 The small church of the Visitation was not large enough for the Dominicans and by 1720 they had decided to build a new church, larger and of more architectural importance.They first engaged Andrea Musato, but he died in 1721 and they turned to Giorgio Massari, whose model for the new church was accepted in 1724.Rudolf Wittkower describes Massari as "the greatest Venetian architect of the first half of the 18th century".