The San Giovanni in Fiore Abbey date back to Joachim da Fiore's trip to La Sila 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.
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.
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. In later centuries features were remodeled in different styles, including a Baroque style church interior.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.