Baroque

Baroque was the spectacular new art of Counterreformation Italy, led by the Church and designed to induce temporal obedience and psychical oblivion. Skeptical, worldly Venice, one of the only free states in Italy, managed to resist its charms. On the whole, little of the more excessive brand of Baroque from Rome and north Italy made it to Venice. In the 17th century, Venetian palaces and churches retained most of the manners of the Renaissance, with a few Baroque touches tacked on.

The age does provide some exceptions to the rule: see Baldassare Longhena’s magnificent church of the Salute on the Grand Canal. Longhena, deeply indebted to both Sansovino and Palladio, was Venice’s only Baroque architect of note, and his palette ranged from the massive but exuberant Ca’ Pésaro to the grotesque in the Ospedaletto façade and the lugubrious in the Scalzi.