After traveling through various countries, including Italy, Gotthard completed his advanced studies under the guidance of Liutfrid in the cathedral school at Passau.

[2] When Henry II of Bavaria decided to transform the chapter house of Niederaltaich into a Benedictine monastery Gotthard remained there as a novice, subsequently becoming a monk there in 990 under the abbot Ercanbertn.

[2] He helped revive the Rule of St. Benedict, and then trained abbots for the abbeys of Tegernsee, Hersfeld and Kremsmünster to restore Benedictine observance, under the patronage of Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor.

He founded a monastery beside the chapel on the Zierenberg about 1025 and had a church built there which was dedicated to Saint Maurice and consecrated in 1028.

There, Pope Innocent II, in the presence of Bernard and Norbert of Xanten, officially made Gotthard a saint.

[2] According to an ancient Ticinese tradition, the little church in St. Gotthard Pass (San Gottardo) in the Swiss Alps was founded by Galdino, Archbishop of Milan (r. 1166-76).

[2] The hospice was entrusted to the care of the Capuchin Order in 1685 by Federico Visconti, and later passed under the control of a confraternity of Ticino.