The Cloister of the Convent of San Mauro dates back to 1680, when Monsignor Serafino Schiurru, in the Spanish texts Esquirro, in addition to enlarging the primitive church of San Mauro, transforming it into the present one with six chapels, also enlarged the adjacent small convent, which was formed by a single arm with a raised floor, endowing it with three more arms, thus constituting the cloister bordered by a quadriporticus. A rainwater collection cistern was built in the center, which, besides being a very useful tool for the provision of water for the various needs of the convent, also represented a valuable architectural aesthetic element of the cloister.
In the first half of the 19th century the building was frescoed by Genoese painter Luigi Barbes, the same man who frescoed the vault of the Chapel of the Crucifix in the Church of San Mauro. The cloister suffered serious damage during the February 17, 1943 air raid, repaired by the Civil Engineer in 1948, while in 1950 the cistern was also drained and restored.
In the refectory, currently a conference room, there is a small statue depicting an angel, the work of Giuseppe Antonio Lonis, from the same series as the angels in the adjacent church. The cloister represented a central element of the Convent of the Friars Minor, which, established as a simple hospice in 1661 had become a formed Convent, that is, with at least 12 friars, and Novitiate House, until the 20th century. Later it also housed the Study of Theology, became the seat of the Provincial Curia of the Friars Minor and housed the Hospice of the Holy Land, which in fact prevented the religious complex in 1866 from being forfeited by the state, the Hospice of the Holy Land being a non-suppressed entity whose assets were all forfeited. The complex was returned to the friars in 1879 after legal action. The convent currently houses a community of young people, founded by Father Salvatore Morittu, a use that maintains the traditional value as a place for gathering and socializing that it has always possessed.
