{n} a place of religious retirement, monastery, nunnery, kind of square with piazzas
A square or rectangular courtyard sometimes with gardens, surrounded on all sides by a vaulted arcade Typically devoted to spiritual contemplation or scholarly reflection, a cloister is usually part of a monastery, a church, or occasionally a university
A covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that face a quadrangle
A cloister is a covered area round a square in a monastery or a cathedral. Four-sided enclosure surrounded by covered walkways and usually attached to a monastic or cathedral church; also, the walkways themselves. The earliest cloisters were open arcades, usually with sloping wooden roofs. This form was generally superseded in England by a range of windows lighting a vaulted ambulatory (aisle). In southern climates, the open-arcaded cloister remained standard. An especially fine example is Donato Bramante's two-story open arcade at Santa Maria della Pace, Rome (1500-4)