OLIVETANS  , one of the lesser monastic orders following the

Benedictine Rule, founded by St Bernard Tolomei, a Sienese nobleman . At the age of forty, when the leading man in Siena, he retired along with two companions to live a hermit's life at Accona, a desert place fifteen miles to the south of Siena, 1313 . Soon others joined them, and in 1324 John XXII. approved of the formation of an order . The Benedictine Rule was taken as the basis of the life; but austerities were introduced beyond what St Benedict prescribed, and the government was framed on the mendicant, not the monastic, model, the superiors being appointed only for a short term of years . The habit is white . Partly from the olive trees that abound there, and partly out of devotion to the Passion, Accona was christened Monte Oliveto, whence the order received its name . By the end of the 14th century there were upwards of a hundred monasteries, chiefly in Italy; and in the 18th there still were eighty, one of the most famous being San Miniato at Florence . The monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore is an extensive building of considerable artistic interest, enhanced by frescoes of Signorelli and Sodoma; it is now a national monument occupied by two or three monks as custodians, though it could accommodate three hundred . The Olivetans have a house in Rome and a few others, including one founded in Austria in 1899 . There are about 125 monks in all, 54 being priests . In America are some convents of Olivetan nuns . See Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1713), vi. c .

24; Max Heimbucher, Orden u . Kongregationen (1907), i . § 3o; Wetzel- u . Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed . 2) ; J . A .

Symonds, Sketches and Studies in Italy (1898), " Monte Oliveto ": B . M . Marechaux, Vie de bienheureux Bernard Tolomei (1888) . (E . C .