FLORENS. - 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 1189 by Joachim of Fiore (v.), who in that year left the monastery of Corazzo, of which he was abbot, in order to withdraw, together with the monk Raniero, first to Pietralar and then into the heart of the Sila, at S. Giovanni in Fiore. The summons issued by the General Chapter of the Cistercians in 1195 was not heeded by the two monks, who managed to obtain confirmation of their initiative from Pope Celestine III, by a bull of 25 April 1196.
The arch-abbey of S. Giovanni in Fiore was greatly enriched with donations, immunities and privileges by the popes and by the Swabians, so as to become one of the most powerful abbeys of southern Italy; other foundations followed in Calabria, Apulia, Lucania, Campania, Latium and even in Tuscany: in the first half of the 13th century the Florensi abbeys numbered about forty, and among these gained renown 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, particularly favored by Honorius III, by Gregory IX, who had been their founder as cardinal, and by Alexander IV. The flourishing Congregation had its period of splendor in the 13th century, in which the popes favored it and entrusted it with many delicate tasks. In that century holiness was affirmed in it with a host of disciples of Abbot Joachim, such as the Bl. Pellegrino, Bonazio, Matteo Vitori, Benedict of Fontelaurato, John of Aquitaine and Peter of Acquaviva. But in the 14th century it is in full decline, accentuated by the commendam which took over from the middle of the 15th century onward. The surviving F. were reunited with the Cistercian trunk by St. Pius V in 1570.
Bibliography8 works
Francesco Russo