The monastery was founded in 1616 in the walled city, where its ruins survive, and only after 1718 was it moved to the present site, where there was a small church of St Catherine of Alexandria built in 1622 on the site of a church of St Sebastian from 1348. The church has Rococo features while the surviving part of the monastery has more rustic features. Once the monastery was abolished after the Unification, the building was used as the Regina Margherita orphanage in 1923. In 1959, a collapse swept away part of the church's vault, causing serious damage to the furnishings. The church has a single nave with a semicircular apse.
Iglesia del Santo Salvador
The single-order façade has a vertical appearance and the door, surmounted by a high window, is connected by elegant oval windows. In the attic area, an important feature is the door with a broken tympanum, decorated with cherubs and floral motifs in Rococo style, and completed by the order's coat of arms and a niche with a statue of St Benedict. A side body supported the bell gable, now demolished. An 18th-century architraved door opens on the northern side, adjacent to a coeval added body. Inside is a large hall with a lunetted full-centre vault. On the apse wall, lacking the old wooden high altar, is the Ascension, by an unknown 18th century author. Flanking it were four oval paintings with scenes from the life of Jesus. Two mixed-media canvases were also removed: The Flight into Egypt and Madonna with St. Michael the Archangel.
On the left wall, the two altars were surmounted by two altarpieces, Baptism of Jesus and St. Benedict, and on the right, The Nativity and St. Scholastica. In the apse basin, the fresco of Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus by Scipio Manni is preserved. On the high altar remains the Transfiguration in a richly carved and gilded frame. The room is enveloped in a dramatic stucco decoration with plant motifs and cherubs, enlivened by large windows that flood the room with light.