The church was built in a centralized Greek-cross plan from 1602 to 1613 using the architectural designs of Giuseppe Nuvolo.

The main altar is elevated and accessed via flanking Baroque-style spiraling staircases, all sheathed in polychrome marble.

[1] On the left of the nave is an elevated polychrome marble pulpit, designed by Dionisi Lazzari.

The crypt has ten shallow altars surmounted by frescoes by Bernardino Fera.

[3] The interior of the upper church and chapels are decorated by painters such as: The original church was connected to the veneration of San Gaudioso, a bishop of Abitina in the Roman province of Africa, who died in Naples in c.451 after being set adrift from the north African coast by the Vandal King Genseric.