Leaving the Palazzo Coronini complex along the ancient Via dei Coronini, you reach Piazza Tommaseo, where the church originally dedicated to San Giovanni stands, built in 1656 next to the hospital of the order of the Misericorditi or Fatebenefratelli by order of Baron Giovanni Vito del Mestri.

Since the site was considered too damp and unhealthy, due to the nearby Corno stream, now filled in, in the 1780s the hospital was moved to the Alvarez Palace.

Renovated in 1768-69 in Baroque style, the church was completely rebuilt after the First World War, at the end of the 1920s. On the façade, dominated by giant walls, the pomegranate tree above the entrance, the emblem of the Fatebenefratelli, recalls the building's origins. The single-nave interior features a series of exquisite marble altars: the main altar, with its modest altarpiece depicting the Martyrdom of Saints Vito and Modesto, comes from the Dominican church of Farra; the side altars are from the Cathedral.

Most people from Gorizia still call this square by its ancient name of “Piazzutta,” from the Friulian word Plazuta, meaning small square, which was once used to distinguish it from the nearby Piazza Grande, now Piazza Vittoria.