The church of San Giovanni Battista ai Catecumeni commonly called dei Catecumeni is a religious building in Venice located in the Dorsoduro district.
In 1557 the government of the Republic of Venice decided to establish
a shelter for all prisoners of war or slaves of non-Christian faith who
chose to free themselves from their condition by converting to
Catholicism and for this reason called catechumens. The first
headquarters were identified in the Cannaregio district but soon proved
to be insufficient, especially after 1571 when the number of converted
prisoners present in the city increased considerably following the
battle of Lepanto. A special area was therefore assigned near the Dogana
da mar where, in addition to lodgings for the catechumens, an oratory
dedicated to Saint John the Baptist was also built.
In 1727 the
architect Giorgio Massari was commissioned to build a new church to
replace the oratory which had become insufficient. The new building
would have been built with the facade facing the canal, now underground,
of the Catechumens.
During the 19th century the church was
annexed as a private oratory to the adjacent convent of the Salesian
nuns of which it still belongs today.
The very simple facade is in Istrian stone and consists of a portal
surmounted by a circular rose window. The façade is completed by two
lateral pilasters which support the tympanum.
The interior has a
single nave and was partially stripped of some furnishings during the
19th century. The altar is decorated with an altarpiece by Leandro
Bassano depicting the Baptism of Jesus.