(ca. 530-615) St. Columbanus played a significant part in the development of Irish Christianity and monasticism. He traveled farther than his teacher, St. Columbus: In 590 he went to the court of the Merovingian King Guntram of Burgundy and established several monasteries in that region. He also founded the abbey of Bobbio in Italy. (Bobbio is almost certainly the monastery in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose.) These abbeys and others were initially evangelical centers for the local area and eventually centers of learning.