The church of San Giovanni di Malta or San Giovanni al Tempio or also dei Furlani is a religious building in the city of Venice, located in the Castello district.
Located near the church of Sant'Antonin and the Scuola di San Giorgio
degli Schiavoni, near the calle dei Furlani there is the calle blind
where the Knights of Malta lived, and who built a church and a hospital
here.
The church is known as the church of San Giovanni di Malta,
but has changed its name several times over the years. It was built for
the first time in the 11th century with the name of San Giovanni
Battista, to then be called by the Venetians San Giovanni dei Furlani,
for the name of the calle it overlooked, this name was also referred to
as the hospital of Santa Caterina , because the area was mainly
inhabited by people originally from Friuli.
For almost two
centuries the church was owned by the Templars and for this reason it
assumed the name of the church of San Giovanni del Tempio, but when the
order was suppressed, in 1312, it was entrusted to the Knights of Malta
and changed the name definitively to the current: church of San Giovanni
di Malta.
The current plan dates back to 1565, the year of the
last renovation.
The church was closed by Napoleon and remained
so until 1839, when the order of the Knights of Malta was rehabilitated.
During this period the church housed a printing house and a performance
hall.
The plan of the church consists of a single nave, with a presbytery
which houses the coats of arms of the Knights, and the list of current
priors.
An important work is undoubtedly the Baptism of Christ by
Giovanni Bellini; the main altar is not original, but is that of the
church of San Geminiano, an extremely ancient building which overlooked
Piazza San Marco since the 7th century, but which Napoleon decided to
demolish to unite the Procuratie with the new Napoleonic wing, the
current Correr Museum.
The cloister is interesting, which houses
the tombstones of many knights of the two orders, who have managed this
church.
All the works contained in the church, fixed and movable
furnishings, were reassembled under Austrian domination to try to make
up for the Napoleonic spoils. In modern times, the American painter
Frank Mason donated a cycle of canvases on St. Anthony to the church.