Sub-project: St. Gall's Cultural Assets from Zurich
January - December 2007
Status: Completed
Financed by: Catholic church membership of the Canton of St. Gallen and the St. Gallen Bureau of Culture
Description: In the Toggenburg War of 1712, the last religious war of the old Swiss Confederation, the Prince-Abbot of St. Gall was defeated by the forces of Zurich and Bern. Following their invasion of the Cloister of St. Gall, the victors carried away library materials and other cultural assets, dividing them among themselves. After the peace agreement of 1718, most materials were returned, with the exception of a number of valuable manuscripts which remained in Zurich. After almost 300 years, the ongoing, more or less contentious cultural property dispute between St. Gall and Zurich was finally resolved in the spring of 2006. Among the requirements of the compromise were that Zurich return the manuscripts in question to St. Gallen on long-term loan, and that the Canton of St. Gallen digitize them and make them available on the Internet by the end of 2007. This digitization was funded by the Catholic church membership of the Canton of St. Gallen and the St. Gallen Bureau of Culture.
All Libraries and Collections
Autographic collected manuscripts from the collection of the traveling monk of St. Gall, Gallus Kemli († about 1481) containing numerous texts, some composed by Kemli himself, others transcriptions, among them the index of his private library. Kemli spent 30 years outside of his mother monastery at St. Gall, with the authorization of the abbot, sojourning in cities and towns of Switzerland and Germany.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
One of the two oldest (fifteenth-century) extant copies of the Nüwe Casus Monasterii Sancti Galli, originally written by Christian Kuchimaister in about 1335. Kuchimaister, a citizen of the city of St. Gall, relates here the history of the abbey (and some history of the city) of St. Gall between 1228 and 1329. Kuchimaister's chronicle is one of the most important sources for the history of the Lake Constance area in the 13th and early 14th centuries.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Categorically organized compilation of expenditures of the monastery of St. Gall under Abbot Otmar Kunz (1564-1577) as well as collections of notes about the monastery of St. Gall from the 15th century until 1630.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Collection of doctrinal theology lessons from the biography of Saint Gallus, which could be used to rebut protestant arguments. Author: a St. St. Gall monk of the 16th or 17th century. At the back: a diatribe against the Zurich Catechism, from about 1598.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
The St. St. Gall monk and cloister librarian P. Hermann Schenk (1653-1706) translated three works from French into Latin in or about the year 1700: the Historia omnium conciliorum generalium by Jean-Baptiste Truillotte and two texts of the famous French monk and scholar Jean Mabillon (1632-1707): Syllabus praecipuarum difficultatum quae in lectione conciliorum et sanctorum patrum occurrunt and Epitome historiae ordinis Sancti Benedicti.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Collection of the names of persons from the region near the baronial Abbey of St. Gall who converted to Catholicism between 1640 and 1697 (List of Converts), organized by village (primarily those of the Toggenburg and the Rhein valley.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Introduction to ecclesiastical law, (most likely) composed and set into writing in the year 1655 by the St. St. Gall monk Chrysostomus Stipplin (1609-1672).
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Interleaved almanac from Constance, containing a register of expenditures by an official from the Abbey of St. Gall, (possibly Gall Anton of Thurn), with entries for specific expenditures for the organ in the Otmar Church of the monastery of St. Gall, for an altar in Goldach, etc., around 1706.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Catalog of the miracles on the altar of Saint "Maria in Gatter" (St. Mary at the Gate) in the St. Gallen cloister church, from between about 1470 and 1520. Transcription by the St. St. Gall monk P. Jodocus Metzler (1574-1639) from the year 1608.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
The St. Gallen Passionarius Maior, or Great Passion, a collection of 92 legends of the saints assembled by monks of St. Gall from the time around 900, supplemented with annotations and glosses by the St. St. Gall monks Notker Balbulus († 912) and Ekkehart IV. († about 1060).
