In the second half of the fourteenth century the Sienese aristocrat Stricoccio Marescotti, who had dedicated his life to penitence and the care of the sick, turned his small country house on the Capriola Hill into an oratory dedicated to Saint Onuphrius the Hermit, donating it to the Hospital of  Santa Maria della Scala. In the early fifteenth century, after having ensured that the Hospital would give the oratory to the Observants, Bernardino began the foundation of the friary, whose church was initially dedicated to the Assumpted Virgin and, after his canonization, to Bernardino himself (1451). He lived here until 1414 and returned several times during his life. During the fifteenth century, largely on account of the great evangelical activities carried out by Bernardino and of fame that he was gaining in Italy, Siena’s Observant community gradually acquired prestige in the city and importance within the Order. In 1474, Pier Paolo d’Ugolino Ugurgieri supported the construction of the church, under the supervision of the frati architectori in collaboration with two illustrious architects: Francesco di Giorgio Martini (who spent the last years of his life at the Capriola and was buried in the crypt) and Giacomo Cozzarelli, accountable for the sixteenth century additions - twenty years later the construction of the sacristy, of the underlying crypt and the extension of the . . .