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The Society of Jesus arrived in the newly founded village of Buenos Ayres in 1608, establishing their first mission on a 2 hectare (5 acre) lot which had earlier been destined by Spanish conquistador Juan de Garay for the future town square.

The center housed the Office of the Advocate General of the Missions (which oversaw the order's numerous, lucrative Indian Reductions), as well as a pharmacy (the city's first) opened and operated by an English Jesuit, Father Thomas Falkner.

The temple was usurped and converted into a cathedral in 1775, though Father Falkner's pharmacy formed the basis for Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz's Medical Court of 1780 - the first school of medicine in what is today Argentina.

[1] The provisional government organized from the May Revolution of 1810, the First Assembly, opened a public library in 1812, and following the War of Independence, Governor Martín Rodríguez inaugurated the University of Buenos Aires and the General Archive, in 1821.

[3] Governor Rodríguez also established the Provincial Legislature and the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires at the site, in 1822, as well as the city's first natural sciences museum (later housed in the nearby Santo Domingo convent).