ERASURE OF OUTLINES AND DESTRUCTION OF
EXPLANATORY TITLE
The large anonymous building in the northwestern corner
of the monastery remains enigmatic. Its lines and all its
explanatory titles were erased in the twelfth century by the
monk who wrote the Life of St. Martin on the back of the
Plan and spilled his text over onto the front side of the
Plan (fig. 404).[331]
During the nineteenth century an attempt
was made to make the inscription legible with the aid of a
chemical substance, which destroyed it forever.[332]
The chemicals
left strong blue blotches whose distribution reveals
that the house was originally provided with a long title
(unquestionably in metric form), running parallel to the
entrance side of the house, which is east; a shorter title
explaining the function of the large hall in the center; and
other short titles designating the purpose of the rooms in
the aisles and lean-to's. X-ray photographs taken in 1949
by the Schweizerische Landesmuseum at Zurich brought
to light the outlines of the building itself (fig. 405), but
failed to reveal its titles. Ildefons von Arx, in two hand-drawn
annotated copies of the Plan, made around 1827,
remarks, "Von dem Hause sind bloss geringe Spuren übrig
und die angeschriebenen Erklärungen und Bestimmungen
vertilgt. . . . Es scheint aber ebenfalls eine Stallung (vielleicht
für Gastpferde) gewesen zu sein."[333]
Keller apparently could
still read the word cubilia.[334]
