It was commissioned by Pope Julius III, in completion of a vow relative to his escape following the Sack of Rome, 1527.

The tempio as it was long called, is an unadorned cube with a dentilled cornice without a frieze, surmounted by an elliptical low dome masked by a high plain drum with a comparable frieze, all in the gray pietra serena more usual to Tuscany than Rome.

Very flat Corinthian pilasters, doubled at the corners, divide the applied facade in three bays, with shell-headed niches flanking the door.

After being long neglected, the unadorned geometry of the structure began to have an appeal to the popular Neoclassical style.

The church was refurbished by the neoclassic architect Giuseppe Valadier, during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, 1805.