On 10 March 2012, the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Camaldolese in 1012 was celebrated here at a Vespers service attended by Anglican and Catholic prelates and jointly led by Pope Benedict XVI and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The current edifice was rebuilt on the old site to designs by Giovanni Battista Soria in 1629–1633, commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese; work was suspended with his death, and taken up again in 1642.

The church is preceded by a wide staircase rising from the via di San Gregorio, the street separating the Caelian hill from the Palatine.

The façade, the most prominent and artistically successful work of Giovanni Battista Soria (1629–33), resembles in its style and material (travertine), that of San Luigi dei Francesi; it is not the façade of the church however, but instead leads into a forecourt or peristyle,[7] at the rear of which the church itself can be reached through a portico (illustration, left) that contains some tombs: these once included that of the famous courtesan Imperia, lover of the rich banker Agostino Chigi (1511), but later it was adapted to serve as the tomb of a 17th-century prelate.

A Latin inscription commemorating Sir Edward Carne, the ambassador of Queen Mary I of England and a noted scholar of ancient Greek language and culture, can be made out.

Also interesting is the Salviati Chapel, designed by Francesco da Volterra and finished by Carlo Maderno in 1600: it includes an ancient fresco which, according to the associated tradition, spoke to St. Gregory, and a marble altar (1469) by Andrea Bregno and pupils.

To the left of the church, tightly grouped in the garden, are three oratories commissioned by Cardinal Cesare Baronio at the beginning of the 17th century, as commemorations of Gregory's original monastery.

[12] This oratory, with frescoes (1602) by Antonio Viviani, represents the rebuilding by Cardinal Baronio (1602) of the famous triclinium where St. Gregory hosted a meal every day for a dozen poor men of Rome.

The grounds of the oratories also include some substructures of the Roman imperial period, that may merely have been tabernae, but one of which exhibits striking features that encourage some experts[citation needed] to think it is an early Christian meeting place and baptismal pool.