The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

A new era in the history of the investigation of the Plan
was initiated in 1952 with the publication, under the
auspices of the Historische Verein des Kantons St. Gallen,
of a facsimile reproduction of the Plan.[17] This praiseworthy
undertaking was initiated and carried out by the
late Hans Bessler of St. Gall and his lifelong friend Dr.
Johannes Duft, the distinguished director of the Stiftsbibliothek,
who together nursed this project through all its
critical stages.[18] Printed by the most advanced methods of
color reproduction, this facsimile has not only secured the
survival of the Plan in hundreds of widely distributed
copies, but has also opened the field for new studies on the
scale and construction methods used in the laying out of
the buildings shown on the Plan.[19]

The 1952 facsimile was accompanied by a descriptive
text by Hans Reinhardt,[20] which appeared as the 92.
Neujahrsblatt of the Historische Verein des Kantons St.
Gallen, together with an article by Johannes Duft on the
previous history of the Plan,[21] an analysis by Dietrich

[ILLUSTRATION]

1.A PLAN OF ST. GALL

VERSO OF THE PLAN WITH THE LIFE OF ST. MARTIN INSCRIBED MORE THAN THREE
CENTURIES AFTER THE PLAN WAS DRAWN ON THE RECTO.

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE PLAN OF ST. GALL

The first fold divided the parchment into
two equal areas. The and & 3rd foldings
were then made to the first
fold.

For ease in folding the outer rows X and Y
were made slightly shorter than the two center
rows.

1.B

Compactly folded the manuscript can
now be returned to the library shelf.
The blank space (space with no
writing) functions as front and back
cover.

THE LIFE OF ST. MARTIN AND THE FOLDING OF THE
PARCHMENT IN RELATION TO THE READING SEQUENCE

1.C

THE UNFOLDING PROCEDURE AND READING SEQUENCE

The scribe planned the LIFE OF ST. MARTIN to be easily read with the pages
following each other in numerical order from left to right. The reader, on taking the
manuscript from the shelf, had in hand a "package" as shown in fig. 1, diagram 8.
Laying the LIFE on the table, the reader opened the package. Before him, in
normal reading position, he saw page 1 on the left and page 2 on the right:

After reading pages 1 and 2, page 1 was turned backwards (on fold line 4) to the
left, and page 2 was turned to the right (on fold line 5). The reader then saw a
rectangle like this:

The row of pages 3, 4, 5, 6, was brought toward the reader and laid flat on the
table. This is what he saw—pages 7, 8, 9, 10, in reading sequence left to right:

So far the page numbers flowed in normal sequence, left to right. Page 11, however,
was clearly in view but upside down. The parchment was rotated 180 degrees to
permit the upside-down pages to be read.

After reading the sequence of pages 11, 12, 13, 14, left to right, in fig. 5, the
parchment was rotated back to the position shown in fig. 4. There was more to be
read; 14 was not the last page of the LIFE OF ST. MARTIN.

At this stage, the reader lifted the lower row of pages, 7, 8, 9, 10 (on fold line 3),
toward him and placed the parchment face down on the table. This is what he saw:

In the lower left corner, on the back of page 7, in reading position and clearly in
view, was the last page of the LIFE OF ST. MARTIN, page 15.

On the remainder of the parchment, intact and without erasure, was displayed
Haito's Plan of St. Gall: a graphic configuration, a senseless geometric abstraction.
Three centuries after its conception and delineation, it was neither with meaning
nor historical significance to a reader of the LIFE OF ST. MARTIN, until its
discovery or rediscovery in 1604 by Henricus Canisius (See p. 2, above).

We can be grateful that the LIFE OF ST. MARTIN was not treated to conventional
bookbinding techniques composed of cut leaves, folded and sewn into signatures.

The marvel of the survival of the parchment has been treated by Dr. Johannes
Duft (see above, p. 1, note 1).

Schwarz of the manner in which the Plan was folded by
the twelfth-century monk,[22] and a report by Hans Bessler,
on the technical measures taken for the preservation of the
Plan.[23]

Reinhardt did not propose to undertake a comprehensive
treatment of the subject and did not claim to deal with it in
an exhaustive manner. He offered a new solution to the
controversial issue of the inconsistent measurements of the
Church, and advanced some new thoughts about the origin
of the two circular towers, but touched only briefly on the
difficult problem of the reconstruction of the guest and
service structures of the Plan.

In 1949, during the preparatory stages of this great
facsimile edition, while the Plan was under photographic
examination in the Landesmuseum of Zurich, it was
freed from the linen backing with which it had been reinforced
during the seventeenth or eighteenth century.[24]
This brought to light the text of the Life of St. Martin
which covered the verso of the Plan. X-rays and other
penetrating photographic methods brought back the
outlines of the erased large service structure in the northwest
corner of the monastery (fig. 405), but failed to revive
its explanatory titles.[25] The last hope that these legends
could ever be recovered vanished when Dr. Duft discovered
that they belonged to a group of obliterated texts
that had fallen victim to the chemical experiments undertaken
either by the distinguished historian Ildefons von
Arx (1755-1833), or perhaps by Anton Henne, who served
as provisional librarian between 1855 and 1861.[26]

[17]

Der Karolingische Klosterplan von St. Gallen, eight-color facsimile
offset print, published by the Historische Verein des Kantons St.
Gallen, the Clichéanstalt Schwitter and Co., Zurich, and E. LoepfeBenz,
Rorschach.

[18]

For the two articles in which the project was announced, see
Bessler, 1950 and 1951.

[19]

See below, p. 77ff.

[20]

Reinhardt, 1952.

[21]

Duft, 1952.

[22]

Schwarz, 1952.

[23]

Bessler, 1952.

[24]

See the report of Schwarz, op. cit.

[25]

See II, 159, fig. 405.

[26]

See Duft, 1952, 37-38; and 1951, 252-56.

University of Virginia Library

I.1.4

A NEW ERA: THE FACSIMILE EDITION OF 1952

1.A PLAN OF ST. GALL

THE PLAN OF ST. GALL

A NEW ERA: THE FACSIMILE
EDITION OF 1952