The church of the Saints Giovanni and Reparata is located in the Romanesque part of the historical center of Lucca. It has a close relationship with the Cathedral of St. Martin, as it is as the first seat of the bishops of the diocese and the holder of the right to the baptismal font. In the nineteenth century, under the rule of Napoleon, it became keeper of the archives of the ancient Republic. In 1828 the church was re-consecrated for worship. 


The religious complex, consisting of the Baptistery and the Church, spread over a considerable archaeological site open to the public in 1992. Significant excavations have brought to light the primitive system of the Basilica of the fifth century and the adjacent Early Christian Baptistery. 

At the Romanesque basilica, remains have been found of the first Lucca Cathedral, dedicated to Santa Reparata. Under the Baptistery instead, excavations have recovered a layering on five levels corresponding to the different ages of the history of Lucca, the foundation of the Roman "municipium" of the first century BC until the late empire when the area became the site of the Cathedral.

From this, the subsequent reconstructions High Middle Ages up to the present aspect of the Romanesque church are highlighted. Among the oldest artefacts recovered: a fragment of the pavement of the Roman domus in the first century BC, the ruins of the baths I-II century AD, burials of the Lombard era and some evidence of early medieval Baptistery and the Carolingian crypt.