The church of San Giovanni is located upstream from the town of Gavoi. In the district of the same name that it takes its name from. The single-bay layout is punctuated by diaphragm arches, thus tracing the architectural modes of late Catalan Gothic in its Sardinian variant. The triumphal arch and the one between bays 4 and 5 are ogival in shape with pink trachyte subarches, while 1, 2 and 3 are instead round arches with an irregular course and without the presence of trachyte subarches but simply plastered. Most probably, the latter were reconstructed in their present form in more recent times following the collapse of the original ones. To support this hypothesis, in the first arch are the surviving trachyte impost ashlars of the original subarches. To the southeast the sacristy, with a rectangular plan, abuts and connects with the fifth bay, thus constituting an overall asymmetrical layout. The present roofing with a lattero-cement slab replaced in recent times, the original roofing with wooden load-bearing structure formed by planking and rafters resting on the arches-diaphragm. The gabled front elevation, with a simple rectangular doorway, faces a small, reserved square connected to the larger St. John’s Square by gray granite steps. The southeast side elevation, punctuated by buttresses at the façade and the 1st and 2nd arches, has a small bell gable. The absolute lack of documentary sources do not allow a precise dating, however from a comparison with similar ecclesiastical buildings of certain date, it can be ascribed with good approximation to the first half of the 17th century. Also of eighteenth-century workmanship are the valuable wooden works in the chancel, a crucifix and three statues inserted in the nineteenth-century Baroque stucco altar. In the center is the statue of the madonna (it is carried at Holy Easter on the occasion of “s’incontru”), To her right is St. Zachariah holding the infant St. John and to her left St. John.
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