Convent Bosco ai Frati, Franciscan convent in Scarperia e San Piero, Italy.

Bosco ai Frati is a Franciscan convent in the Mugello countryside built following Renaissance principles with clear lines and simple forms. The complex has a central courtyard around which monastic cells and the chapel are arranged, all constructed from natural stone.

The convent was founded by the Ubaldini family, passed to the Basilians and then to hermits, and was donated to Saint Francis in 1206; the Franciscans settled here in 1212. After the Black Death forced its abandonment in 1349, Cosimo de' Medici bought it in 1420 and had Michelozzo rebuild the church of San Bonaventure and the convent, adding the polygonal apse, rib vaults, portico, cloister, refectory, cistern and bell tower. A 1542 earthquake damaged the bell tower; Napoleon suppressed the convent in 1811, and the Gerini family returned it to the friars in 1870.

The wooden crucifix in the Chapter House was found in 1950 and is attributed to Donatello or his workshop, around 1460. The cloister houses a Museum of Sacred Art with vestments and liturgical objects, some bearing the Gerini arms. The church also keeps a 1579 painting by Jacopo Ligozzi of the establishment of the Franciscan Third Order.

Visitors explore the convent best through guided tours that start at the main entrance and explain the architectural details. The best time to visit is late morning or early afternoon, when light makes the stone facade and courtyard particularly appealing.

The stone basin in which Fra Bonaventura da Bagnoregio was washing dishes when he received news of his cardinal appointment in July 1273 is still kept in a chapel on the loggia facing the vegetable garden. The library Cosimo de' Medici set up around 1430 was later dispersed: its illuminated codices are now in the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana, the eighteen choir books illuminated by Fra Angelico in the Museo di San Marco.