BENEDETTINI OLIVETANI. — 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 Bernardo Tolomei together with his fellow citizens and friends Patrizio Patrizi and Ambrogio Piccolomini, who had withdrawn to a life of penance at Accona, a deserted place belonging to him near Chiusi.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 its followers increased. In 1344 Clement VI approved it definitively, granting broad authority to found new monasteries, all subject to the principal cenobium of Monteoliveto. At the end of the sixteenth century 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 that abbots should be elected not for life but for a limited term. At first they held office for no more than one year; this term was later extended. The monks wear white, while retaining 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 then declined from its former splendor. Indeed, two Bl. O. monks, Andrea da Faenza and Pietro de Tartaris, were abbots of Montecassino toward the end of the fourteenth century; other monks were entrusted with caring for the monasteries in the territory of Subiaco.
At the time of its greatest splendor, the Congregation produced distinguished men in the sacred and secular sciences and in the arts of painting, engraving, carving, and embroidery. Then decline set in, and it narrowly escaped extinction as a result of the laws suppressing the Orders. Today it is recovering, and 22 Olivetan monasteries are located in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, England, and Lebanon, with approximately 350 monks.