The slow, pensive pace of the friars and the ancient and captivating liturgical chants move and resound in its shaded corridors. The cloister of San Domenico is a perfect model of medieval architecture in Cagliari: right in the centre, in the district of Villanova, at the foot of Castello. It embodies the spirit of the district, anchored in the religious tradition that comes to life every Lent in the Processioni dei Misteri (Processions of the Mysteries). The convent was built at the expense of the monarchs of Aragon and, in 1533, Charles V granted it the name of "regio" (royal). The cloister and adjacent crypt represent what has survived of the monumental complex, which was destroyed by bombing in 1943. The reconstruction during the Post-war period maintained the original structures as a crypt beneath the new building and very little of the ancient church was saved.