GUGLIELMO di VOLPIANO, saint. - Benedictine abbot of S. Benigno of Digione, born in 962 to Count Roberto di Volpiano on the Island of S. Giulio d'Orta (Novara), died on 1 Jan. 1031 at Fécamp.
G. entered at a very young age S. Genuario of Lucedio near Vercelli, where he later became a monk; he studied at Vercelli and Pavia; in 987 he followed Abbot Maiolo to Cluny. In 988 he was entrusted with the reform of St-Sernin (near Avignone), and in 989 with that of S. Benigno of Digione, where he was elected abbot in 990 and ordained priest by Bishop Brunone.
A fervent disciple of s. Benedetto, he soon aroused a new spirit among his monks, whose numbers increased so greatly that he was able to extend his reform to other monasteries in Lorraine, France, and Italy. Among these was the abbey of Fruttuaria (v. IVREA), which G. founded in 1003 with the help of his brothers and of King Arduino, his uncle, and which became a flourishing centre of Cluniac reform; from there the spirit of G., about 1070, also spread to St. Blasien and Siegburg in Germany. In G. fortitude was joined to prudence, and the austerity of discipline to gentleness of heart. He showed boundless charity towards the people; he established schools of higher learning, but did not neglect the education of the people; he gave a strong impetus to art, particularly to Romanesque architecture in Burgundy, Normandy, and Piedmont; his masterpiece remains the church of S. Benigno of Digione. His cult has not been approved, but he is commemorated in the Martyrologies of the Benedictine Order on 1 Jan.