The Capuchin Friars, an order that is a reformed branch of the Order of Friars Minor, the Franciscans, hence the proper name Friars Minor Capuchin, owe their arrival in Poland to King John III Sobieski. The ruler asked the Pope to grant permission for the monks to stay in Poland. Pope Innocent XI granted Sobieski's request in 1680, presumably as a result of Poland joining the alliance against the Turks, and authorised the foundation of two hospice-houses in Warsaw and Kraków. In 1694, the decision was taken to to build a church in Kraków and a monastery. Funds for the construction were provided by many donors, most notably Wojciech Dembiński, Ensign of Zator and Oświęcim. 
The Capuchins arrived in Kraków in 1695, and by 1703 the churchhad been built in the Tuscan Baroque style. It consists of a nave, two side chapels and a rectangular presbytery. The simple façade is crowned by a triangular gable, decorated with several pilasters and an elliptical window. The main altar contains a painting of the Annunciation from 1701, by Pietro Dandini of Florence, given to the Capuchins by the Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de Medici. A pillar near the altar contains a cannonball that landed in the church during the 1768 Bar Confederation. In the side altars dating from 1775, it is worth seeing Tadeusz Błotnicki’s 1903 statue of Saint Joseph with the Child, Adolf Hyła’s 1944 altar slider with the image of the Merciful Christ against the background of burning Warsaw, the image of Saint Erasmus from 1763, and Our Lady of the Dawn Gate brought from the Eastern Borderlands after World War II. There is a miraculous crucifix in the Chapel of Jesus Crucified. 
Next to the monastery is a Loretto house built between 1712 and 1719, a copy of the chapel in Loreto, Italy. The legend has it that it was the home of Mary, carried by angels from Nazareth to Italy. Plaques and epitaphs commemorating the victims of wars and prominent military men and scientists have been placed in the church and the cloisters of the Loretto house. They were placed here because the Capuchins were chaplains from the Kościuszko Insurrection until the outbreak of the First World War and accompanied the insurgents in their battles. It was here that Tadeusz Kościuszko consecrated his sabre during the 1794 Insurrection, as recalled by a plaque by Alfred Daun. In front of the monastery is the grave of the Confederates of Bar who died in 1768, on which a cross with a commemorative plaque was erected in 1993. In the courtyard stands a statue of Saint Padre Pio from 1999.