The Oratory is near the northern side of the Santa Croce Basilica, the convent of Santa Elisabetta del Capitolo now no longer in existence, for centuries was an important religious institution.  Initially it was used by the Sisters of Penance of the Third Franciscan Order, and then in the mid-nineteenth century the building became the seat of the Clarissas. In 1866 the monastery was suppressed by the Italian government and five years later, in 1871, it was bought by the Waldensian Pastor Paolo Geymonat (1827-1907) and renamed "Church of the Oratory".
The premises were abandoned just six years later when the building was put up for sale by the State and bought by the Dorothean nuns. After five years in Via Palazzolo, in 1882, Geymonat’s congregation of found a definitive  premise in Via Manzoni.
Alongside his work as a Pastor, Geymonat was also a lecturer at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology and a prolific writer of religious and historical texts.