The architect Baldassare Longhena is selected to design the new church, which will finally be completed in 1681, the year before Longhena's death.

The other design to make it to the final round is by Antonio Smeraldi (il Fracao) and Zambattista Rubertini.

Of the proposals still extant, Belli's and Smeraldi's original plans are conventional counterreformation linear churches, resembling Palladio's Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore, while Varotari's is a sketchy geometrical abstraction.

Longhena's proposal is a concrete architectural plan, detailing the structure and costs.

The Venetian Senate votes sixty-six in favor, twenty-nine against with two abstentions to authorize the designs of the twenty-six-year-year old Longhena.

His plan for the Salute, while novel in many ways, still shows the influence of Palladian classicism and the domes of Venice.