The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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 | The Plan of St. Gall |  |
EARLIEST VISUAL & LITERARY EVIDENCE
IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
The Plan of St. Gall, to the best of my knowledge, offers
the earliest visual evidence of the use in Europe of corner
fireplaces with chimneys. Literary evidence, however, of
such heating devices in individual rooms goes back as far
as the sixth century. In 584, in connection with a donation
to the church of St.-Marcellus ad Cabillonum (Châlons-sur-Saône),
378. MUSEÉ CONDÉ, CHANTILLY,
FRANCE
LES TRÈS RICHES HEURES DE JEAN DE
FRANCE DUC DE BERRY.
FEBRUARY: DETAIL.
The miniature depicts rural life during the month of
February, portraying a snow covered landscape with a
farmhouse, a pigeon house and a stack of beehives. Inside
the farmhouse the mistress and two servants warm themselves
before a crackling fire. The hood and mantle of the fire
place are built in masonry. The chimney shaft is braided
in wicker-work, presumably daubed inside to prevent it
from catching fire.
The manuscript, one of the finest of its kind, was illuminated
between 1411 and 1416 by Pol de Limburg, the most
distinguished of a small group of Flemish artists who,
trained in the tradition of French illumination of the
fourteenth century, under the inspiration of contemporary
Italian painting laid the foundations for the realistic style of
the brothers van Eyck.
construction of a royal guesthouse (hospitole), the description
of which (solarium cum caminata and lobia, galleried
porch) is strikingly reminiscent of both the Abbot's House
on the Plan of St. Gall and the royal residence at Anappes
of the Brevium exempla.[252]
"Censemus ergo regalique authòritate roboramus, ut ibi manentes servi
hospitale construant: solarium vero cum caminata, illi de Gergeyaco et de
Alciato faciant: illi autem de Mercureis et de Canopis lobiam aedificiint"
(Bréquigny, I, 1791, 79; the passage is quoted and discussed by Heyne,
I, 1899, 75).
| The Plan of St. Gall | |