The 18th-century college defines a’whole fifth of the Piazza del Popolo, opposite the Mother Church, and occupies a block as far as Via Vento, close to the ancient city walls. Several houses and the pre-existing church of St. Michael, documented as early as 1622 at the time of the pastoral visit of Bishop Don Andrea Mastrillo, were demolished for its construction.
The new women³’s convent was the first of this order in the diocese of Messina and was founded in 1738 by license of Archbishop Tommaso Vidal y de Nin, by the will of archpriest Don Gaetano Viviano for the purpose of welcoming and educating the young orphan girls of the town. The’annexed church dedicated to SS. Trinità was opened for worship as early as 1762, although it was not completed with stucco decoration until 1774, as can be seen from the date on the cartouche on the presbytery archway; the interior has a single nave covered by a barrel vault and ends in the sumptuous altar with pairs of columns on brackets that surrounds the canvas of the Coronation of the Virgin by the Most Holy Trinity (1774). The church houses a wooden statue of St. Michael the Archangel, dating from the first half of the 17th century and coming from the vanished church of the same name, and a painted cross from the same period, both referable to Sicilian artists.