This famous sanctuary was the original establishment of
Saint Romualdo, (or Rumwald, as our ancestors saxonised the
name) in the 11th century, the ground (campo) being given by
a Count Maldo. The Camaldolensi, however, have spread wide
as a branch of Benedictines, and may therefore be classed among
the gentlemen of the monastic orders. The society comprehends
two orders, monks and hermits; symbolised by their arms, two
doves drinking out of the same cup. The monastery in which
the monks here reside, is beautifully situated, but a large unattractive
edifice, not unlike a factory. The hermitage is placed
in a loftier and wilder region of the forest. It comprehends
between 20 and 30 distinct residences, each including for its
single hermit an inclosed piece of ground and three very small
apartments. There are days of indulgence when the hermit
may quit his cell, and when old age arrives, he descends from
the mountain and takes his abode among the monks.
My companion had in the year 1831, fallen in with the monk,
the subject of these two sonnets, who showed him his abode
among the hermits. It is from him that I received the following
particulars. He was then about 40 years of age, but his
appearance was that of an older man. He had been a painter by
profession, but on taking orders changed his name from Santi to
Raffaello, perhaps with an unconscious reference as well to the
great Sanzio d'Urbino as to the archangel. He assured my
friend that he had been 13 years in the hermitage and had never
known melancholy or ennui. In the little recess for study and
prayer, there was a small collection of books. “I read only,”
said he, “books of asceticism and mystical theology.” On being
asked the names of the most famous mystics, he enumerated
Scaramelli, San Giovanni della Croce, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite
(supposing the work which bears his name to be really
his), and with peculiar emphasis Ricardo di San Vittori. The
works of Saint Theresa are also in high repute among ascetics.
These names may interest some of my readers.
We heard that Raffaello was then living in the convent; my
friend sought in vain to renew his acquaintance with him. It was
probably a day of seclusion. The reader will perceive that these
sonnets were supposed to be written when he was a young man.
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