Olivetan Benedictines

OLIVETAN BENEDICTINES. - A family of the great Benedictine Order, founded in 1313 at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, in the province of Siena, by Bl. Bernardo Tolomei together with his fellow citizens and friends Patrizio Patrizi and Ambrogio Piccolomini, who had withdrawn to a life of penance at Accona, a deserted place owned by him near Chiusi. The first approval came in 1319 from the bishop of Arezzo, Guido Tarlati, who had jurisdiction over the place. From then on the new institution began to expand and the number of its followers increased. In 1344 Clement VI definitively approved it, granting ample faculty to found new monasteries, all subject to the principal cenobium of Monteoliveto. By the end of the 1500s there were more than 200 monasteries with more than 2000 monks.

A peculiarity of the Order was that it was the first to adopt the Rule of abbots no longer for life but for a fixed term. At first they did not remain in office more than a year; a term that was later prolonged. The monks dress in white, while still preserving the traditional Benedictine forms.

Tolomei revived in himself and in his sons the Ora et labora of St. Benedict, to the point of being called a reformer of the entire Benedictine Order, which had by then declined from its ancient splendor. And indeed two Olivetan monks, Andrea da Faenza and Pietro de Tartaris, were abbots of Montecassino toward the end of the 14th century; other monks were charged with administering the monasteries of the territory of Subiaco.

At the time of its greatest splendor the Congregation produced illustrious men in the sacred and profane sciences and in the arts of painting, engraving, carving and embroidery. Then decline came, and it was little short of the laws on the suppression of Orders bringing about its extinction. Today it is recovering, and 22 Olivetan monasteries stand in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, England, and in Lebanon with about 350 monks.

Ramiro Capra