The patron saint of Ospedaletti is Saint John the Baptist, celebrated on 24 June. According to tradition, some crusaders who had survived the fury of the sea decided to thank the saint by raising a chapel, today's chapel of Sant'Erasmo: besides the church, the knights, who later took the name of Knights of Rhodes, built a hospice to assist pilgrims bound for the Holy Land, from which the name Ospedaletti, "hospitable place", is said to derive. The chapel's first structure, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and later to Saint Erasmus, protector of sailors, was built in the 14th century by the Knights Hospitaller; abandoned between 1913 and 1940, it was later reconsecrated, and Pope Pius VII stopped there on 11 February 1814.
The church of San Giovanni Battista in the old town centre, whose first stone was laid and blessed in 1817, was completed in 1824: inside, in Baroque style, it holds the painting of the Madonna di Foligno by Tommaso Rossi, a copy of the work of the same name by Raphael.
