LOCATION
The position of the sacristy "to the right of the apse" (a
dextra absidae) and of the library in a corresponding place
"to the left" (a sinistra eiusdem) is traditional. It existed, as
George H. Forsyth has pointed out, as early as the fifth
century, in the church which St. Paulinus had erected at
Nola near Naples.[83]
Forsyth also drew attention to the
interesting fact that the double-storied side chambers of
the kind found on the Plan of St. Gall were common in
many Early Christian churches of the Near East. The most
striking parallel is to be found in the church of St. John of
Ephesus where this motif is combined with the centralized
Latin-cross plan exactly as in the Church of the Plan of St.
Gall.[84]
