Plan of Saint Gall. Reichenau, early 9th century.

The Plan of Saint Gall is a famous medieval architectural drawing of a monastic compound dating from the early 9th century. It is the only surviving major architectural drawing from the roughly 700-year period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the 13th century. It is considered a national treasure of Switzerland and remains an object of intense interest among modern scholars, architects, artists and draftsmen for its uniqueness, its beauty, and the insights it provides into medieval culture. Image File history File links Source: http://www. ... Image File history File links Source: http://www. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ... The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece Table of architecture, Cyclopaedia, 1728 The following article focuses on built environment, the architecture of spaces designed for human habitation. ... Monasticism in Christianity is a family of similar traditions that began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural examples and ideals, but not mandated as an institution by the Scriptures. ... This earthenware dish was made in 9th century Iraq. ... The Roman Empire is not the Holy Roman Empire (843-1806). ... (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ... This is for the movie. ...

Overview

The Plan depicts an entire Benedictine monastic compound including churches, houses, stables, kitchens, workshops, brewery, infirmary, and even a special house for bloodletting. The Plan was never actually built, and was so named because it was kept at the famous medieval monastery library of the Abbey of St. Gall, where it remains to this day. It was drawn in a scriptorium in Reichenau in the third decade of the 9th century, dedicated to Abbot Gozbert (816-836) of Saint Gall. ... Bloodletting (or blood-letting, in modern medicine referred to as phlebotomy) was a popular medical practice from antiquity up to the late 19th century, involving the withdrawal of often considerable quantities of blood from a patient in the belief that this would cure or prevent illness and disease. ... Abbey of St. ... A Scriptorium was a room or building, usually within a Christian monastery where, during medieval times, manuscripts were written. ... Alternate uses: Reichenau island Reichenau is a village in the municipality of Tamins in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, where the two Rhine tributaries Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein meet. ... Abbey of St. ...

Blueprint and key.

The Plan was created from five parchments sewn together measuring 45 inches by 31 inches (113 cm by 78 cm) and drawn in red ink lines for the buildings, and brown ink for lettered inscriptions. It is drawn to an unusual scale of 1:192. The reverse of the Plan was inscribed in the 12th century, after it had been folded into book form, with the Life of Saint Martin by Sulpicius Severus. About 350 partly rhyming appendices in the handwritings of two different scribes describe the functions of the buildings. The dedication to Abbot Gozbert is written in the margin. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (450x683, 103 KB) This work is copyrighted. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (450x683, 103 KB) This work is copyrighted. ... German parchmenter, 1568 Parchment is a material for the pages of a book or codex, made from fine calf skin, sheep skin or goat skin. ... St. ... Saint Sulpicius Severus (born around 360, died between 420 and 425), wrote the earliest biography of Saint Martin of Tours. ...

Because it does not correspond to any place that was actually built, just about every aspect of the Plan is disputed by modern scholars. Debates continue on things such as scale and proportion; if the plan is a copy from a lost prototype or the original; if it is reflective of a single individual's ideas, or those of monastic council.

Despite the unknowns, much has been learned about medieval life from the Plan. The absence of heating in the dining hall, for instance, was not an oversight but was meant to discourage excessive enjoyment of meals. In the quarters for the 120-150 monks, their guests, and visitors, the ratio of toilet seats was better than what modern hygenic codes would prescribe.

Derivative works

Horn and Born

Model of the Plan.

Walter Horn and Ernest Born in 1979 published a 3-volume The Plan of St. Gall (Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press) which is widely considered to be the definitive work. The 3-volumes are in their own right of notable artistic merit, typically only found with rare book dealers costing one-thousand dollars or more. Image:Plan of St. ... Image:Plan of St. ...

According to Horn, the Plan was a copy of an original blueprint of an ideal monastery created at two Carolingian reform synods held at Aachen in 816 and 817. The purpose of the synods was to establish Benedictine monasteries throughout the Carolingian Empire as a bulwark against encroaching Christian monastic missionaries from Britain and Ireland who were bringing Celtic lifestyle influences to the Continent (see Celtic art). The Carolingians (also known as the Carlovingians) were a dynasty of rulers that eventually controlled the Frankish realm and its successors from the 8th to the 10th century, officially taking over the kingdoms from the Merovingian dynasty in 751. ... A synod (also known as a council) is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. ... Aachen Cathedral Printen Figurine at Aachen Cathedral Top Floor of Aachen Cathedral Tree-lined boulevard in Aachen Typical Aachen street with early 20th century Gründerzeit houses Aachen (French Aix-la-Chapelle, Dutch Aken, Latin Aquisgranum, Ripuarian Oche) is a spa city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the border... Muiredacha Cross. ...

Umberto Eco

According to Earl Anderson (Cleveland State University), it is likely that Umberto Eco mentions the Plan in The Name of the Rose [1]: Cleveland State University (abbr. ... Photo of Umberto Eco by Robert Birnbaum Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose and his many essays. ... Picture of the book in the binding provided by the Folio Society The Name of the Rose, a 1980 novel by Umberto Eco, is a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327 during the papacy of Pope John XXII. The book was also made into a...

• "perhaps larger but less well proportioned" (p. 26): Adso (a character in the book) mentions actual monasteries that he had seen in Switzerland and France (St. Gall, Cluny, Fontenay), but the standard of "proportion" most likely alludes to the Carolingian (9th century) "Plan of St. Gall," which sets forth an architectural plan for an ideal monastery.

Models

The Plan has a tradition of model making. In 1965 Ernest Born and others created a scale model of the Plan for the Age of Charlemagne exhibition in Aachen, Germany. This became the inspiration for the 1979 book, but was also the first in a tradition of modeling the plan. More recently the Plan has been modeled on computers using CAD software. Aachen Cathedral Printen Figurine at Aachen Cathedral Top Floor of Aachen Cathedral Tree-lined boulevard in Aachen Typical Aachen street with early 20th century Gründerzeit houses Aachen (French Aix-la-Chapelle, Dutch Aken, Latin Aquisgranum, Ripuarian Oche) is a spa city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the border... This article is about computer-aided design. ...

References

• CAD files. CAD files of the Plan.
• "St Gall: The Tradition and Topicality of its Cultural Memory" by Werner Wunderlich (University of St Gall). See 5th paragraph, Library chapter, for discussion of the Plan.
• Edward A. Segal (1989). "Monastery and Plan of St. Gall". Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Volume 10. ISBN 0684182769
• "The Plan of St. Gall" by Karlfried Froehlich. Book review of the Horn and Born book, background information of the plan.
• Walter Horn and Ernest Born (1979). The Plan of St. Gall (Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press, 1979).

Dictionary of the Middle Ages: Supplement 1 (2003) The Dictionary of the Middle Ages is a 13-volume encyclopedia of the Middle Ages published by the American Council of Learned Societies between 1982 and 1989, with a supplemental volume added in 2003. ...

See also

• Carolingian art