I.10.1
NUMBER OF SHEETS & SEQUENCE IN
WHICH THEY WERE SEWN TOGETHER
The Plan is drawn upon a piece of parchment composed of
five separate sheets of calfskin (not lamb or goat, as was
formerly believed)[196]
and sewn together by threads of gut
(fig. 24, nos. 1-5). The drawing is on the softer inner side
of the skins, which show traces of scraping and are slightly
roughened by pumice stone. The edges are irregular, most
markedly so on the right-hand side of the Plan, where the
skins did not yield sufficient surfaces to allow the corners
to be squared.
The largest over-all dimensions of the Plan are 30¾ × 44 3/16
inches (78 × 112 cm.).[197]
The original dimensions are more
likely to have been in the neighborhood of 32 × 46 inches.
Konrad Hecht, who engaged in some interesting speculations
on this subject, estimates the over-all shrinkage to
which the parchment was subjected in ten centuries of
aging to amount to 5 to 6 percent of the original surface
area.[198]
Even today the dimensions vary slightly in response
to changing humidity conditions.[199]
The distribution of the monastic buildings over the five
component sheets of the Plan is as follows: sheets 1 and 2
accommodate the Church, the Claustrum, the guest and
service structures to the north of the Church as well as in
the corner between the Church and the Claustrum; sheet
3 accommodates the service structures south of the Claustrum;
sheet 4, the Novitiate and the Infirmary, the
Cemetery, and all the other structures to the east of the
Church; sheet 5, the stables for the livestock and all the
other agricultural service structures to the west of the
Church.
The sequence in which the sheets were sewn together
can be reconstructed from the manner in which they overlap
each other. First, sheet 2 was attached to sheet 1 from
below. Next, sheet 3 was sewn onto sheets 1 and 2, again
from below. Then sheets 4 and 5 were sewn to sheet
group 1, 2, 3 from above (fig. 24, nos. 1-5).
The material used for threading the seams is a natural
uncolored gut identifiable as such even on the facsimile
(in contrast to the green pieces of thread that were used
at a relatively recent date to patch together certain sections
along the former folding lines of the Plan where the parchment
was torn). A closer look at these seams suggests that
not all of them were stitched by the same hand. The seams
that hold sheets 1, 2, and 3 together are made in short
stitches and take a surprisingly swerving course, while the
seams through which sheets 4 and 5 are attached to the
sheet-group 1, 2, 3 follow a very straight course and are
sewn in longer and more elegant stitches.[200]
There is clear evidence that sheets 1, 2, and 3 were sewn
together before the drawing was started, since the lines
of the drawing all run in a continuous motion over the
edges of these sheets, from the higher lying sheet on to
the lower one. Where sheet 1 overlaps sheet 2 (fig. 25,
the lines must have been drawn in the direction from sheet
1 to sheet 2 since the quill did not smear, as it would
inevitably have done had the stroke been conducted upward
from sheet 2 over the edge of sheet 1. Where sheets
1 and 2 overlap sheet 3, again, the lines were drawn from
the higher sheet (1 and 2) to the lower lying one (3). For
more detail I refer the reader to the explanatory caption
of figures 26-28.
In general the draftsman moved his line in a continuous
stroke across seam and edge, but in some cases he stopped
at the edge of the higher sheet and started a new stroke on
the lower sheet, so that the impact of the quill with the
edge of the higher sheet bent the start of his line into a hook
(fig. 28 and 29).
The ductus of the line shows all of the possible effects of
the encounter of the quill with the seam and the edge of
the sheets: a slight tendency for the ink to spatter at these
critical points, a minute disruption of the straightness of the
line as the quill takes a slight leap from the edge of the
upper skin to the surface of the lower, and a minute
tendency to swerve at this point. Nowhere in sheet-group
1, 2, 3 is any part of the drawing covered up by an
overlapping margin of the adjacent sheet—clear evidence
that this group of sheets must have been sewn together
before the drawing was started.
Sheets 4 and 5 must have been drawn separately and
sewn onto sheet-group 1, 2, 3 only after the latter had been
completed (fig. 24). This can be inferred from the fact
that a number of lines on sheets 1 and 2 are covered up by
the overlapping margin of sheet-group 4, 5. Thus, for
instance, the easternmost portion of the eastern apse of the
Church (fig. 30) is completely drawn out on sheet 1, but
covered up by the overlapping edge of sheet 4, as one can
see when lifting the overlapping edge from the front side
of the Plan. Similarly, the ascending stroke of the letter
A of the great axial inscription AB ORIENTE IN OCCIDENTEM
. . . appears on both the covered portion of sheet 1 and the
[ILLUSTRATION]
24.B PLAN OF ST. GALL
EXAMINATION OF CONDITIONS WHERE LINES OF THE
DRAWING CROSS OVERLAPPING SEAMS
A key plan for figures 25 through 32
The "window" areas of the Plan shown on opposite page define the
location of those areas of the drawing which are examined in detail
in figs. 25 through 32. In all these places the scribe's lines
cross seams and overlapping edges, thereby revealing much about the
sequence in which the five component sheets of parchment were
assembled.
Figs. 33-40 attempt to illustrate the eight successive stages of the
growth of the tracing. The interpretation is based primarily on two
types of observation:
1. The progress of work as inferred from the manner in which the
lines are drawn in critical areas where they run across the
overlapping margins of two joined pieces of parchment (figs. 25
through 30).
2. The detection of certain angular distortions in the layout of
buildings, which we attribute to a mainly inadvertent shift in the
relationship of overlay and original, incurred in the process of
tracing.
The draftsmanship of the Plan adheres to a prevailing concept of
rectangularity in its overall design as well as in the inter-relation of
many internal systems of rectangularity. Even unaided, the eye is
able to discern deflections between adjacent systems, in several places.
We are convinced that these could not have occurred in the
construction of the original drawing from which the Plan was copied.
The draftsmanship of the Plan of St. Gall exhibits a high degree of
manual expertise, but the Plan was traced and therefore not
dependent on any mechanical aid. The original scheme, by contrast,
must necessarily have been constructed. Large and complex as it was,
its author could not possibly have accomplished the orderliness and
scale correctness by which it was characterized without mechanical
aids, such as graduated straightedges, T-squares and or other similar
devices, the use of which would have precluded angular deviation.
The rectangular distortions in the Plan, and its deflections from the
square, we are convinced, were caused by difficulties encountered in
the act of tracing, an operation far from simple in a time when aids
such as light boxes, tracing paper, and adhesive tape for securing
both the original parchment and the overlay parchment with absolute
precision, were unknown.
overlapping margin of sheet 4.
[201]
The same condition can be
observed at the western end of the Church (fig. 31). Here
the porch was drawn out in its entirety on sheet 2 before
sheet 5 was sewn onto it from above. Sheet 5 also covers
the lower portion of the word
habebit in the porch inscription,
not to the extent, however, of having to be redrawn
on sheet 5.
From these conditions it follows conclusively that the
drawings of sheet-group 1, 2, 3 must have been completed
before the sheets 4 and 5 were added to this group.[202]
(For
additional evidence, see extended caption of fig 30.)
There is no conclusive evidence to show that sheet 5 was
drawn at a later stage than sheet 4. But it is obvious that
the buildings on sheet 4 are of greater importance for the
life of the monastic community than the service structures
shown on sheet 5, and therefore would command a higher
priority in attention. Moreover, the draftsmanship of
certain buildings on sheet 5, exhibiting signs of fatigue as
will be shown in a later place, suggests that this portion
of the Plan was the last to be drawn.
