Santa Maria della Salute (‘of Health’), the masterpiece of Baldassare Longhena and the finest Baroque building in Venice, was built in thanksgiving for the cessation of the plague of 1630-31, in which 50,000 Venetians died. Canaletto played down the strong foreshortening of the church when seen from this position, and brought the complex around the Palazzo Ducale, to the left, much closer to the viewer.