The ancient convent - first Hospital "Ca ' di Dio", later transformed into nursing home, school and now civic library - was founded in 1585, with a church dedicated to St. Antonio of Padua. In 1924 the city of Chioggia has entrusted the current house of the chaplain of the cemetery to the Capuchins; the little Church, built in the years 1930-36, is dedicated to SS. Giovanni Battista and Antonio di Padova, and serves as chapel for the cemetery and ossuary for the fallen of Chioggia in World War I (1915-18). The residence was expanded in the years 1946-47 and radically restored in 2001. But in Chioggia, the Capuchin Franciscans are especially known as guardians of the sanctuary of the Madonna della Navicella. The sacred building, entrusted to the care of the friars on October 17th, 1957, was rebuilt after about a century and a half from the loss of the ancient homonymous sanctuary. The latter had been raised on the lido di Chioggia (and for this reason called Marine Sanctuary), where according to tradition, the 24 June 1504, the Blessed Virgin appeared to a gardener to ask to repentance and conversion. The news quickly spread around, and on July 8th already, Mario Sanudo referred to the fact in his famous diaries and added that "it was incalculable how many people went" to pray in the wooden chapel built up on the site. The chapel was later replaced by a real Marian sanctuary.