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The church of San Giovanni Battista is the only one, under this title, which is still preserved today, albeit in a state of precariousness and neglect. It is better known as the "Church of Monserrato", named after an ancient brotherhood erected in the second half of the 16th century. Next to the church there is a substantial body of the building which today houses the stigmatine nuns and which was originally a Benedictine monastery, owned by the abbey of Montevergine. In the mid-1500s the area was considered to be outside the city center and was generically called "the Road", with evident reference to the "Strada Regia delle Puglie". Hence the name of "San Giovanni della Strada" which we find in the most ancient documents referring to this monastic complex. In the place where the monastery of San Giovanni was built, there was already an ancient church dedicated to this saint, as Bellabona wrote. The hypothesis supported by Ovidio de Luciis, according to which the church of San Giovanni della Strada and the adjoining monastery, were donated to the congregation of Montevergine, in 1125 by Rainulfo, "prince" of Avellino and his wife Matilde, is completely wrong. , sister of Ruggiero II the Norman Although Bella Bona had already shown the historical-chronological groundlessness, several later writers, from De Franchi to Zigarelli, accepted the hypothesis of de Luciis. Most likely the ancient church of San Giovanni della Strada, referred to by Bella Bona, was renovated under the government of the "de Cardona" and was then built next to it by the Marquise Maria, the monastery entrusted to the Benedictines of Montevergine. In support of this hypothesis, a "news", inserted in a manuscript of the '700, in which, under the date of June 28, 1559, is reported as follows: "In this year the principle of the factory of the Priory (Benedictine) of Chiusano to the magnate Luzio Trammaglia and said money was applied in the factory of the Priory of Avellino, since Mrs. Marchesa (de Cardona) of Avellino donated the Church of San Giovanni in 1557 "