Saint Peter Damian stands among the most important exponents of the revitalised eremitism which played so prominent a role in the religious reforms of eleventh-century Italy. Afterwards cardinal-bishop of Ostia, papal legate and doctor of the church, he was from 1043 prior of the eremitical community of Fonte Avellana, which he had first entered in 1036/7 and for whose constitutions he was so largely responsible that he can be counted virtually as its refounder. Fonte Avellana, however, owed its origins, probably in the 990s, to Saint Romuald of Ravenna. The community derived the general tenor of its spirituality from his, and it is clear that the image of the saint which Damian was able to build up impressed him deeply. The Life of the saint, which he wrote not later than 1042, was the first major work in what was to grow into his considerable corpus, and far exceeds in length any of his later hagiographical products. His image of Romuald became his own model. In the process, the image seems to have become imbued for its part with the colouration of Damian’s own concerns. The whole Life took on a shape and a structure determined not by Damian’s hard knowledge of the man but by his schematisation, his programme, of Romuald’s spiritual growth. The Life is the vehicle of a kind of argument.