San Giovanni, Gothic church building in Saluzzo, Italy

San Giovanni is a Gothic church in Saluzzo with a sober facade from 1376 and a square bell tower with five orders of biforas and an octagonal spire with four pinnacles. Inside, three naves with cross vaults are reached by descending a stone staircase from the portal to the central nave. Side chapels include the Cavassa chapel with a white marble portal by Matteo Sanmicheli and 16th-century frescoes.

Built in 1281 to replace a chapel dedicated to Santa Maria from 1230, San Giovanni served as Saluzzo's main church until 1501. Dominicans officiated there from 1320 until 1802, when Napoleonic authorities suppressed the house; in 1820 the church passed to the bishop, who entrusted it to the Servants of Mary. The 1376 remodelling gave the facade and bell tower their present form and turned the apse from north to west.

The apse holds the burial chapel of the Marquises of Saluzzo, a key example of Piedmontese Flamboyant Gothic. Its only tomb is that of Marquis Ludovico II, carved around 1508 by Benedetto Briosco in white Paesana marble to a design by Antoine Morel. The facing niche was meant for his wife Margherita di Foix-Candale, but she was buried in France.

The interior is reached by descending a stone staircase that separates the portal from the central nave, an arrangement dating from the 1376 remodelling. The Gothic cloister opens off the left nave; the refectory beyond it holds a coffered ceiling and a large Crucifixion fresco from the early 16th century.

The large fresco of Saint Christopher on the main facade is not medieval: it was painted in 1929 by Ovidio Fonti, a well-known historical fake. The apse was planned by Thomas III as a memorial to the Holy Sepulchre, with a cupboard called della "spina" for a Holy Thorn he may have obtained from King Charles VI of France; it was built by his son Louis I.