[2] It serves as the teaching hospital for the medical school of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and owes its name to the university founder, the Franciscan friar, physician and psychologist Agostino Gemelli.

Construction began in 1959 under the direction of Giuseppe Cigni on the hill of Monte Mario in Rome, and the hospital opened its doors in July 1964.

[3] Undergraduate and postgraduate Medical studies, Nursing sciences, Physiotherapy and a variety of other clinical subjects takes place at the main building.

The original manorial villa, built long before the site was chosen to build the hospital and previously used as a convent, now serves as the Institute of Bioethics, as well as the main university Church.

Its co-generation system provides around 60% of the energy that is needed for electricity, heating and cooling, making it one of the largest infrastructures of this kind in the civil and hospital sectors in Italy.

[5] Since 2015, the hospital hosts one of the largest and newest hybrid operating theatres in Europe,[6] a highly specialised Oncological Radiotherapy Center (Gemelli ART) unique in Italy[7] and the NEMO (NEuroMuscular Omnicentre) Clinical Center, highly specialized in taking care of people affected with neuromuscular diseases including Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and Muscular Dystrophies.

[13] The Gemelli became the focus of international attention during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II who, in 1981, received emergency surgery after Mehmet Ali Ağca's failed assassination attempt.

[14] Other famous ex-patients include politicians Giulio Andreotti, Walter Veltroni and Francesco Cossiga, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mother Teresa, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, priest Georg Ratzinger (elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI), footballers Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi and Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew to name a few.