San Giovanni in Fiore

"(...) e lucemi da lato / il calavrese abate Giovacchino,/ di spirito profetico dotato (...)"

This is one of the verses of Dante telling us about the encounter in Heaven of Gioacchino da Fiore, founder of the celebrate Abbey Florense.

The story of San Giovanni in Fiore is attached doubly to the foundation of the Abbey, the want of mystic and the mountains of the Sila.

Around 1189 the Abbot Gioacchino, cistercense monarch, built the small hospice of Albaneto, exactly where the two rivers Alvo and Neto meet, to offer hospitality to travelers. Today, San Giovanni in Fiore presents itself as a dynamic place, contemporarily characterized by the pendulousness of its habitants towards the main city and a strong attachment to their own traditions, which manifest with the conservation and recovery of the history by the prestigious cultural institution.