SAN GIOVANNI IN FIORE. - Abbey founded in 1191 by Abbot Joachim who, having left the Cistercians (v. GIOACCHINO DA FIORE), withdrew first with a single companion to the grange of S. Martino di Canale near Pietrafitta and shortly afterwards took refuge among the mountains of the Sila florense, where he gathered a small group of monks under the very strict Florense Rule, which appears already to have been approved by the bull of Pope Innocent III in 1196.

A different hypothesis has recently been put forward, but it is not supported by a sufficient body of documentary evidence (S. Foglia, 1947): it would postpone the construction of the abbey to 1223 and attribute it to a + fra Giuliano master builder + who would have imported into Calabria the architectural forms already established at Fossanova and Casamari.

The church, dedicated to the Baptist, arose at the same time as the convent, both standing side by side on the left bank of the Neto river: but it was not completed according to the grandiose original designs, which can today be perceived intact in the apse and the presbytery. Of clearly Gothic layout, dependent on Burgundian and Cistercian forms, the building has a single great nave with a square choir, illuminated by a complex of single-light windows and rose windows arranged to form a cross, and it represents one of the typical manifestations of Gothic architecture in the region. The facade of the church, which presumably remained unfinished, is of the Norman type with a pointed-arch portal; inside, the nave was totally altered in the seventeenth century with Baroque superstructures. On the right arm of the transept a chapel with groin vaults leads by a steep little stairway into the crypt below, discovered and restored in 1931, where, in an arcosolium, the mortal remains of the proto-abbot were gathered. Of the ancient monastery few remains are left, partly brought back to light and restored some years ago. Important studies on the original iconography, on the structure and on the artistic importance of the monumental complex are currently in progress.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: S. Foglia, Il Gimnasio florense di S. G. in F., Cosenza 1924; E. Anitchdot, Youchin de Fiore et les milines courtois, Roma 1931; E. Buonsiuti, Gioacchino da Fiore, i tempi, la vita, il messaggio, ivi 1931; E. Galli, Le reliquie dell'Archicembio florense, ivi 1938; L. Brunetti, Studi contemp. su Gioacchino da Fiore, in Il Calabrese, nuova ser. v. 1 (1947), pp. 123-24; S. Bottari, L'architett. della Contea. Studi sull'architett. del periodo normanno nell'Ital. merid. e in Sicilia, in Sicularum Gymnasium, 1 (1948), pp. 1-33.

Giovanni Carandente

@incollection{ec10_san_giovanni_in_fiore, author = {Carandente, Giovanni}, title = {San Giovanni in Fiore}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1769--1770}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/san-giovanni-in-fiore} }

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