GIORDANO da GIANO. - Franciscan, b. ca. 1195 at Giano (Spoleto), d. at Magdeburg after 1262. Admitted to the Order by St. Francis, he took part in the Chapter of the Mats and in September 1221 set out for Germany with Brother Cesario. He established his seat at Salzburg and, barely a year later, his activity extended to the territories of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz.
On 27 October 1224 he was sent to Thuringia with seven German friars, and as custos he directed the Franciscan movement in Erfurt, Eisenach, Gotha, Nordshausen, and Mühlhausen. He returned twice to Italy; a third journey to Rome for the reform of the Order in 1239 is probable. As vice-minister of the provinces of Bohemia and Poland, in May 1241 he was in Prague and the following year in Altenburg for the Chapter. Urged by Baldwin of Brandenburg, in 1262 he composed in medieval Latin, sometimes mixed with vernacular forms, the *Chronica*, which, for its knowledge of the Minorite movement in Germany and also for the history of St. Francis, must be considered a work of the greatest importance.