The Professed House of the Jesuits is a building built between 1599 and 1623 as the seat of the Society of Jesus.
The Jesuits, recognized as a religious order by Paul III in 1540, settled there in 1544 and Ignatius of Loyola himself lived there, occupying a small apartment consisting of a vestibule, a bedroom, a room for visits and a small room reserved for his brother who assisted him: here the death caught him on July 31, 1556. The reconstruction of the building was commissioned by the then General of the Society of Jesus, Father Claudio Acquaviva, thanks to the funding of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese who made use of a project by the architect Girolamo Rainaldi. The old building was almost completely demolished, except for the 4 rooms that had formed the apartment of S.Ignazio.
The Professa House has four brick facades that face, respectively, Piazza del Gesù, Via d’Aracoeli, Via di S.Marco and Via degli Astalli: are characterized by massive rusticated cantons and a wide string course that separates the ground floor from the other two floors (the elevation is nineteenth-century), each with a thin string course resting on the windows.