These are some of the oldest documents in the archive of S. Apollinare, which testify to the events of the foundation of the Milanese monastery - which took place in 1223 - and its very first years of life, such as the purchase of land near the church of S Apollinare where the monastery would have been built (parchment n. 1), the donation of the church by the archbishop Enrico Settala (parchment n.2) and the letters issued to the abbess and nuns by the popes Honorius III (parchment n.4 ) and Gregory IX (parchment n. 7 and n. 15). It should be emphasized that in these documents the nuns of S. Apollinare are mentioned with various denominations. The reference to their belonging to the rule followed by Saint Clare and her sisters in s. Damiano di Spoleto - from which Damianite -, is found in one of the first documents (from 1223) and then repurchased starting from the mid-thirties of the thirteenth century. In the intervening decade, however, they are referred to as the poor sisters residing in Milan according to the rule of the Order of Spoleto ("pauperes sorores Mediolani commoranes secundum regulam ordini Spolitani"), and then again as the poor sisters of the monastery of S Maria a S. Apollinare ("pauperes sorores monasteri beate Marie ad Sanctum Apollinarem") or of the order of poor cloistered nuns ("ordo pauperum monialium reclusarum"), where the qualifying and most significant element is the absolute poverty of life.