He was a good speaker, had a fine musical voice, was a
capital carver in wood, and an accomplished illuminator. Like most of
the earlier monks of St. Gallen, he was a clever musician, equally
skilful with the trumpet and the harp. And the charm about it all was
that he was always cheerful and in excellent spirits, and in consequence
a general favourite. Nor is this all. Besides being teacher of music in
the upper school to the sons of the nobility, he was classical tutor,
and could preach both in Latin and Greek. His chief accomplishments,
however, were music and painting, and on these his reputation mainly
rests. He composed songs, which, like an Irish bard, he sang to the
harp--the popular instrument of this Irish foundation. Being thus
multifariously accomplished (he was, by the way, an excellent boxer), he
was much in request, and by the permission of his abbot travelled to
distant places. One of his celebrated sculptures was the image of the
Blessed Virgin for the cathedral at Metz, said to be quite a
masterpiece. Nay, he was even a mathematician and astronomer, and
constructed an astrolabe or orrery, which showed the courses of the
planets.
This allusion to the astrolabe reminds us that it was Abbat Hartmut of
St. Gallen, who was also an accomplished illuminator, who constructed a
large map of the world--one of the extremely few that until that time
the world had ever seen.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122