sciples
here in a monastery which he had built for them, he departed for
Bifurcum.

The holy emperor St. Henry II., who had succeeded Otho III., coming into
Italy, and being desirous to see the saint, sent an honorable embassy to
him to induce him to come to court. At the earnest request of his
disciples he complied, but not without great reluctance on his side. The
emperor received him with the greatest marks of honor and esteem, and
rising out of his chair, said to him: "I wish my soul was like yours."
The saint observed a strict silence the whole time the interview lasted,
to the great astonishment of the court. The emperor being convinced that
this did not proceed from pride or disdain, but from humility and a
desire of being despised, was so far from being offended at it, that it
occasioned his conceiving a higher esteem and veneration for him. The
next day he received from him wholesome advice in his closet. The German
noblemen showed him the greatest respect as he passed through the court,
and plucked the very hairs out of his garments for relics, at which he
was so much grieved, that he would have immediately gone back if he had
not been stopped. The emperor gave him a monastery on Mount Amiatus.

The most famous of all his monasteries is that of Camaldoli, near
Arezzo, in Tuscany, on the frontiers of the ecclesiastical state, thirty
miles east from Florence, founded by him about the year 1009. It lies
beyond a mountain, {376} very difficult to pass over, the descent from
which, on the opposite side, is almost a direct precipice looking down
upon a pleasant large valley, which then belonged to a lord called
Maldoli, who gave it the saint, and from him it retained the name
Camaldoli.[2] In this place St. Romuald built a monastery, and by the
several observances he added to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to that
new order called Camaldoli, in which he united the cenobitic and
eremitical life. After seeing in a vision his monks mounting up a ladder
to heaven all in white, he changed their habit from black to white. The
hermitage is two short miles distant from the monastery. It is a
mountain quite overshaded by a dark wood of fir-trees. In it are seven
clear springs of water. The very sight of this solitude in the midst of
the forest helps to fill the mind with compunction, and a love of
heavenly contemplation. On entering it, we meet with a chapel of St.
Antony for travellers to pray in before they advance any f