The Church of the Most Holy Redeemer (Chiesa del Redentore), commonly known as “Il Redentore”, is a 16th-century Roman Catholic church located on Giudecca (island) in the sestiere of Dorsoduro.
The Senate of the Republic of Venice commissioned the architect Andrea Palladio to design the votive church in thanksgiving for deliverance from a major outbreak of the plague that decimated Venice between 1575 and 1576.
Il Redentore has one of the most prominent sites of any of Palladio’s structures, and is considered one of the pinnacles of his career. It contains paintings by Francesco Bassano, Palma the Younger, Paolo Veronese, Alvise Vivarini and the workshop of Tintoretto.
Every year the doge and senators walked across a specially constructed pontoon bridge from the Zattere to Giudecca to attend Mass in the church. The Festa del Redentore remains one of the major festival in the Venetian calendar, celebrated on the third Sunday in July. A huge firework display on the previous evening is followed by a mass procession across the pontoon bridge.