A group of Dominican tertiary nuns, living in a small house in via Santa Chiara where St. Catherine had died, were looking for larger premises.

The construction of a church began in 1608, initially at expense of Cardinal Scipione Borghese to a design by Carlo Maderno, but stopped in 1613.

The massive main altar's architecture to the design of the Maltese sculptor Melchiorre Cafà is shaped similar to church facades.

The scene is embedded in a smooth, polychrome background which forms a concave curve through which it underlines the protagonist's statuesque appearance, seemingly detached from it.

Its pieces of differently coloured marble are arranged in such a way that they suggest dematerialised dark clouds opening up to let St. Catherine ascend to heaven.

In addition, Cafà pulls together recently finished or contemporary solutions from within the workshop of Ercole Ferrata of which he himself was an essential part, in particular the Statue of St. Catherine for Siena Cathedral, St. Agnes on a Pyre and the concave shaped relief Martyrdom of Sant'Emerenziana (both in Sant'Agnese in Agone).

From these ingredients and his own artistic power, Cafà produces a highly emotive pictorial solution unseen before, neither neatly definable as a relief nor as a statue nor as a picture.

[4] In the chancel's dome are four medallions depicting Dominican saints surrounded by a multitude of putti, all possibly also by Cafà, and the fresco The Glory of the Eternal Father by Francesco Rosa in the lantern.

[4] The tabernacle in the shape of a ciborium, made from lapis lazuli, agate, and gilded bronze, and the high altar on which it sits was designed in 1785 by the architect Carlo Marchionni.