Explore Religious Heritage Across Europe

The church of San Giovanni Battista is a sacred building documented since 1126 as belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Marzano. In the Middle Ages it was also known as San Giovanni d'Afra, because it was built near a dam fed by the waters of the Afra stream. The stone portal on the façade dates back to the original construction, with a contemporary inscription indicating a reconstruction in 1381. The building, now deconsecrated, houses the Stained Glass Museum.

The church of San Giovanni Decollato was built between 1504 and 1588 on the site of an earlier church, Santa Maria de fovea. It was granted in 1488 to the Arciconfraternita di San Giovanni decollato, of Florentine origin, who had it rebuilt in 1504. The purpose of the Arciconfraternita was to assist those condemned to death, to invite them to repent, to comfort them until the end and to bury their bodies.1600 Clement VIII had the cloister built, in which the mass graves of the condemned buried here can still be seen. Further restorations were carried out in 1727 and 1888.

The church of San Giovanni Evangelista is first mentioned in the 12th century, but practically nothing has been preserved of the original structure. It was rebuilt in 1545 and, in the following century, it was frescoed by artists who later participated in the construction of the Basilica della Ghiara. In 1808 it was confiscated by the Napoleonic government and sold at auction to the merchant Luigi Trivelli, owner of the palace opposite the church. His son Giacomo used the church as a tannery and the side chapels as workshops. In 1896 the heir, Count Ferrante Palazzi Trivelli, gave the church for perpetual use to the Venerable Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and St. Francis of Assisi.

The church of San Giovanni in Bragora dates from 829. Legend has it that St. Magnus, bishop of Oderzo, fled his native Opitergium because of the Lombard invasion (639) and that God himself ordered him in a dream to build eight churches, including the church of San Giovanni. However, the first real written record of a church in this area dates back to 1090. In 1464, the church was restructured in the late Gothic style in the form we know today. The work lasted thirty years, from 1475 to 1505, at the end of which it was rededicated, as it is written on the façade, on the architrave of the entrance door, under the lunette.

The church of San Giovanni in Jerusalem dates back to the 12th century. In 1758, the interior of the church was restored at the expense of Lorenzo Corsini. The church was deconsecrated from 1822 to 1982. Today, the complex is the seat of the Militia Templi, a lay order of monastic and chivalric tradition, recognised by the State and the Catholic Church.

The church of San Giovanni in Monte was first mentioned in 1045, but it was enlarged in Romanesque style as early as 1286, and again modified in the 15th century. The bell tower dates from the 13th century, while the octagonal lantern dates from 1496 and is the work of Domenico Balatino. The façade, dating from 1474, was designed by Domenico Berardi and restored in 1914.

The church of San Girolamo dei Croati a Ripetta, built in 1588-89, is the national church of the Croats in Rome. A community of refugees fleeing the Turks from Illyria and Slavonia had settled in the area overlooking the port of Ripetta since the 14th century. In 1453, Pope Nicholas V granted them the establishment of the Congregation of Saint Jerome of the Slavs. In the following century, Pope Sixtus V, who already owned the church, had it completely rebuilt by Martino Longhi the Elder between 1588 and 1589, adding a bell tower and rich furnishings.

The Church of St. Joseph of the Naked was built in 1785 on the ruins of an Agustinian convent. It is part of the Museum Real Monte and Archconfraternity of St. Joseph's Opera del Vestire i Nudes.

The Church of San Giuseppe dei Vecchi e Immacolata di Lourdes is a historic church founded in the 17th century at the heart of Naples.

The church of San Giuseppe di Castello was built in the 16th century with an adjoining Augustinian convent. The exterior of the building is in classical style, with lateral pilasters supporting a modest tympanum. The ceiling, frescoed in 1660-1663 by Pietro Ricchi, known as "the Lucchese", depicts, in the central tondo, St. Joseph in glory and, on the sides, the Glory of Saint Monica.