The San Giovanni in Fiore Abbey (Italian: ''Abbazia Florense'') is an

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

located in the

Province of Cosenza The province of Cosenza ( it, provincia di Cosenza) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Calabria region of southern Italy. Its capital is the city of Cosenza. It contains 150 ''comuni'', listed at list of communes of the Province of Cosenza ...

, in the

Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

region of southwestern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

History

12th century

The abbey's origin date back to Joachim da Fiore's trip to

La Sila La Sila, also simply Sila, is the name of the mountainous plateau and historic region located in Calabria, southern Italy. The Sila National Park is known to have the purest air in Europe. Geography The Sila occupies part of the provinces of Co ...

in Calabria in 1188. Archaeological excavations have shown the presence of Joachim's first edifice, which was finished in 1198, in the ''Iure Vetere'' locality. The construction of the abbey was approved by Queen Constance of Hauteville after a Joachim's visit in her court at

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

. After Joachim's death in 1202, the first monastery and its annexed edifices were burned by a fire in 1214. The monks decided to abandon the location of ''Iure Vetere'', also due to its difficult climatic situation.

13th century

In 1215 a site not far from the previous one was chosen, near the Neto river valley. The new abbey was completed in 1230, in the

Romanesque style Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later ...

. In later centuries features were remodeled in different styles, including a

Baroque style The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

church interior.

External links

Churches in the province of Cosenza Monasteries in Calabria Buildings and structures in the Province of Cosenza 1188 establishments in Europe 12th-century establishments in Italy Medieval Italian architecture Romanesque architecture in Italy {{Italy-struct-stub