Florensian Abbey: Florensian Architecture by Joachim of Flora

Florens Abbey

[...] 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.

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

Florensian Abbey, San Giovanni in Fiore

Florens Abbey

The abbey was constructed on a square floor plan with a large cloister at the center. The church was built on a cross-shaped plan with a square apse in the East. A large rose window in the apse is surrounded by three smaller round windows on the upper level. Below them are three large windows. The bell tower is adjacent to the apse. The central nave has four simple windows on the upper level.

ref. San Giovanni in Fiore, Abbey | The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database

During the restoration in 1989 Baroque elements have been removed and the simplicity of the original Cistercian church brought back. The only original element remaining on the frontal façade is the portal.

Florensian Abbey Apse

Archaeological excavations have shown the presence of Joachim's first edifice, which was finished in 1198, in the Iure Vetere locality. 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.

Florensian Abbey Apse

The construction of the abbey was approved by Queen Constance of Hauteville after a Joachim's visit in her court at Palermo. In 1215 a site not far from the previous one was chosen, in an area that had been settled in the early Middle Ages by a Lombard military contingent and then by the Byzantines,near the Neto river valley.

Florensian Abbey Apse

In 1221 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II - son of emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Queen Constance of Sicily of the Hauteville dynasty - fostered the monastery’s development when he handed down a decree that guaranteed immunity for crimes other than murder inside the Florian Abbey’s walls. The new abbey was completed in 1230.

Florens Abbey: Transversal section

Federico Parisi: Disegno dell'architettura cistercense in Calabria; Edizioni Alinea, Firenze 2006

ref. San Giovanni in Fiore, Abbey | The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database

Florens Abbey, San Giovanni in Fiore; photograpy: Domenico Olivito

Christ Florensian Photophor

This work concerns a study of the apse wall of the abbey church of San Giovanni in Fiore. The purpose of the publication is to illustrate the aniconic symbols designed by the abbot Joachim of Fiore for his model of the Church, permeated by the Theophany of the Transfiguration condensed on the wall of the apse of the abbey through a spiritual work of art, which is certainly a first and unique of its kind respect to the architecture, figurative art and artifacts of Christian production.The book covers Trinitarian topics applied to the Florensian architecture through the use of geometries associated with the light radiated into the space of the Church, in this case dominated by Christ photophor (Generator of Light).

ref. Christ Florensian Photophor by Pasquale Lopetrone - Issuu

Links

San Giovanni in Fiore, Abbey | The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database

The Mind's Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages - Google Books

San Giovanni in Fiore Abbey - Wikipedia

The originality and influence of Joachim of Fiore

Joachim of Flora: A Critical Survey of his Canon, Teachings, Sources, Biography and Influence

Christ Florensian Photophor by Pasquale Lopetrone - Issuu

San Giovanni in Fiore: Gioacchino’s Outpost in the Sila Mountains

This is a section of the site dedicated to the Mediterranean Architecture and that, going from the Mezquita de Cordoba to the Tiberius's Villa Iovis in Capri, from the Adalberto Libera's Villa Malaparte always in Capri until the Francesco Venezia's Gibellina Museum, from the Le Corbusier's Ronchamp Chapel to the Abbazia Florens of Gioacchino da Fiore and Luca Campano through the undergrounds of Naples, the underground architecture of the Greek Roman caverns exposed to the XVII Triennale of Milan, the ages, the cultural migrations, the Urbanism and Etno-Psychiatry, sometimes the losses, sometimes the contaminations, through various values and the religions, the aesthetic valences, with the contribution of personal written and of others Authors, of photography's, designs and other types of iconographic representations, 3d rendering, cad, videos, wants indicate a reflection course on this argument.