To the north of the city center, and close to the strip gardens of Via Curte, over an area of 23 thousand square meters, the Monastero della Torre and the church of Santa Maria della Ripa are placed. Its history is long, ancient and complex.
Construction work on the monastery dates back to 1474. The monastery was commissioned by the bishop Alessandro Numai, who laid the first stone on a land that had been donated to the Curia by the lord of Forlì at that time, Pino Terzo Ordelaffi.
After the death of the Ordelaffi, first Girolamo Riario and then his wife Caterina, became protectors of the monastery and established a very strong bond with the Franciscan nuns who resided there. The monastery walls were completed in 1484, while the church and convent were consecrated on 7th May 1497, in the presence of the lady of Forlì, Caterina Sforza.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the complex was at the height of its splendour, hosting about eighty nuns and the girls boarding school, attended by young people from the noble families of Forlì. After having been a military district in the last century, today the Ripa monastery is owned by the State and is awaiting a recovery project that enhances its historical and monumental importance and allows the return to the city of one of its places of greatest charm.