BENEDICTINE OLIVETANS. - A family of the great Benedictine Order, founded in 1313 at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, in the province of Siena, by the Blessed Bernardo Tolomei together with his fellow citizens and friends Patrizio Patrizzi and Ambrogio Piccolomini, who had retired to a life of penance at Accona, a deserted place belonging to 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 followers increased. In 1344 Clement VI definitively approved it, granting broad faculties to found new monasteries, all subject to the principal monastery of Monte Oliveto.
BENEDICTINE OLIVETANS — BENEDICTINE VALLOMBROSANS
V. OLIVETANI.
At the end of the 1500s there were more than 200 monasteries with over 2,000 monks.
A particular feature of the Order was that it was the first to adopt the Rule of abbots not for life but for a fixed term. Initially they did not remain in office for more than one year; a term which was later extended. The monks wear white habits, while preserving the traditional Benedictine forms.
Tolomei revived in himself and in his followers the "Ora et labora" of St. Benedict, to the point of being called a reformer of the entire Benedictine Order, which was then in decline from its former splendor. Indeed, two Olivetan monks, the Blessed Andrea da Faenza and Pietro de Tartaris, were abbots of Montecassino at the end of the 14th century; other monks were entrusted with the care of monasteries in the territory of Subiaco.
At the time of its greatest splendor, the Congregation produced illustrious men in sacred and profane sciences and in the arts of painting, engraving, sculpture, and embroidery. Then came decline, and it was only narrowly spared from extinction by the laws suppressing religious orders. Today it is reviving, and 22 Olivetan monasteries stand in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, England, and Lebanon, with about 350 monks.