The Redentore traditional feast is celebrated every year on the third sunday of July...
On sunday a Holy Mass is held by the Patriarch in the Redentore church in
Giudecca and a bridge of boats is built between Venice and the church.
The celebration is followed by a religious procession that cross the bridge of boats connecting
the island to the rest of Venice.
Since sunset, illuminated boats, decorated with coloured
balloons, begin assembling in Saint Mark’s Basin and Giudecca
Canal, carrying groups of people eating traditional food and waiting for the firework
display, which takes place at 11.30 pm and lasts until after midnight. The night ends with all the boats going to Lido where they wait
for the dawn.
The Redentore day celebrates the end of the plague that spread through the city of Venice from 1575 to
1577, causing terrible losses of population.
Almost 50,000 died,
which was more than a third of the city’s inhabitants.
In 1576, on the 4th September,
the Senate decided that the Doge should announce
the vow to erect a church dedicated to the Redentore (Redeemer), for asking him to stop the terrible plague, with the promise of celebrating it every year.
The church was built after Palladio's project in the island of Giudecca.
In 1577, on July 13, the plague was declared definitively over and many people who survived the plague crossed
the channel on the bridge, built for
this occasion.
Since that day it
was decided that the city’s liberation from the terrible disease
should be celebrated every year on the third Sunday of July, with a religious rite and a popular holiday.
