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In 1557 the Countess Maria de Cardona conceived the idea of ​​building a monastery next to the church, having made available the area on which to build the monastery. The eighteenth-century plans designed by father F.M. remain of the original monastery. Bears. It is difficult to establish what were the causes that led the monastery of San Giovanni, after about 25 years of intense activity, to experience a gradual but constant period of decay, from the end of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth. Unlike the church which, despite countless repairs and renovations, has preserved the seventeenth-century layout, commissioned by Camillo Caracciolo; in the monastery, as it appears today, the original one is no longer recognizable, of which you can get an idea by observing the eighteenth-century plans designed by Father Orsi. In fact, with the suppression of the Religious Orders at the beginning of the 19th century, the monastery of San Giovanni was abandoned by the Virginians. Initially, the premises were used by the Municipality to establish the direction of direct contributions. Meanwhile, the demolition of the "Fatebenefratelli Hospital", in place of which the theater was built (today Palazzo Sarchiola), made it necessary to find new accommodation for health and welfare services. The Municipality considered it appropriate to entrust a part of the old monastery to the "War Branch" to accommodate the Regimental Hospital, while another part was destined for a "Civil Hospice". This new condition was ratified with "Sovereign Rescritto" on July 3, 1819. In reality, as we shall see later, the Municipality had no right to manage these premises. Meanwhile, the hospital administrators, who had carried out a whole series of renovations to make the premises suitable for the new function, in 1825 asked for the "Sovereign Concession" to be able to definitively allocate the complex to the health service. The request, however, "harnessed" in the meshes of the bureaucracy, as it was discovered that it was not clear to whom the premises of the suppressed monastery belonged. In reality, after the French occupation and the subsequent Bourbon restoration, on the basis of the concordat with the Holy See, many assets stolen from the church returned to their legitimate owners. The "Commission executing the Concordat" intended to reinstate the virginians in the possession of the old monastery of San Giovanni, but they, perhaps foreseeing the inevitable clash with the hospital administrators, refused. Behind the refusal of the virginians, the commission, on 20 October 1838, assigned the monastery to the Camaldolese fathers of the Most Holy Savior of Naples. They with great determination asked for the evacuation of the premises, their restructuring and also the retroactive rent, because the premises were unduly occupied. The requests of the monks, of course, were addressed to all those Institutes that, directly or indirectly, were involved in the affair. Thus began a long legal dispute that ended only after about eight years and from which the Camaldolese emerged victorious, obtaining the eviction of the hospital and the required compensation. After the judicial "victory", the Camaldolese held the monastery for only a decade, since, at the request of Bishop Gallo, it was then sold for 1400 ducats to the Avellino Chapter. The bishop, on May 9, 1858, gave it to the Stigmatine nuns for the erection of the "Asylum of the Orphans".