CINI, GIOVANNI, Blessed. – Of the Third Order of St Francis, founder of a short-lived Order and a Company of the Disciplined in Pisa, born probably in Pisa and died there after 1331, often confused with Giovanni della Pace, also of the Third Order. Involved in a party vendetta (1295) and punished, he renounced the world and lived as a hermit, later retiring to a dwelling near the Porta della Pace in Pisa.
He was one of the founders of the Casa della Misericordia, whose statutes were approved by the bishop and then by the Republic (1305). He founded an Order of Penance, which by 1370 seems already to have been absorbed by the Jesuati. A more lasting institution was the Company of the Disciplined of St John the Evangelist, suppressed in 1785. The year and day of his death are unknown. The last document to mention him among the living is dated 13 November 1331. His tomb is still in the cemetery of Pisa. His cult was confirmed by Pius IX on 10 September 1857. His feast is on 12 November.