In 1927 the Italian government decided to sell the former convent of Santi Domenico e Sisto. The convent, which had been established by Pope Pius V for Dominican nuns in 1575, was expropriated by the Italian government on 9 September 1871 in virtue of the law of suppression of religious orders. Blessed Buenaventura García de Paredes, Master General of the Order, seeing the opportunity to recuperate the Dominican patrimony, suggested to Benito Mussolini that selling the convent to the Order would return the property to its original owners, and that it could be used to house the "Angelicum"