The main convent of the Sardinian Capuchin friars, the place of residence of the Provincial Father, is built on an ancient pagan site on the hill of Buoncammino. Under the convent there are the famous Punic caves transformed by the Romans into stone quarries to build the amphitheatre, to which they are connected by an underground tunnel. Recent findings have highlighted a graffiti of exceptional importance for the presence of Christian martyrs in the caves and for the dating of the evangelization of Sardinia. In the sec. XVII the Capuchin friars had used the convent as a hospital and buried the victims of the plague in the caves. The convent was therefore founded on the place of sacrifice of the first Christian martyrs and on the places of heroic charity of the first Capuchin friars. The convent, also called the Convento Maggiore, was built on 11 October 1591. A small group of the Capuchin reform in 1525 arrived in Sardinia, headed by p. Zefferino from Bergamo, sent to found the Capuchin Province of Sardinia. The convent and the church are dedicated to S. Antonio of Padua. Today's appellation of "Church of S. Ignazio" is quite recent, due to the permanence and death of Fra 'Ignazio da Laconi (1701 - 1781) in this convent; but it is mainly following the Beatification (1940) and the Sanctification (1951) of St. Ignatius that the convent is so familiarly called by the people. The convent was born as a place of prayer and penance, a place of evangelization, with popular preachers, and of welcoming the poor: the Capuchin friars served a hot dish, "the soup of the poor", every day, to all those who came to the convent door.

The church was founded with the convent in 1646 by the canon Francesco Gaviano. It was called the Church of San Mauro in honour of the martyr whose relics were found in the necropolis of the basilica of San Saturnino . It is an area previously occupied by a church dedicated to the Virgin of Health. The convent includes an interesting porticoed cloister, in the center of which there is a tank used for collecting water. The novitiate and the study of theology are located in the convent of the church.

The rise of the Carmelite Order is linked to a group of Christian faithful (penitents, pilgrims) who, coming from Europe, settled in Mount Carmel more or less in the period of the third crusade, 1189-1192. Since the occupation of the Saracens, who had conquered Jerusalem, was underway, the pilgrims had to find safe places in the Holy Land. This is one of the reasons why they lived on Mount Carmel, belonging to the Latin Kingdom and protected by military fortresses. Mount Carmel is the last part of a mountain range in the Holy Land, today Israel. The Order is made up of two families: the Carmelite Order and the Order of the Discalced Carmelites, which in a precise historical moment split from the primitive stock. In official documents the Order of the Discalced Carmelites is called "Order of the Discalced Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel". The Carmelite Rule is the norm of life of Saint Albert, given to the Carmelites between 1206 and 1214 while he was Patriarch of Jerusalem; was definitively approved as a true Carmelite Rule by Innocent IV in 1247. The Carmelite Rule states that it is fundamental: "to live in the respect of Jesus Christ and to serve faithfully to him with a pure heart and with a good conscience".

Not only tiles. The collection of “riggiole”, kept in a workshop (now closed) in via Lamarmora (Castello district), consists of 126 artifacts, catalogued by the owner Mercedes Mariotti and is of exceptional artistic and historical interest.

These ceramic tiles adorned the city apartments in the past, with their typical designs and colours, and in particular those of Castello district. It is here that the ancient “riggiole” found worthy accommodation, in a place at the ground floor of a historic building of 1650 (protected by the Superintendency ), a short walk from the Cathedral.

In 15 years of activity, the owner has collected hundreds of “riggiole” (ceramic tiles) of the old town, many of them were discovered during the restoration works of the workshop, today a museum, with a juniper ceiling, a Moloch God and a Templar cross engraved on the walls of limestone, two Punic cisterns( if not Nuragic) within which, objects now on display in the window were discovered (two terracotta pots, old gutters, shells, old medicinal vials).