The Queen of the Lagoon

The afternoon of the *Festa del Redentore*, five years later, was a spectacle of dazzling Mediterranean joy. Under a brilliant azure summer sky, the city of Venice had transformed into an open-air theater of celebration. The temporary bridge of boats across the Giudecca Canal was packed with tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists walking across the water to pay homage at Palladio’s grand Church of the Redeemer. Hundreds of…