Camaldolese

The Camaldolese are monastic communities within the Order of Saint Benedict tracing their origin to the hermitage founded by Saint Romuald at Camaldoli, high in the Tuscan mountains near Arezzo, around 1012, as a reform seeking to renew and integrate the eremitical tradition of monastic life with communal life. Romuald, who lived from about 950 to 1025, had encountered the major Western monastic schools of his time before founding the Sacred Hermitage of Camaldoli, where monks lived in individual cells while sharing communal religious practices, and the order received papal approval from Pope Alexander II in 1072. Two distinct institutes carry on the tradition today, the Camaldolese Benedictine Congregation and the Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona, the latter established in 1523 by Paul Giustiniani, with communities for both men and women across multiple continents.