Huge Franciscan monastery, build in traditional Romanesque-Gothic style is placed on the very beginning of the Stradun, just few steps a side from the Pile Gate, with its front facing Stradun and stretching all the way to the Fort Minčeta in connection with the city walls on a side. The construction started in 1337 but it was completely destroyed in the 1667 earthquake along with the Franciscan Church that used to be one of the wealthiest in that time. The facade door with Pieta facing Stradun is only thing left from the original church after it has been rebuild. This masterwork was manufactured by brothers Leonard and Petar Petrović, leading chiseling workshop at the time (1498),  and it was metaphor of social state of mind of that turbulent times: Statue of John the Baptist showing strong resistance thwarts Turks occupation, and statue of St. Jeronim point to spiritual unity with the rest of Dalmatia. Compassion thwarts the poorest people of the community, whom Franciscans supported through centuries, is shown with the statue of the mournful Virgin Mary and the figure of the Creator on top, oppose to humanistic ethics of the time. Today’s church is rebuilt in Baroque style.

The Cloister of the Franciscan monastery is considered to be a masterpiece of architecture in Dubrovnik. It was built in late Romanesque style in 1360 by the famous Mihoje Brajkov from Bar and it is one of the most valuable achievements of late Romanesque on Croatian coast. The Old Pharmacy, located inside the Franciscan monastery, was opened in 1317. Today it's the third oldest pharmacy in Europe, but the only one still working. The inventories, ceramics, bowls, laboratory equipment and old medical books of the old Pharmacy are kept in the Franciscan Monastery Museum, among other highly valued and priceless objects of Dubrovnik' historic and cultural past.

The Franciscian monastery’s library possesses 30000 volumes, 22 incunabula, 1500 valuable handwritten documents. The well-labeled exhibits include a 15^th century silver-guilt cross and silver thurible, an 18^th century crucifix from Jerusalem in mother of pearl in olive wood, martyrology (1541) by Bemardin Gucetić (Gozze) and illuminated Psalters. Among the pictures is one of Ruđer Bošković painted in London in 1760 and a painting shoving the town before the earthquake and it is one of the very few that shows the old town before the earthquake.

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