Camaldolese Benedictines

CAMALDOLESE BENEDICTINES. - I. CONGREGATION OF HERMIT MONKS. - The Camaldolese Congregation arose, as a branch of the Benedictine Order, in 1012 and has an eminently contemplative character and purpose. It was founded by St. Romuald who, while remaining united to the Benedictine trunk, gave his monasteries and hermitages a character all their own. The Rule is Benedictine with particular statutes compiled in 1080 by Rodolfo, fourth prior of Camaldoli, on the teachings of St. Romuald. These concern in particular the relations between the cenobium and the hermitage, united on the model of Eastern monasticism, and the predominantly eremitical purpose of the institute. Juridically the Order was constituted first around two nuclei: Camaldoli and Fonte Avellana. Monasteries and hermitages, even those not founded by St. Romuald but arisen spontaneously or through the work of Pontiffs and bishops, accepted the Rule and the supremacy of the prior generals; who, however, left to the individual houses their autonomy. The relations between the two centers remained until the 16th century those of simple fraternal charity.

Through the work especially of St. Peter Damian and his immediate successors, Fonte Avellana rose to great prosperity, and a great number of Avellanites were elected to episcopal sees, especially in the Marches and Umbria. However, in 1325 the hermitage, having been transformed, against the intention of the founders, into an abbey, declined: immediately afterward, to accelerate the decline, the commendam supervened, until Pius V united it in 1569 to Camaldoli. No less than Fonte Avellana, Camaldoli rose before long to great fame, both for the holiness of its monks and for the many papal and imperial privileges that recognized its supremacy over vast territories, monasteries and churches. In the 12th-14th centuries it counted hundreds of dependencies. This was the golden period of holiness, development and unity of government; but from the 15th century onward, because of agitated political vicissitudes, of ambitions and above all of the commendam, Camaldoli too declined and not a few monasteries, which then detached themselves from the center, ended by dying out.

In the second half of the fifteenth century, in opposition to the commendams, minor regroupings began, which unfortunately were the cause of deeper schisms. Thus in 1521, through the work of Bl. Paolo Giustiniani, the Congregation of the Hermits of Monte Corona was constituted with full independence, still flourishing today. A century later the branch of the Cenobites withdrew from the hermitage, forming an autonomous Congregation; finally in the 16th century there was the Piedmontese Congregation, which in turn gave origin to the French one. These subdivisions, even if they benefited the propagation of the institute, weakened its organism. The Piedmontese and Gallican Congregations disappeared with the Napoleonic storm, and the Cenobites, by the constitution Inter religiosus of 9 July 1935, were reunited to Camaldoli, reconstituting the characteristic union of the Romualdine institution: monastery and hermitage. The merits of the Camaldolese Order, over ten centuries, were many and great, both in the field of holiness and in that of science and art. To these must also be added those of agriculture and in particular of forestry; the great forests of Camaldoli were the work of many generations of monks. Thus the archives and libraries of Camaldoli, of Fonte Avellana, of S. Michele di Murano, of S. Apollinare in Classe, gathered immense treasures of documents and codices. A cenacle of artists and scholars was S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence, and Camaldoli had the first Neoplatonic academies, gathering in convocation, in the second half of the fifteenth century, the great Florentine humanists: Ficino, Alberti, Rucellai, etc. Other academies later arose at Avellana and at S. Apollinare in Classe. From the very beginning almost every Camaldolese monastery had a hospital for the poor under its care; at Pisa the first hospice for foundlings arose through their work.

Many are the saints and blesseds, among them St. Peter Damian, one Pope, Gregory XVI, many cardinals and bishops; writers, such as Ambrogio Traversari, Niccolò Malermi, Mittarelli, etc.; Lorenzo the monk and Bartolomeo della Gata painters; F. Mauro cosmographer; Grandi, Soldani, Piccolomini, etc. scientists; not to mention the two supreme Guido d'Arezzo and Gratian.

Bernardo Ignesti

II. CONGREGATION OF CAMALDOLESE HERMITS OF MONTE CORONA

They are a branch of the Camaldolese family that broke away in 1523, through the work of the blessed Paolo Giustiniani (d. 1528), for a stricter observance of the Rule and of the customs of the Order. The Congregation was at first called: Company of the Hermits of St. Romuald, then it took its name from the hermitage of Monte Corona (Perugia) where, in 1730, it established its seat. It reached its greatest development in the 18th century with 23 hermitages in Italy, 7 in Poland, 5 in Austria-Hungary. The religious policy of Joseph II first, and then the Napoleonic government, caused almost all the hermitages to disappear. Monte Corona itself was suppressed by virtue of the subversive laws of the Italian government.

Today there are only 9 hermitages: 6 in Italy, 2 in Poland, 1 in Spain, with about 200 monks.

Oddone Denicolò