In 1329 Gualtiero Galeota donated to the friars of St. Augustine some houses and a garden that stretched to the edges of the city. In 1339, the friars built a church dedicated to St. John. During the first few years of the 15th century, King Ladislao of Durazzo had a large convent built. In the 18th century the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice built a monumental double-flight stairway leading up to the church entrance.
In the end wall of the single-aisle, rectangular church is the splendid mausoleum of King Ladislao, which the king's sister Giovanna had built when she succeeded to the throne of Naples. The funeral monument erected between 1414 and 1420 is rich in allegorical figures and culminates in the equestrian statue of the king by Andrea from Florence, which is a fundamental example of the transition from Gothic to Renaissance style.
The church leads into three patrician chapels full of Renaissance art: the Caracciolo del Sole Chapel with its imposing sepulchral monument of Ser Gianni Caracciolo, the work of Andrea from Florence with frescoes by Leonardo da Besozzo and the precious majolica terracotta floor of the 15th century.
The Caracciolo Vico Chapel, whose design goes right back to Bramante, contains works by Giovan Tommaso Malvito, Bartolomeo Ordonez and Diego de Siloe. The funeral monument in the Somma Chapel is the work of Annibale Caccavello. The monumental Miroballo altar is the work of Lombard sculptors of the second half of the 15th century.