SILVESTRINES, or Sylvestrines, an order of monks under the Benedictine rule, founded 1231 by St Silvester Gozzolini. He was born at Osimo near Ancona and held a canonry there. About 1227 he resigned it to lead an austere eremitical life. Disciples came to him, and in 1231 he built a monastery at Montefano. The rule was the Benedictine, but as regards poverty in external things, far stricter than the Benedictine. The order was approved in 1247 by Innocent IV., and at Silvester’s death in 1267 there were eleven Silvestrine monasteries. At a later date there were 56, mostly in Umbria, Tuscany and the March of Ancona. In 1907 there were nine Silvestrine houses, one in Rome, and about 60 choir monks. Since 1855 they have had a house and a mission in Ceylon. The order has no history. The habit is blue.
See Helyot, Histoire des ordres religieux (1718), vi. c. 21; Max Heimbucher, Orden u. Kongregationen (1907), i. § 30; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. 2). (E. C. B.)