Camaldules

(Camaldulani, Camaldulenses, Ordo Camaldulanus), a religious order founded about 1009 by Romualdus, who built a monastery at Campo Maldloti, or Camaldoli, a village thirty miles east of Florence, and belonging to a lord named Maldoli, whence the order, some time after the death of Romualdus, took its name. Up to the end of the eleventh century they bore the name of their founder, and were called Romualdines. The monks observe the rule of St. Benedict, with some alterations and additions, and combine the ccenobitic and eremitical life. At first they wore a black dress; but Rornualdus, having seen a vision of his monks mounting a ladder toward heaven, and all clothed in white, changed their habit from black to white. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the order was divided into five congregations, under so many generals or "majors," with about 2000 members. The life of these hermits was originally very severe; but, like most other orders, as it grew rich, it became corrupt. They were reformed in 1431 by Eugene IV, and again in 1513. A new order, with a stricter rule, was formed by Gustiniani in 1520, and since that time Loth divisions exist independently. They appear never to have had an establishment in England. In France there was but one convent of Camaldules or Camaldoli, viz., at Grosbois, near Paris. They were of the congregation of "Our Lady of Consolation." The Camaldule ccenobites, to whom Pope Gregory XVI belonged, have their principal convent at Rome, and a few more houses in Italy, with about one hundred members. The hermits are a little more numerous, counting upward of two hundred members, with two majors at Calnaldoli and Monte Corona, near Perugia. Their convents are likewise all in Italy, with the exception of one in Poland. There was also a congregation of Camaldule nuns, founded by the fourth general of Camaldules, Rudolphus, in 1086, at Mucellano, in Tuscany. They had in the seventeenth century twenty-four convents, of which, in 1860, only two were left, at Rome and at Florence. — Fehr, Gesch. der Monchsorden, 1:68 sq.; Helyot, Ord. Raelit. 1:577; Landcn, Eccl. Dict. 2:506.