The result of a collaboration between Architect Carlo Murena (hence the name) and Luigi Vanvitelli, the structure was built in 1740 as a monastery of the Olivetan Order, called New Monte Morcino (Monte Morcino Nuovo).

The University, founded in 1308 and formerly located in Piazza del Sopramuro (now Piazza Matteotti), later moved to this location as a result of the suppression of all religious orders during the Napoleonic era. The Rector, Luigi Canali, in 1810 obtained from Pope Pius VII the definitive right to use the building, still housing the headquarters of the University of Perugia.

The building has a massive quadrangular structure, with four corridors that surround a vast inner courtyard, and that correspond to four other similar corridors on the first floor.

In the corridor to the left of the main entrance, many commemorative plaques dedicated to famous people and scientists of the University, or referring to events related to the First World War, decorate the walls.

Along the wall in the corridor opposite to the main entrance, hangs a collection of about 400 casts of inscriptions, mostly funerary, in the Etruscan language, from the collection of Gian Carlo Conestabile della Staffa (1824-77), an Etruscologist and the successor of Giovan Battista Vermiglioli as Archeology Professor at the University of Perugia.

The collection, created for educational purposes and aimed at the study of the Etruscan language, shows casts taken from the original inscriptions.

The complex includes, besides the main building, also the neoclassical Church of New Monte Morcino. The church, built with a Greek-cross architectural shape, on the upper facade shows the symbol of the Olivetan Order, the three hills of the Calvary with a cross atop the middle one and olive branches decorating the sides. Until 1958, the church was used for the conferment of degrees, before being returned to its original religious purposes by the Rector of the time, Giuseppe Ermini, following the construction of a new Aula Magna.