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The Complex was founded by the Saxons in the 7th century A.D. to accommodate pilgrims on their way to the Tomb of Peter and later transformed by Pope Innocent III into the first hospital for the elderly and infirm.

In the Complex, consisting of the Sistine wards (the Baglivi and Lancisi rooms), the Cloisters of the Friars, the Nuns and the Spinsters (or "Cloister of the Well") and finally the Palazzo del Commendatore (which is a 16th century extension), several important collections are preserved. Almost 400 pieces including ceramics and pharmaceutical glass, tapestries, sculptures and reliefs; about 300 paintings, drawings and prints, numerous frescoes, grotesques and other pictorial wall decorations. 20,000 printed volumes, including around 60 incunabula, 2. 000 sixteenth century books and 374 precious manuscripts from different periods, two parchment codices of Avicenna's writings and the better known Liber Fraternitatis Sancti Spiritus, two globes by Vincenzo Coronelli (a terrestrial and a celestial globe from 1600), two brass armillary spheres, donated by the mathematician Giordano Vitale and Barocci, and a diopter used in surveying to determine and trace views, unique testimonies of Roman scientific culture in the modern age that will be returned to the city.

To further enrich the heritage, in the basement there are the remains of the villa of Agrippina Major (wife of Germanicus and mother of Caligula) with opus reticulatum walls, mosaic floors, fragments of carved marble and parts of frescoes.