Romuald founded the Camaldolese order in 1012 at Camaldoli, Italy.
Romuald was an Italian Benedictine monk and hermit who lived from about 951 to 1027. After witnessing a duel involving his father, he entered the monastery of Sant'Apollinare in Classe near Ravenna. He later pursued a more solitary and rigorous form of monastic life.
In 1012, Romuald established the hermitage at Camaldoli in Tuscany. The community combined elements of eremitical solitude with cenobitic, or communal, monastic life. This became the foundation of the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine tradition.
Romuald traveled widely to reform monasteries and encourage stricter observance. His work belongs to the broader 11th-century renewal of Western monasticism. He is sometimes confused with Bruno of Cologne, who founded the Carthusian order later in the century. Romuald’s feast day is 19 June.