Northwest of Apricena, on the edge of the “Murge,” the last western offshoot of the Gargano promontory, stands the Monastery of San Giovanni In Piano. The religious building was built out of devotion in the year 1050 by Petronio Count of Lesina in the territory of his fiefs. The Convent was entrusted to the Benedictines and remained so until the early 1280s when it passed to the fledgling order of Celestines. The latter order, born out of a reform of St. Benedict’s monastic rule, also gave great impetus to the monastery following the arrival of new friars in 1283 from the monastery of St. Mary in Faifoli. Testifying to the magnificence of this period are the records of the possessions of the monastery of San Giovanni in Piano: 7 granges, 2 near Lesina, 2 near Civitate (S. Paolo di Civitate), 2 near Sannicandro Garganico, 1 near Rodi Garganico, 1 in Brancia as well as two fishponds near the lakes of Lesina and Varano. Also in connection with these characteristics in 1294 Pope Celestine V reunited the monastery of St. Spirit of Sulmona with that of San Giovanni in Piano, bringing it under the direct dependence of the Holy See. At the end of the 14th century the Celestines moved to San Severo. In the 11th century, the church with its estates passed to the Count of Lesina with the arrival of the Normans, and later to the Teutonic Knights, who built a hospitale and dedicated the church to Marian worship. The church was restored and elevated. Houses, wells, pools and fishponds, boundary walls and the magnificent focagna still visible in part today were built in its vicinity. Currently, San Giovanni in Piano is in complete disrepair. The church has a Latin cross plan and consists of a single apsidal nave. The interior, very basic overall, reveals under the layers of plaster and paintwork, flashes of frescoes. Until the early 1900s, the site was still a pilgrimage destination for the Apricenese, who were very devoted to Our Lady of the Rock. At the turn of the two great wars an arresting abandonment took over and now only the fascinating ruins of the monastery remain.
