not bear the penitential strictness of his government,
founded a hermitage at Camaldoli above the upper valley of the Arno
called the Casentino. There each monk lived in a separate dwelling,
all being enclosed in a great wall some five hundred and thirty yards
about, beyond which the monks were forbidden to go. They followed the
Rule of S. Benedict, kept two Lents in the year, and never tasted
meat. They had, of course, a church in common where they were bound to
recite the divine office, for this is of the essence of the Rule of S.
Benedict, but certain among them--and this is the essence of the
reform of Camaldoli--never quitted their cells, their food being
brought to them in their huts, where, if the lecluse were a priest, he
said his Mass, assisted by some one close by but not in the same room.
Thus we see the monks and the hermits living side by side, but
scarcely together, and so they continued from the year 1012 till our
own day, which has seen the great Camaldoli suppressed. The device of
the order was a cup or chalice out of which two doves drank,
representing thus the two classes of hermits and monks, the
contemplative and the active life.

[Illustration: Colour Plate S. MARIA IN PORTO]

The second great Ravennese of the Middle Age, S. Peter Damian, who was
born about 988 in Ravenna, of a good but at that time poor family, was
the youngest of many children. He was early left an orphan, and living
in his brother's house was treated, it would appear, rather as a beast
than a man. Presently, however, another brother, then archpriest of
Ravenna, took pity on him and had him educated, first at Faenza but
after at Parma, where he studied under a famous master. Here he became
immersed in the religious life so that when two monks belonging to
Fonte Avellana, "a desert at the foot of the Apennines in Umbria,"
happened to call at the place of his abode he followed them. After a
life of penitence and hardship, in 1057 pope Stephen IX. prevailed
upon him to quit his desert and made him cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and
later pope Nicholas II. sent him to Milan as his legate, till in 1062
the successor of Nicholas allowed him to return to his solitude; but
in 1063 he was sent to France as papal legate. Later we find him as
papal ambassador in Ravenna--this in 1072. He was then a very old man,
and on his way back to Rome he died at Faenza.

This famous saint has often been confused with the third great
Ravennese of this ti