CAMALDULIANS, a religious order founded by St. Romuald (also called CAMALDOLESE). Born of a noble family at Ravenna c. 95o, he retired at the age of twenty to the Benedictine monastery of S. Apollinare in Classe; but being strongly drawn to the eremitical life, he went to live with a hermit in the neigh bourhood of Venice and then again near Ravenna. Here a colony of hermits grew up around him and he became the superior. In this way during the course of his life Romuald formed a great number of colonies throughout central Italy. His chief foundation was at Camaldoli on the heights of the Tuscan Apennines not far from Arezzo, in a vale snow-covered during half the year. Romuald's idea was to reintroduce into the West the primitive eremitical form of monachism, as practised by the first Egyptian and Syrian monks. Disciples of St. Romuald went on missions to the still heathen parts of Russia, Poland and Prussia, where some of them suffered martyrdom. In his extreme old age St. Romuald with twenty-five of his monks started on a missionary expedition to Hungary, but he was unable to accomplish the journey. He died in 1027. After his death mitigations were grad ually introduced into the rule and manner of life; and in the monastery of St. Michael in Murano, Venice, the life became cenobitical. From that time to the present day there have always been both eremitical and cenobitical Camaldolese, the latter ap proximating to ordinary Benedictine life.
See Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen (1896) i. § ; art. "Camaldulenser" in Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon (and ed.), and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopiidie (3rd ed.) ; and art. "Camaldolese," Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. iii.