University of Virginia Library

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF
DEHIO'S INTERPRETATION

It is easy to understand why Dehio was reluctant to
undertake any changes in the eastern parts of the Church
and took the step, for which he was subsequently so
severely criticized, of making the Church a little larger (218
feet) than the stipulated 200 feet. However, there remains
the question whether Dehio is really guilty of such a compromise.
His reconstruction may in fact be based upon a
more accurate interpretation of the title which prescribes
the reduction. Dehio's critics interpret the propositional
phrase AB ORIENTE AD OCCIDENTē to mean "From the
apex of the eastern apse to the apex of the western apse."
There is no assurance whatsoever that this is in fact what
the title meant to convey. The first five letters of the phrase,
AB ORI, are inscribed into the eastern apse, which means
that this apse was a component part of the designated
length. But the inscription does not run into the round of
the western apse; it stops in the westernmost bay of the
nave with the numeral .cc. Literally interpreted this would
mean that the western apse was not meant to be included
in the designated length of 200 feet. If it was not, then
Dehio's reconstruction (fig. 130) would run only 8 feet

[ILLUSTRATION]

132. PLAN OF ST. GALL

CRYPT & ALTAR SPACE, Reinhardt's Interpretation

[after Reinhardt, 1952, 20]

Eliminating the fore choir and moving the high altar into the apse
would have reduced space occupied by monks during divine services to
less than half that foreseen in the Plan. In addition to incongruities
described in fig. 131, this would have led to congestion of disastrous
proportions in this most heavily used part of the Church.

beyond the stipulated length (nine arcades of a span of
12 feet = 108 feet; crossing unit = 40 feet; fore choir =
40 feet; apse = 20 feet. Total = 208 feet)—close enough
to be acceptable; and acceptable without any shadow of
doubt, if the radius of the eastern apse were shortened from
20 feet to 12 feet.[201]

It is imperative, in this context, to draw attention to the
fact (entirely disregarded in previous discussions of this
subject) that the reconstruction proposed by Georg Dehio
appears to conform, indeed, with the manner in which
Abbot Gozbert and his builders interpreted the Plan when
they rebuilt the church in 830-836, as August Hardegger
inferred from the measured architectural drawings made of
the church by Pater Gabriel Hecht, in 1725/26, when
much of the Carolingian fabric of the church was still
identifiable.[202]