When, in the 13th century, the friars of the Order of Preachers, commonly called Dominican friars, settled in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, they not only enlarged the church, but also built a number of buildings to house and live in seclusion and a Cosmatesque cloister on the left side of the church.
Between 1559 and 1569, the General of the Dominican Order, Vincenzo Giustiniani, commissioned Guidetto Guidetti to design and direct the rebuilding of the thirteenth-century cloister.
The cloister lost its 15th-century decoration, which Cardinal Giovanni Torquemada probably wanted painted with biblical scenes from his "Meditationes", and was replaced by the Mysteries of the Rosary and Scenes from the Life of St Thomas Aquinas, in a Mannerist-Baroque style.
Francesco Nappi, Giovanni Battista Ruggeri, Cesare Torelli, Giovanni Valesio, Giuseppe Puglia and other unknown artists painted the frescoes of the cloister arches, commissioned by Bishop Andrea Fernandez de Cordoba in the early 17th century.
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