d love of God. The
good example which he saw, and the discourses of a pious lay-brother,
who waited on him, concerning eternity and the contempt of the world,
wrought so powerfully upon him, that he petitioned in full chapter to be
admitted as a penitent to the religious habit. After some demurs,
through their apprehensions of his father's resentment, whose next heir
the saint was, his request was granted. He passed seven years in this
house in so great fervor and austerity, that his example became odious
to certain tepid monks, who could not bear such a continual reproach of
their sloth. They were more exasperated when his fervor prompted him to
reprove their conduct, insomuch, that some of the most abandoned formed
a design upon his life, the execution of which he prevented by leaving
that monastery, with the abbot's consent, and retiring into the
neighborhood of Venice, where he put himself under the direction of
Marinus, a holy hermit, who there led an austere ascetic life. Under
this master, Romuald made great progress in every virtue belonging to a
religious state of life.

Peter Urseoli was then doge of Venice. He had been unjustly raised to
that dignity two years before by a faction which had assassinated his
predecessor Peter Candiano; in which conspiracy he is said by some to
have been an accomplice: though this is denied by the best Venetian
historians.[1] This murder, however, paved the way for his advancement
to the sovereignty, which the stings of his conscience would not suffer
him quietly to enjoy. This put him upon consulting St. Guarinus, a holy
abbot of Catalonia, then at Venice, about what he was to do to be saved.
The advice of St. Marinus and St. Romuald was also desired. These three
unanimously agreed in proposing a monastic state, as affording the best
opportunities for expiating his crimes. Urseoli acquiesced, and, under
pretence of joining with his family at their villa, where he had ordered
a great entertainment, set out privately with St. Guarinus, St. Romuald,
and John Gradenigo, a Venetian nobleman of singular piety, and his
son-in-law John Moresini, for St. Guarinus's monastery of St. Michael of
Cusan, in that part of Catalonia which was then subject to France. Here
Urseoli and Gradenigo made their monastic profession: Marinus and
Romuald, leaving them under the conduct of Guarinus, retired into a
desert near Cusan, and there led an eremitical life. Many flocked to
them, and Romuald being