FLORENSI. – The F. are a branch of the Cistercian Order, indeed the first reform introduced into the family of s. Bernardo. They were founded in Calabria in 1189 FIORE, IL (v.), who in that year left the monastery of Corazzo, of which he was abbot, in order to withdraw, with the monk Radiero, first to Pietralar and then into the heart of the Sila, at S. Giovanni in Fiore. The summons issued by the Cistercian General Chapter in 1195 was not heeded by the two monks, who 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 richly endowed with donations, immunities, and privileges by the popes and by the Hohenstaufen, so that it became one of the most powerful abbeys of southern Italy; other foundations followed in Calabria, Apulia, Lucania, Campania, Latium, and even Tuscany: in the first half of the 13th century the Florensian abbeys numbered about forty, among which Fontelaurato, Calabro-Maria, and Acquaviva in Calabria, S. Tommaso di Rutigliano in Apulia, Revigliano in Campania, Camalora in Tuscany, and above all Monte Mirteto and S. Maria della Gloria in southern Latium achieved renown; the latter were particularly favored by Onorio III, by Gregorio IX, who had founded one of them while still a cardinal, and by Alessandro IV. The Florensian Congregation experienced its period of splendor in the 13th century, when the popes favored it and entrusted it with many important and delicate assignments. In that century holiness was affirmed within it through a host of disciples of Abbot Gioacchino, such as the bb. Pellegrino, Bonazio, Matteo Vitori, Benedetto di Fontelaurato, Giovanni d'Aquitania, and Pietro di Acquaviva. But in the 14th century it was in complete decline, aggravated by the commendam, which began to prevail from the middle of the 15th century onward. The surviving F. were united to the Cistercian trunk by s. Pio V in 1570.