12th century
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim de Fiore, and Gioacchino da Fiore, was an Italian mystic, theologian and philosopher of history, a great medieval thinker with a beautiful symbolic imagination.
Fiore was a prolific writer and explored the hidden meaning of the life of the apostles and the scriptures. At the end of the twelfth century Joachim had a high international reputation.
After a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he became a Cistercian monk and by 1177 had become abbot at Corazzo, Sicily. He retired to the mountains to lead a contemplative life, and in 1196 he founded the Order of San Giovanni in Fiore. In his Book of the Harmony of the New and Old Testaments, Fiore set forth a theory of history and traced correspondences in the Old and New Testaments. In "An Exposition of the Apocalypse" he explored the symbols of the Antichrist, and in "The Ten-String Psalter" he set forth his doctrine of the Holy Trinity. A man of vivid imagination, he was proclaimed a prophet and condemned as a heretic.
Raymond of Penyafort (Spanish: San Raimundo de Peñafort) was a Spanish theologian, canonist, and Dominican friar who is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church.
Raimondo was an adviser and confessor to the Pope in Rome as well as to kings, particularly James I of Catalonia and Aragon. Together with King James of Aragon and St. Peter Nolasco, he founded the Order of Our Lady of Ransom. The monks of this Order devoted themselves to saving Christians captured by the Moors. One of Raimondo of Peñafort's main goals was the conversion of Jews and Muslims to Christianity, and to achieve this goal he ordered Arabic and Hebrew to be studied and taught in the higher schools run by the Dominicans. He was also among those who founded the Inquisition in Catalonia.
Raimondo died at the age of 100 in Barcelona in 1275 and was canonized by Pope Clement VIII in the same year.
