This dome is exquisite but has a morbid history. Between 1630 and 1631, nearly 100,000 people in and around Venice, about a third of its population, died from the plague. In an attempt to defeat the pandemic, the Basilica of Saint Mary of Health was commissioned. By the time this dome was completed in 1687, the outbreaks had stopped but not before the Black Death killed an estimated 75 to 250 million people across Europe.
