FLORENTINES. — The F. are a branch of the Cistercian Order, indeed the first reform introduced into the family of St. Bernard. They were founded in Calabria in 1389 by Gioacchino da Fiore (q.v.), who in that year left the monastery of Corazzo, of which he was abbot, to retire, with the monk Raniero, first to Pietralata and then deep in the Sila, at S. Giovanni in Fiore. The appeal issued by the General Chapter of the Cistercians in 1195 was not heeded by the two monks, who nevertheless succeeded in obtaining confirmation of their initiative from Pope Celestino III, by a bull dated 25 April 1196.
The archicenobium of S. Giovanni in Fiore was greatly enriched with donations, immunities, and privileges by the popes of the Swabian dynasty, so as to become one of the most powerful abbeys in southern Italy; other foundations followed in Calabria, Apulia, Lucania, Campania, Latium, and even Tuscany. In the first half of the 13th century the Florentine abbeys numbered about forty, among which were renowned Fontelauro, Calabro-Maria, and Acquaviva in Calabria; S. Tommaso di Rutigliano in Apulia; Revigliano in Campania; Camaiore in Tuscany; and above all Monte Mirteto and S. Maria della Gloria in southern Latium, especially favored by Honorius III, by Gregory IX (who had founded it as cardinal), and by Alexander IV. The Florentine Congregation enjoyed its period of splendor in the 13th century, during which the popes favored it and entrusted it with many and delicate missions. In that century holiness was affirmed there through a host of disciples of Abbot Gioacchino, such as the Bbl. Pellegrino, Bo- nazio, Matteo Vitari, Benedetto di Fontelauro, Giovanni d’Aquintia, and Pietro di Acquaviva. But in the 14th century it was in full decline, a decline accentuated by the commendatory system that took hold from the mid-15th century onward. The surviving F. were reunited with the Cistercian Order by St. Pius V in 1570.