Chiesa e Monastero di San Francesco

The Church and Monastery of San Francesco in Bobbio is an early Franciscan foundation traditionally dated to around 1230.

Why it matters

The complex reflects the spread of the Franciscan order through the Po Valley soon after the death of Francis of Assisi. Its cloisters, church and monastic ranges record the scale of the community established outside medieval Bobbio.

What to notice

The church has Romanesque lines altered by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century work. Its single nave contains Baroque decorative cycles and a semicircular apse. The monastic ranges are arranged around two fifteenth-century cloisters; the second leads to a refectory with a Crucifixion fresco and a former monastic garden. A square bell tower rises at the centre of the complex.

Context and history

Municipal records date the foundation to about 1230, near the borgata of Corgnate and the route followed by pilgrims on the Via Francigena. A tradition recorded in an eighteenth-century document connects the site with a passage by Francis of Assisi. In the fifteenth century the house passed to the Friars Minor of the Bologna congregation. Alterations in 1710 preceded the church's reconsecration in 1722. Napoleonic suppression ended monastic life, and the complex later passed into private hands. Subsequent restoration has sought to preserve the church and monastic buildings.