University of Virginia Library

GROUPING OF BUILDING MASSES: A
TRANSFER TO SITE ORGANIZATION OF PRINCIPLES
DEVELOPED IN BOOK ILLUMINATION

In the layout of the churches and cloisters of the Plan
of St. Gall another influence must be acknowledged: with
all of its classicism, it also has an amazing kinship with the
layout of some of the great illuminated pages found in
Carolingian and Iberno-Saxon manuscripts, in particular,
with those pages which illustrate the opening words of
each Gospel. Again, it may be futile to point at any one
specific example. Yet as one glances at the great decorated
page with the opening word of St. Mark's (Quoniam) in

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. ABBOT'S HOUSE, AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

259.C

In the foreground the Privy. It lies in line with
the privies of all of the other houses located
north of the church and like the latter was probably
cleansed by a common channel of water running
from east to west (cf. above pp. 68ff and p. 74,
fig. 53.

NORTH ELEVATION

259.A

The grouping into units of three and four of the
arched openings that admit sun to the two porches
ranged along the eastern and western long wall
of the Abbot's House may be another manifestation
of the maker's preference for sacred numbers (see
above pp. 118ff).

WEST ELEVATION

259.B

The eastern porch of the Abbot's house faces the
Annex with the Abbot's Kitchen, Cellar and Bath
and for that reason is provided with two passages
rather than the single passage of the west porch.

EAST ELEVATION

the Book of Kells (fig. 245),[307] one cannot help but be
struck by the compositional similarities between the layout
of its dominant letter masses (stem and loop of the great
initial Q) and that of the dominant architectural masses on
the Plan of St. Gall (aggregate of churches and cloisters):
their asymmetrical axiality, the manner of their framing by
secondary surrounding units (fig. 246). One cannot help
wonder whether there might not be some compositional
connection between the shape of the large inverted L that
forms the second dominant motif of the Quoniam-page of
the Book of Kells and the manner in which the guest and
service buildings to the south and west of the Church of the
Plan of St. Gall are pressed into an L-shaped sequence of
roofs that frame the dominant building masses of Church
and cloister in a similar manner. I am far from attempting
to establish any direct connection between the Plan of St.
Gall and the Book of Kells—the influence could have come
from common sources in a dozen different ways—but
should like to confine myself to the more general observation
that the comparison suggests that in the grouping of
the basic architectural masses of his monastery site the
architect may have drawn some inspiration from the
grouping of the letter masses on the great illuminated
manuscripts of his period.