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An oratory that was dedicated to St Jerome was first documented on this site on Mount Asciano in the 13th century.  [According to tradition, it  was erected to commemorate a miracle in which St Francis restored a dead woman to life.]

In 1358, Bishop Giovanni Morlacca gave the oratory to three members of a penitent confraternity in Gubbio who wanted to live as Augustinian hermits.  The community attracted a growing number of Franciscans, and in 1383 it  adopted the rule of the Observant Franciscans.  The complex passed to the Capuchins in 1625, a move that was approved by Pope Urban VIII in the following year.

The community was suppressed in 1810-4 and again, this time definitively, in 1866-78.  The Poor Clares of Santa Chiara, Assisi bought the complex in 1935.  They rented it to the Comunità di Capodarco dell’ Umbria (Centro Comunitario Gesù Risorto), a voluntary organisation dedicated to helping disabled people and others marginalised in society, in 1966.  However, the location proved inconvenient for their purposes, and in 2000 they agreed an exchange of properties with the Poor Clares of the Monastero di SS Trinità.

The nuns brought with them the body of the Venerable Chiara Isabella Gherzi (or Ghersi).

The 14th century cloister survives.

The Capuchins built the present church and the larger chapel to the left of it.  This chapel, which communicates with another chapel on the left of the church, now forms the last Station of the Cross before pilgrims walking up the mountain reach the church itself.  

Crucifix (1637)

This Crucifix in the chapel on the left is signed by Innocenzo da Petralia Sopranna and dated by inscription (Fr. Innocentius de Petralia Sicilae fecit 1637).

Blessed Leonard of Porto Maurizio (ca. 1797)

The Capuchins commissioned this altarpiece from Annibale Beni, who painted it in Rome.  It depicts the Franciscan Leonard of Porto Maurizio holding a crucifix: he had been beatified in 1796 and was subsequently canonised in 1867.  It is in the wall of the chapel next to the church that now forms the last Station of the Cross before the church itself is reached by pilgrims walking up the mountain.  

God the Father and Chiara Isabella Gherzi (19th century)

This panel in the chapel on the left came from SS Trinità.  It commemorates Chiara Isabella Gherzi, who had been abbess at SS Trinità at the time of her death in 1800, and whom the nuns regarded as a saint.  In this panel, she demonstrates to a group of nuns that God is pleased with two putti, one of whom holds the lily of chastity and one of whom has instruments of penance.