St. Tutilo

St. Tutilo was a monk of the famous Abbey of St. Gall in what is now Switzerland, who lived in the ninth and early tenth centuries and died around the year 915. A man of striking gifts, he was renowned not only for his holiness and his eloquence but for an extraordinary range of talents, being at once a poet, a musician skilled on many instruments, an orator, an architect, a painter, and a sculptor, so that his contemporaries marveled at all that God had bestowed on him.

He placed these many gifts wholly at the service of God and of the Church, adorning churches with his art, composing music and sacred verses, and helping to develop the liturgical chants known as tropes. Yet amid such acclaim he remained humble and obedient, loving above all the quiet of the cloister and the worship of God. Honored for uniting great artistry with genuine sanctity, he is commemorated on 28 March.