 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2023) |
The Monastery of the Holy Saviour at Lecceto in Tuscany, was the principal House of the order of the Hermit Friars of Saint Augustine (not to be confused with the Augustinian Canons Regular) in 1256, when Pope Alexander IV constituted the Augustinian order internationally. It was dedicated to Jesus as Saviour.
The earliest-known reference to any sort of hermitage at Lecceto is dated 1223. It is about a mile from S. Leonardo al Lago, which lies to the northwest.
The hermitage was first known as San Salvatore di Foltignano. Later it was called San Salvatore di Selva di Lago, a reference to the surrounding thick forest of holm oaks. A church was built in 1227. In 1228, Bishop Bonfilius of Siena gave the various groups of hermits in the area the Rule of Saint Augustine. In 1243 the Tuscan hermits petitioned Pope Innocent IV to unite them all as one group, which he did with the papal bull Incumbit Nobis. [1]
On 4 May 1256 Pope Alexander IV issued a papal bull "Licet ecclesiae catholicae" uniting five monastic congregations into the Tuscan community of Lecceto. The other four were the houses of St. William, of Brother John Bono, of Favale and of Brettine. From this act of union, the modern Order expanded rapidly, and it is from this act of union that Tuscany is regarded as the homeland of the modern Augustinian Friars, and Lecceto is its principal monastic house. [1]
Probably the most famous member of the Lecceto community was William Flete, an English friar. In 1359, when Flete was about to attain his Master of theology degree at Cambridge University, he had a change of heart and chose to leave England and go to Lecceto to intensify his experience of contemplation. A little beyond the monastery are caves to which some of the friars would retreat for solitude. One such was William Flete, a friar from England. He would spend his days in study and contemplation in one of these caves, and return to the monastery at night to sleep. [2] He was regarded by his contemporaries as a master of the spiritual life. A number of friars opted to withdraw themselves from the monastery to small hermitages or caves in the surrounding forest. [1]
In 1385 Lecceto was designated as the first Augustinian house of strict observance. Lecceto became a centre of reform for the Augustinians, and developed methods of encouraging a more faithful practise of the Augustinian Rule, and the Constitutions of the Order. From Lecceto, other like-minded groups developed over the centuries. [3]
Pope Pius II visited Lecceto in 1459 on his way to the Diet at Mantua. Giles of Viterbo spent four years at Lecceto, before responsibilities as vicar-general of the order drew him away. [3]
Between 1317 and 1345 the church was enlarged and a cloister built. The tower was begun in 1405. A new refectory and dormitory was built in 1484. In 1554 during war between Florence and Siena near Lecceto, troops of Florence sacked the hermitage. In the seventeenth century, the monastery owned eleven farms, but the land was poor; it also owned some property in the city of Siena. [3]
During the turmoil of the Napoleonic era, the monastery was suppressed and the sixteen Augustinians resident were forced out. The building was abandoned.
By 1968 of the modern era, the monastery had declined, and the roof had fallen in. In that year, the Dominican bishop of Siena decided that he wanted to revitalise Lecceto Augustinian spirituality at Siena. He began a project to restore it, and to invite the Augustinian contemplatives to transfer their community there. Augustinian nuns arrived back in 1972.
The re-established community of Augustinians there have revived the Augustinian tradition of contemplation. The monastery welcomes overnight guests, who are also welcome to join the nuns at the Divine Office.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
Augustinians are members of several religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about 400 AD by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13th centuries:
The Fraticelli or Spiritual Franciscans opposed changes to the rule of Saint Francis of Assisi, especially with regard to poverty, and regarded the wealth of the Church as scandalous, and that of individual churchmen as invalidating their status. The Fraticelli were declared heretical in 1296 by Boniface VIII.
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Roman Catholic church. There are also friars outside of the Roman Catholic church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the older monastic orders' allegiance to a single monastery formalized by their vow of stability. A friar may be in holy orders or be a non-ordained brother. The most significant orders of friars are the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Carmelites.
Romuald was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century "Renaissance of eremitical asceticism". Romuald spent about 30 years traversing Italy, founding and reforming monasteries and hermitages.
The Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona, commonly called Camaldolese, is a monastic order of Pontifical Right for men founded by Saint Romuald. Its name is derived from the Holy Hermitage of Camaldoli, high in the mountains of central Italy, near the city of Arezzo. Its members add the nominal letters E.C.M.C. after their names to indicate their membership in the congregation. Apart from the Roman Catholic monasteries, in recent times ecumenical Christian hermitages with a Camaldolese spirituality have arisen as well.
Mendicant orders are, primarily, certain Roman Catholic religious orders that have adopted for their male members a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor. At their foundation these orders rejected the previously established monastic model. This model prescribed living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade and owned property in common, including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, the mendicants avoided owning property at all, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, often itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people to whom they preached. The members of these orders are not called monks but friars.
The Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about the year 400, is a brief document divided into eight chapters and serves as an outline for religious life lived in community. It is the oldest monastic rule in the Western Church.
Agostino Novello, also known as Augustine of Tarano, but born Matteo da Termini, was an Italian religious figure. He was born in the first half of the 13th century, at Termini Imerese, the village in Sicily from which he derived his surname. As that village was near Palermo, he is sometimes called Palermitano. The Augustinians believe he was probably born at Tarano. On entering religion he changed his name to Agostino, and later was given the additional name of Novello.
Independent Augustinian communities are Roman Catholic religious communities that follow the Augustinian Rule, but are not under the jurisdiction of the Prior General of the Augustinian hermits in Rome.
William Flete was a 14th-century Augustinian hermit friar, an English mystic, and lived in the latter half of the fourteenth century. He was a contemporary and friend of St. Catherine of Siena.
The Order of Saint Augustine, abbreviated OSA, is a religious mendicant order of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1244 by bringing together several eremitical groups in the Tuscany region who were following the Rule of Saint Augustine, written by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century.
Augustinian nuns are the most ancient and continuous segment of the Roman Catholic Augustinian religious order under the canons of contemporary historical method. The Augustinian nuns, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo, are several Roman Catholic enclosed monastic communities of women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of St. Augustine. Prominent Augustinian nuns include Italian mystic St. Clare of Montefalco and St. Rita of Cascia.
The Brothers of Penitence or Friars of the Sack were an Augustinian community also known as Boni Homines or Bonshommes, with houses in Spain, France and England.
The Hermits of Saint William (Williamites) was a religious community founded by Albert, companion and biographer of William of Maleval, and Renaldus, a physician who had settled at Maleval shortly before William's death. It followed William's practice, and quickly spread over Italy, Germany, France, Flanders and Hungary. In 1256, some houses joined the Hermits of St. Augustine, while other houses continued as a separate congregation, eventually adopting the Benedictine rule.
The Basilica of San Giacomo Maggiore is an historic Roman Catholic church in Bologna, region of Emilia Romagna, Italy, serving a monastery of Augustinian friars. It was built starting in 1267 and houses, among the rest, the Bentivoglio Chapel, featuring numerous Renaissance artworks.
Ludovico Barbo, O.S.B. (1381–1443), also referred to as Luigi Barbo, was a significant figure in the movement to reform monastic life in northern Italy during the 15th century. Originally a canon of the community which became the Canons Regular of San Giorgio in Alga, he died a Benedictine abbot and Bishop of Treviso (1437–1443).
Gabriele Sforza, was a member of the Augustinian Order who served as Archbishop of Milan from 1445 to his death in 1457.
Origen de los frayles ermitaños de la Orden de San Augustin y su verdadera institucion antes del gran Concilio Lateranense is a 1618 work by the Augustinian scholar Juan Márquez, Royal preacher and Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca. It contributed to a long-running debate within the Augustinian order as to whether the friars (hermits) or the canons were the older-established foundation. Márquez argued that the hermits were the more ancient establishment.
Antonio Patrizi was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Order of Saint Augustine. Patrizi joined the order in Lecceto and lived as a hermit prior to his sudden death while visiting his friend at another convent.
Ambrogio Landucci, O.S.A. was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Titular Bishop of Porphyreon (1655–1669). As papal sacristan, he was involved in the removal and authentication of relics from the catecombs.