Its name is derived from the Holy Hermitage (Italian: Sacro Eremo) of Camaldoli, high in the mountains of central Italy, near the city of Arezzo.

Apart from the Roman Catholic monasteries, in recent times ecumenical Christian hermitages with a Camaldolese spirituality have arisen as well.

The monastery where he first entered monastic life, Sant' Apollinare in Classe, was a traditional Benedictine community under the influence of the Cluniac reforms.

Some years later, Marinus and Romuald settled near the Abbey of Saint Michael de Cuxa, where Abbot Guarinus was also beginning reforms but was building mainly upon the Iberian Christian tradition.

Later, drawing on his various early experiences, Romuald was able to establish his own monastic pattern, though he himself never thought of it as a separate entity, seeing it as an integral part of the Benedictine tradition.

[6] The monks at Camaldoli adopted the distinctive white habit, later characteristic of their tradition, and there emerged in these early years the combination of the two cenobite and hermit branches that afterwards became so marked a feature of the order.

The emperors Otto III and Henry II esteemed Romuald highly and sought his advice on religious questions.

[5] In his old age Romuald started on a missionary expedition to Hungary with twenty-five of his monks, but he was unable to accomplish the journey, and he died in 1027.

In 1667, Pope Clement IX, recognizing the failure, issued a Bull establishing a definitive separation between the congregations.

Perhaps most prominent is Saccidananda Ashram, founded in 1950 in the village of Tannirpalli in the Tiruchirapalli District of Tamil Nadu, India, on the bank of the River Kavery.

[16] In the Kingdom of Hungary, four Camaldolese monasteries were established: Zobor Hill (1695), Lánzsér (German: Landsee) (1701), Vöröskolostor (1710) and Majk (1733).

Beginning under the guidance of Blessed Rudolph II, third Prior General of Camaldoli, they were accepted into the life of the Congregation.

He founded the Monastery of San Pietro di Luco in Mugello near Florence to establish the model of their "Little Rule" in 1086.

Of those who form a part of the Congregation of the Holy Hermitage, their Motherhouse is the Abbey of St. Anthony the Abbot in Rome, where the abbess lives.

Founded in 1979 by three Sisters, in Windsor, New York, Transfiguration Monastery became formally affiliated with the Camaldolese Benedictine Congregation in 1986.

Cam., has served as prioress since its foundation, which she made with two companions, Sisters Placid (a former recluse from France) and Jean Marie Pearse, a native of the region.

For practical reasons, they have begun the process of changing their affiliation to an American Benedictine congregation, while still retaining Camaldolese traditions.