It was housed in a complex of buildings along the Floriana Lines overlooking Marsamxett Harbour, which are currently being restored and incorporated into the Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS).

In 1665, the Congregation of War of the Order of St John began making plans to construct a gunpowder factory along the Floriana Lines overlooking Marsamxett Harbour.

The Casa di Carità was administered by a ten-member commission which included four elderly Hospitaller knights, a priest, a vicar, two jurats and two prominent Maltese.

The Casa di Carità was reformed by Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc with a set of new regulations in 1785, and at this point its name was changed to the Ospizio.

[2] Reformed prostitutes and mentally-ill female patients were transferred from the Casetta in Valletta to the Ospizio during the French occupation,[3][4] while from 1804 to 1832 and 1848 to 1894 the site also housed an orphanage for illegitimate children.

[5] On 15 January 1815, Governor Thomas Maitland issued a Charitable Institutions Reform[2] which transformed the Ospizio into a poorhouse and by the following year, its Hospitaller-era administrative structure was abolished[5] and the tax on notarial acts which had provided funding had been repealed.

[3] Between September 1835 and 1838, all mentally ill patients in the Ospizio were moved to Villa Franconi, a large residential building in Floriana which was repurposed as an asylum.

During World War II, gun emplacements were installed on the fortifications around the area, which were then targeted during enemy air raids.