For the Redentore, the Redeemer, Palladio created a church which is sitting on its steps while watching the city with sly and sleepy eyes. A church which is extremely near to the city but inevitably isolated by the Giudecca canal, crossed by enormous cruising boats that sometimes darken it completely, dividing it from Venice. It remains there, indifferent, observing without intervening, understanding and paternal. The Redeemer is the one who takes away sins, who allows expiation, who redeems exactly. His presence is necessary for Venetians, but it cannot be too intrusive: it is good that it is there and that it does not make too much noise because, after all, sins have to be committed. Venice is a sinful city, its inhabitants know it, sin is favoured by closeness, by windows looking on other windows, roof-terraces looking on balconies, houses inside houses, strangers next to strangers. The summer, with its irresistible heat that produces a certain weakness of the senses, takes out sticky clothes, allows to catch a glimpse of bodies through windows’ frames.
Sin is at home in Venice. The Redeemer knows it, and knows also that his work will have to be done punctually each year. Even Venetian people know it and they have faith in him because punctually, each year, he purifies them from sin and guilt, while during the rest of the year he will let them do what they want, staying on the other side of the canal in his apparent, conscious hibernation. Then, on that day of the year, that third Sunday of July when a bridge of boats links Venice to the Redeemer, it is only then that the Redeemer becomes part of Venice, since the canal is not dividing it from him anymore, so he awakens from his hibernation in order to do his work. Nobody will miss the procession leading to the church, since we are not simply talking of a festivity, but of a lifestyle. That crowded walk on a trembling bridge swarming with people is necessary in order to leave behind the sins of a whole year and to begin once again with the new year. It is necessary, so that the city and its citizens do not fill with sins, because we are always living at a faint border, beyond which it is impossible to go. Venice is dying, some people are repeating it from decades, and even if it doesn’t, it is always at the point of doing it, because if sin should prevail, if it went to occupy every house, every calle, and corner of this domestic ant heap, the city’s survival would be put into discussion; that’s why the procession is necessary: to cancel sin, to begin all over again, so that each year Venice can find its innocence and start again.
After the procession the feast explodes. Everybody flock to see the fireworks which mark the beginning of new year’s life. Boats, big and small, every kind of Venetian boat such as burci and bragozzi, gondole and gondolini, caorline and peate, everybody is looking at the splendour of the new innocence, thousands of people are in the calli or in the sea for that night during which sin starts again, exploding once more: people eat, drink, stay one next to the other, kiss, hug, a new Venice regenerates and begins once more.
All this has a secular and even profane sacredness, in the same way in which Venetians love Venice. But everybody, with their naughty air, know the importance of it. Because before the church was built, the city had reached a saturation of sins that would have brought to death, and death came indeed in the form of a pestilence which seemed to have no end. From 1575 to 1577 in Venice died around five thousand people. They thought, then, that it was a divine punishment, since sin had invaded every street, every house, the loose life had profaned the sacredness of life self and now only death could bring back health and would have make known the value of life once again.

The city was on its knees, the punishment seemed to be endless and all citizens understood what had happened but now they had to live, they couldn’t all die, all, for what they had done! And it was then, on 21 September 1576, that the Venetian Senate approved the proposal, done by Doge Alvise Mocenigo, to make a solemn vow in order to save the city. God’s help would have been called by means of the building of a temple “that our descendants will devotedly visit in eternal memory of the good they have received”. On 3 May 1577 the first stone of the church of Redentore was posed. On the third Sunday of July of the same year, the end of the pestilence was proclaimed and Venice was saved forever. No more that point will be reached, no more a divine punishment will come to purge the city from sin, because each Venetian citizen will redeem himself during that feast.
Venice is a sinful and decaying city, Venetians live it and make it this way. But every year, on the third Sunday of July, they go to pay homage to the Redeemer, the one who frees them from all sins. All year long they walk through the calli with a winning impudence, ready to shrug their shoulders, to don’t turn back, but they maintain the sacredness of the Redeemer Feast. To play and have fun is alright, but one always has to remember, each year, to cross that bridge on the Giudecca canal, to climb those steps and to get in there, where everything will begin all over again. And after that they can have fun once more!