Arno of Salzburg

Arno of Salzburg (Arn, Aquila, "the Eagle") was bishop of Salzburg and then its first archbishop, born after 740 in the Isengau in Bavaria, and reposed on 24 January 821 at Salzburg. He is honored as blessed in the Roman Catholic Church; his day is 24 January.

He came from a noble Bavarian family, studied at the episcopal school of Freising, was a deacon in 765 and a priest in 776. He spent some time at the abbey of Weihenstephan, then became abbot of Elnon (Saint-⁠Amand), where he met Alcuin of York. In 785 Duke Tassilo III named him bishop of Salzburg, and in 787 he was sent to Rome as envoy to Pope Hadrian I. In 788, after Tassilo's removal, he drew up with the deacon Benedict the catalogue of the properties of the Church of Salzburg (the Congestum or Indiculus Arnonis). In 798, at Charlemagne's urging, Salzburg became an archbishopric, and Arno received the pallium from Pope Leo III as metropolitan of Bavaria.

He was one of Charlemagne's most trusted men, sent as missus dominicus; at court the scholars called him Aquila. He wrote or had written a great deal: he founded a library at Salzburg and had more than one hundred fifty volumes copied. He presided over several synods to improve the condition of the Church in Bavaria and took part in the assemblies of Aachen in 802 and of Paderborn in 799, where he escorted Pope Leo III into Charlemagne's presence; he was present at the imperial coronation of 800. He brought relics of Saint Amand to Salzburg. He corresponded much with Alcuin, whose letters to him have been preserved. After Charlemagne's death (814) he withdrew from active life but kept the archbishopric until his death.