Cistercian and Florensian abbeys in Calabria. Journey through the ruins of monastic citadels.

The Cistercian order arrived in the south of Italy in the 12th century. In Calabria, the Cistercians lived through the “schism” of Joachim of Fiore who founded his own monastic order on the basis of a more rigid, ascetic rule. Due to the influence of the monastic order of Joachim of Fiore meant that today there are only a few fragments of Cistercian foundations, indicated by documentary sources, which have identified seven Cistercian foundations and about forty Florensian abbeys, built between the 12th and 13th centuries. In spite of this, the remains of the Cestercian Abbey of Sambucina and of the Abbey of the Matina are outstanding witnesses to the architectural model of the Burgundian mother-house. The architecture of the Abbey of San Giovanni in Fiore, like the remains of others abbeys, are monastic structures which, introduced Greek and Norman Calabrian tradition into Cistercian abbeys.