St. Romuald of the family of the dukes of Ravenna was brought up in the maxims of the world. In softness and the love of pleasure, he grew every day more and more enslaved to his passions: yet he often made a resolution of undertaking something remarkable for the honor of God. His father, Sergius, agreed to decide a dispute with a relation about an estate by a duel. Romuald was shocked at the criminal design; but by threats of being disinherited if he refused was engaged by his father to be present as a spectator. Sergius slew his adversary. Romuald, age twenty, was so struck with horror at the crime, thought himself obliged to expiate it by a severe course of penance for forty days in the neighboring Benedictine monastery of Classis. He performed great austerities and prayed and wept almost without intermission. His compunction and fervor made all these exercises seem easy and sweet to him. He went on to found the Camaldolese monks (of the monastery of Campo Maldoli, in Tuscany) one of the Italian branches of the Benedictines, in which the eremitical life is combined with life in community. He died in 1027 after a life of prayer and rigorous penance.