Pierre Gaultier

Pierre Gaultier

Pierre Gaultier (Gaultier of Orléans; Gaultier Orléanois; Gaultier de Rome; Latinised form: Petrus Galtruchius) (c. 1599, Orléans, France – 1681, Caen, France) was a French scholar, lutenist and composer.

After joining the order of the Society of Jesus in Orléans in 1621, he became an ordained priest and universal scholar. He was sent to the headquarters of his order in Rome, where he made the acquaintance of his future secular patron, prince Johann Anton I. of Eggenberg (1610–1649), then ambassador of the Habsburgian emperor Ferdinand III to Pope Urban VIII. Probably around 1640, Gaultier returned to the monastery of Caen, where he worked as director of studies until his death in 1681.