The Abbot Joachim, who founded the Abbey of Flora among the mountains of Calabria in 1189, is one of the most original and interesting figures of the Middle Ages. He was famous in his own generation for his prophetic vision and saintly life, and was a source of inspiration to his followers for two hundred years. Dante assigns him a place with the great teachers of the thirteenth century, in his Paradiso, where Saint Bonaventure points out the shining spirit at his side as:

The great Florentine had lost his faith in Papal and Imperial powers to enlighten the darkness of those times, and may well have embraced Joachim's hope of a spiritual renewal of Christendom by a sudden illumination of the divine purpose in history.