Which Venetian Baroque architect designed Santa Maria della Salute?

Santa Maria della Salute was designed by the Venetian Baroque architect Baldassare Longhena.

Venice commissioned the church after the devastating plague outbreak of 1630. The Republic vowed to build a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in thanksgiving for deliverance, and construction began in 1631 at Punta della Dogana, where the Grand Canal meets the Giudecca Canal.

Longhena gave the basilica its instantly recognizable form: an enormous octagonal plan, a great dome, a smaller dome, and a theatrical entrance modeled on a Roman triumphal arch. The building stands on a platform supported by roughly 1 million wooden piles, driven into the lagoon soil. It was constructed mainly from Istrian stone and marmorino.

A common mix-up is confusing Longhena with Andrea Palladio, whose Venetian churches strongly influenced later architecture. Palladio died decades before the Salute was begun; Longhena instead studied under Vincenzo Scamozzi and developed a distinctly seventeenth-century Venetian Baroque style. The basilica was consecrated in 1681, while work was completed in 1687.