Fireworks explode light and smoke over Redentore Festival (July 16, 2011) in Venice, Italy, Europe. Redentore Festa began as a feast of thanksgiving for the end of the terrible plague of 1576 which killed more than a quarter of Venice (some 46,000 in the city and 94,000 in the lagoons). In thanks to God for the end of this wave of the Great Plague, Venice built Il Redentore (Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, or Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore) from 1577-1592. (A worse round of Black Death swept Venice in 1629-30, after which Venice built the Salute, the last of its "Great Plague churches.") The religious celebration and popular feast of Redentore is held in Venice every the third Saturday and Sunday in July, with fireworks on Saturday night. During festival weekend, a temporary pontoon bridge allows pedestrians to walk 330 meters across Giudecca Canal from the Zattere to Redentore basilica on Giudecca Island. Venice (Venezia), the "city of canals," is the capital of Italy's Veneto region, named for the ancient Veneti people from the 10th century BC.
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