The Church of the Madonna del Riposo stands on a road, active since the Faliscan Etruscan period (6th century BC).
The rock tombs and the remains of ancient settlements suggest that the territory next to the church has hosted human presence organized for many centuries. The same structure affects an area affected, since the Middle Ages, by monastic settlements. In fact, the remains of a wall intended to enclose, in ancient times, the convent spaces are noted on the site; the tuff ashlars, irregular in squaring and with minimal remains of mortar, can be traced back to the Middle Ages in shape and size.
Numerous information from the archives confirm the presence of the religious complex in the 16th century: belonging to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Gallese, it included the Church of the Madonna del Riposo, some rooms for convent use and land cultivated with gardens. On 2 April 1577 the site was donated to the religion of the least, founded by San Francesco di Paola, together with the houses, cisterns, caves and relevant "canepine". The conventual settlement bordered the public road and had a vineyard in the back; the current location is, topographically, the same and the word takes its name from the structure itself.
On 10 March 1578, Ambrogio Grazia di Gallese donated all his possessions to the religious of the Madonna del Riposo, with the commitment that the city magistracy would have to provide the complex of new religious in case the original friars had abandoned the structure. The current church was built in 1607 in place of the previous one, which must have been in the same area and belonged to the same monastic complex. The reconstruction had begun in 1605 and exactly on April 2, the day on which the bishop Andrea Longo had blessed the cross planted as a sign of sacredness on the place of construction. An inventory of the properties of the Madonna del Riposo, dated April 10, 1618, attests that this church possessed several plots of land, with different destinations (oak groves, olive groves, vineyards and pastures). During this period, three or four monks resided in the monastic structure, among whom two performed the function of confessors. The friars of San Francesco di Paola remained in the convent of Gallese until the time of Innocenzo X (1644 - 1655); when the monastic institution was suppressed in those years, the assets were united with the Episcopal Mass.
In 1776, during the visit of the bishop Francesco Maria Forlani, the particular veneration of the faithful for the sacred image of the Blessed Virgin Mary preserved in the church of the Madonna del Riposo is documented. The same interest in the sacred image appears evident in the visit of Bishop Fortunato Maria Ercolani in 1824, who adored the icon and ordered to retouch the background of the painting, placed on the main altar. The first half of the nineteenth century represents a very positive phase for the church of the Beata Vergine Maria del Riposo: between 1842 and 1845 it was restored, as appears from the reports of the respective episcopal visits. In 1851 the sacristy was also restructured but we note the absence of the painting of the main altar, object of particular devotion in previous years. The patron of the restoration of the church appears well documented, in 1863, in the person of Cardinal Paracciani Clarelli.
The church in this period was preserved and maintained in good condition by the diligence and care of the Ricci family who owned it; Mass was celebrated there several times a year and by the Cathedral Chapter it was officiated on the third day of the Rogations. In 1875, the Marquis Pietro Ricci, nephew of Cardinal Francesco Ricci, donated the bell to the church. A drawing from the state archive of Rome testifies to what the structure was like in the 19th century. An oral tradition indicates in a fire the cause of the partial destruction of the monastic sector. In the first half of the twentieth century the church and the annexed spaces, after a short period of possession by the Duke of Gallese, were owned by the Calzavara family, from which they were then purchased by the current owners.