, from the top of
which you can enjoy one of the most breathtaking birds-eye-views of Venice.
Palladio's Church of San Giorgio represented a new solution to the problem
of combining the pediment of a classical Roman temple with the structure
of a Christian church.
The massive round votive church of Our Lady of
Good Health (Salute) dominates the inner basin of Saint Mark, where
the Grand Canal run into it. It is the greatest Baroque church in Venice
and “ the building which occupies the center of the picture
Venice leaves in the mind ” (B. Berenson).
