ROME — Dominican friars will open a hidden cloister located just a few steps from Rome's Pantheon to guided public tours starting June 1, 2026. The frescoed walls of the cloister are currently closed to the general public and are located behind a large wooden door near the Pantheon.

Around 20 Dominican friars live in the convent around the cloister and carry out their duties. "It is designed to be a place of prayer, of meditation and therefore in some way to encourage prayer and the meditation of the friars," said Friar Aucone.

At the center of the cloister is a pond containing goldfish and turtles. Olive trees, two large palm trees, and an orange tree surround the central pond, and the friars use the oranges to make marmalade. Cats lounge in sunny spots on the cloister's grass.

Several frescoes covering the walls and vaulted ceilings of the cloister depict the mysteries of the rosary. Other frescoes in niches and corners around the cloister reveal the historical activities of its inhabitants. Portraits in medallions high on the walls of the cloister show decapitated Dominican friars with only stumps for necks and their heads held in their hands.

A medallion in the cloister shows Fra Angelico depicted as a wrinkled old man in a friar's habit hunched over a painting. A medallion in the cloister shows St. Catherine of Siena.

The original cloister was replaced around 1570 by a design from architect Guidetto Giudetti, a student of Michelangelo. In the late 1200s, Dominican friars built a church on the site of the current cloister. The Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is built over what was once a pagan temple to the Roman god Minerva.

In 1633, Galileo Galilei was interrogated by judges of the Roman Inquisition in a room on the side of the cloister and was forced to renounce his idea that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. The convent served as the offices for the Roman Inquisition in the 16th century. The building surrounding the cloister was the site of two papal conclaves that elected Pope Eugene IV in 1431 and Pope Nicholas V in 1447.

St. Catherine of Siena spent time at the convent and is buried in the adjoining Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The Renaissance painter Fra Angelico, a Dominican, stayed at the convent while painting the frescoes on the Niccoline Chapel in the Vatican and is also buried in the adjoining basilica.