Saint Romuald

Romuald was born in Ravenna between 951 and 953, the son of Duke Sergio degli Onesti and Traversara Traversari. His conversion had a heavy origin: in 972 he went to the basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe to ask forgiveness for a murder committed by his father, who had killed a cousin in a quarrel over land. According to the story, before the altar he had a vision of the saint. He entered that monastery and stayed three years, then left: it seemed to him that the monks lived too comfortably. He spent the rest of his life walking across Italy, founding hermitages and reforming monasteries, and fighting with those who didn’t want to be reformed. Peter Damian, who wrote his biography fifteen years after his death, describes his character without sweetening it: he was rough, stubborn, often unbearable. Around the year 1000 he explored the uninhabited areas of the Apennines between Umbria, the Marche and Tuscany. In the Casentino, above Arezzo, in a fir forest that a certain Maldolo had given him, he founded the hermitage that took its name from him: Camaldoli. There he brought together two things that usually stay apart: the hermits’ cells, each man on his own, and the monastery further down the valley, with a common life. Both are still there, and they still work that way. He died in Fabriano on June 19, 1027. If your name is Romualdo, today is your name day.