Birth of the Order of Camaldolese Friars. Around Saint Romuald (925-1027), convinced that the hermit life constituted the pinnacle of monastic experience and the first to practice eremitic cenobitism within the Latin Church, communities of disciples gathered who lived in poverty and penance in the monasteries of Camaldoli. The restless and charismatic Romuald, after wandering and experiencing various unsatisfying experiences, initiated a movement to reform the monastic institution, promoting the new religious order of the Camaldolese Congregation from the hermitage of Camaldoli (Arezzo) in 1012. The order was inspired by the Benedictine rule, with an emphasis on penitentialism. He tried to combine the Eastern monastic tradition of anchoritism with Benedictine cenobitism (Ego vobis, vos mihi) expressed by the presence in the same structure of both the hermitage and the monastery and symbolized in the coat of arms by two doves drinking from the same chalice.
