It was built by the Confraternity of San Giovanni Evangelista in the 12th-13th centuries as a church attached to the Hospital of Tivoli.
Until the early 15th century it remained dedicated to St. Christopher, and the figures of two saints frescoed on the right walls of the church, dating from the 13th century, date from this period.
There are four altars, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, Mark the Evangelist, Holy Crucifix, and St. John.
The walls are all frescoed; the frescoes in the chancel constitute, from an artistic point of view, the most important pictorial cycle in Tivoli, attributed to Antoniozzo Romano or the so-called “Master of Tivoli,” working in the second half of the 15th century.
On the first altar is a glazed statue, referable to a 16th-century Venetian workshop, donated by the Tiburtine nobleman Vincenzo Leonini; on the left wall is the beautiful fresco of the Annunciation of the Virgin, dressed in white, in reference to the habit worn by the members of the Confraternity of St. John the Evangelist, who were particularly devoted to the Madonna.
On the right wall of the chancel is the Birth of St. John, and the vault and sub-arch are also decorated; in the sub-arch are the frescoes of the 12 sibyls, whose images are enclosed in medallions, and below the portrait is the prophecy of each of them.
The frescoes preserved in the single nave of the church are attributed to Florentine painter Francesco Salviati (1510-1563) and illustrate the Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ; other frescoes are related to the life and miracles of St. John the Evangelist.