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| Around the year 1000, St
Romuald arrived in this deserted valley and founded the
Order of the Camaldolese Monks, now known throughout the
world. The two basic dimensions of the Order, the hermitic/contemplative and the active, are expressed in two religious complexes: the Hermitage, located in a remote spot conducive to prayer, and the Monastery, situated along the road used to haul the wood cut in the surrounding forest. In the Hermitage, Romuald’s cell
gives a good idea of the life led by the monks here. |
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Having reached ‘Campo Amabile’ (a huge clearing in the thick Casentino forest) on his long Apennine peregrinatio, St Romuald founded the Hermitage in 1023-1024 with the consent of Teodaldo, bishop of Arezzo. The post-house at Fontebona, a short distance from ‘Campo Amabile’, was reorganised as a hospice for pilgrims and became a monastery between 1080 and 1085 |
| The Hermitage is formed of
twenty huts for the monks,
Romuald’s cell, a library (1622), a refectory, the
Church of the Transfiguration of Jesus - consecrated in
1027 and restored several times, with the faÁade
finished in 1714 - and the Oratory of Sant’Antonio
Abate. The monastery - twice destroyed by fire, in 1203 and 1276 - is composed of the guest-rooms, the Cloister of Maldolo, a hospital (1331), a pharmacy (1543), a refectory (1609), and the Church of Santi Donato ed Ilariano, which, destroyed in the fire of 1203, rebuilt in 1220 and damaged again, was rebuilt in 1510. The present structure dates from 1772-1775. Both complexes contain very important works of art. In the oratory of the Hermitage, the altar-piece Madonna con Bambino e Santi, a glazed terracotta by Andrea Della Robbia, belongs to the artist’s best production in the last decade of the 15th century. In the church of the Monastery, the Nativity by Giorgio Vasari, a panel painting signed and dated 1538, is the first study of a nocturnal vision which would be followed by a long series that Vasari referred to as ‘Flemish’. |
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Camaldoli