[2] The Convent of Sant’Anna is the first foundation of the Discalced Carmelites outside of Spain, established in 1584 under the impulse of father Nicolas of Jesus and Mary Doria, a descendant of the prominentDoria family.

By the mid-century Sant'Anna likely had a high influx of patients: testimony thereof is the construction of a large wing dedicated to the preparation and dispensation of medicines, separate from the friar's quarters.

[2] Another document, dated 1652 and stored in the archives of the Convent of Sant'Anna, shows that the chief chemist, brother Martino of Saint Anthony (1638–1721), would "go out every day to procure the ingredients for the medications [...], many patients came to him and not everyone could be healed in the same way [...], hence it was necessary to prepare different potions, medicines,and poultices".

[2] In those years, the Pharmacy started a cooperation with the famous Parisian surgeon Louis Le Roy, author of the treatise Healing Medicine, aka Purgation, translated in Italian for the first time in Bologna in 1824.

[7] A document stored in the library of the Convent shows that brother Modesto, whose lay name was Stefano Montabone, received his diploma of chemist in 1840, granting him permission to practice his profession in Genoa and all other territories of the Kingdom of Sardinia in accordance to letter patents issued by King Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy.

[7] At the end of the 19th century, the construction of the wealthy neighborhood of Circonvallazione a Monte significantly altered the area, when Corso Magenta and the Sant'Anna funicular were built immediately to the South of the convent.