The Convent of Sant’Anna is the first foundation of the Discalced Carmelites outside of Spain, established in 1584 under the impulse of father Nicolas of Jesus and Mary Doria, a descendant of the prominentDoria family. Returned from Spain twenty years after the reformation of the Carmelite Order operated by Saint Theresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, Father Doria established a monastery in his native city with the financial support of the noble families Doria, Cattaneo, Spinola e Pallavicini.
Soon after the foundation of the convent, the friars opened the pharmacy. At the end of the 16th century, one of the cloisters of the convent, presently known as the Cloister of the Roses, was used for the cultivation of curative herbs. Potatoes imported from the Americas were planted there for the very first time on Italian soil, after the founder Father Doria had seen them at the court of Philip II King of Spain.