The complex is bound by Via dei Malcontenti, Via delle Casine, Via Pietro Thouar and the Viale della Giovine Italia.
Originally Montedomini referred to a suburb in the east of the city, next to the shores of the Mugnone stream, where the Clarissan nuns had a monastery.
Destroyed in the Siege of Florence (1529–30), the nuns were relocated by Duke Alessandro de' Medici to this site, inside the walls, where there previously had been a Lazzaretto or leper asylum (1478), called the Spedale degli Ammorbati (Hospital of the Sick).
[4] In 1868 the rules of the Pia Casa di Lavoro were revised and it became the largest charitable institution in Florence, offering shelter to over 1000 persons of all ages and both sexes.
[5] Among the trades taught to boys in 1848 were mechanic, carriage worker, varnisher/painter (verniciatore), blacksmith, cobbler, typographer, and engraver/wood carver.