Online Since: 04/26/2007
The so-called "Zürcher Psalter" (Zurich Psalter) or "St. Galler Psalter" (St. Gallen Psalter), written and decorated in the scriptorum of the monastery of St. Gall, with numerous initial capitals as well as with the oldest extant artistically sophisticated miniature found in the St. Gallen manuscripts, from about 820/830. Includes appended All Saints Litany and computational tables and diagrams. Used daily by the monks in the liturgy of the hours.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
The St. Gallen "Sacramentarium triplex" (three part sacramentarium: Sacramentarium Gregorianum, Sacramentarium Gelasianum, Sacramentarium Ambrosianum), which contains texts for the main prayers of the eucharistic liturgy, used by priests when saying Mass on various feast days and memorial days, not only for the Roman and the Roman-Gallic liturgies, but for the Milanese liturgy as well. A scholarly masterwork by the St. St. Gall monks from the tenure of Abbot-Bishop Salomon (890-920).
Online Since: 12/20/2007
(Fragmentary manuscript remnant) Elaborate lectionary with the Epistles and Gospel readings for the full church year, written and decorated with prominent initial capitals by contemporaries of Sintram in about 900/910 in the monastery of St. Gall.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Manuscript compilation containing, among other items, a copy of the epic Thebaïs (the Tales of Thebes) by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius († about 95 A.D.), written down and annotated with Scholien (commentaries) in the 11th century in the monastery of St. Gall. The volume also contains copies of two brief grammar texts from the 12th century, together with 10th century copies of computational tables and instructions as well as assorted excerpts from the works of the Venerable Bede († 735), set in writing in the 10th century.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
One of the most important extant copies of the Institutiones oratoriae (The Art of Rhetoric) by the Roman rhetorician Quintilian († after 96 A.D.). This work, influential to the present day, depicts in twelve books the education of an orator from his earliest youth through to the completion of training; the goal is the development of an unimpeachably ethical orator who places speaking skills at the service of humanity. This St. Gall copy dates from the early 11th century, with glosses and annotations added by, and – in the case of the last few books – also written by the St. St. Gall monk Ekkehart IV († about 1060).
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Elaborate lectionary from the monastery of St. Gall, written and enhanced with numerous ornate initial capitals by a contemporary of the famous St. Gallen scribe Sintram about 900/910, the same scribe who wrote and illuminated Ms. C 60 held by the Central Library of Zurich. This work, also known as the "Liber Comitis", contains the cycle of liturgical Epistle and Gospel readings for the Church year.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Manuscript compilation from the monastery of St. Gall containing a number of assorted brief texts from the 9th through 15th centuries. Among other items from the 9th century, this manuscript contains the sole exemplar of a document explaining the reasons for the meeting between King Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, the "Aachener Karlsepos " (Carolingean Epic of Aachen or Paderborn Epic) in 799 as well as another sole exemplar, the so called "Carmina Sangallensia", verses on the wall paintings in the former Gallusmünster (Church of St. Gallus) in the monastery of St. Gall. Further components of this manuscript include theological-canonical treatises as well as sermons from the 14th and 15th centuries.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Manuscript compilation containing texts from the 9th through 13th centuries from the monastery of St. Gall. Among them are important copies of works from Alcuin of York († 804; including De dialectica and De rhetorica et virtutibus). Between the two named texts by Alcuin is a full page pen and ink sketch representing the Maiestas Domini, interpreted by art historian Anton von Euw as a reproduction of the now lost cupola mosaic of the Aachen cathedral. The opening text is a copy of 13th century canonical texts by Bishop Sicardus of Cremona (about 1150-1215; Super decreta).
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Compilation of numerous Latin writings of the St. St. Gall monk Notker the German († 1022), among them the works Distributio (concerning the boundary between grammar and logic), De dialectica and De rhetorica. Produced in the monastery of St. Gall in the first half of the 11th century.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Paleographically significant copy of the Alexandreis by Walter of Chatillon, produced in the 14th century in the monastery of St. Gall. This long but much-read work by the French theologian Gautier of Chatillon (1135-1201) depicts the life of Alexander the Great in Latin hexameter. The manuscript later served as the basis of an "Edition" by the St. St. Gall monk Athanasius Gugger (1608-1669), entitled "Gualterus de Castellione Phil. Alexandris sive gesta Alexandri magni libris X comprehens ex veteribus manuscriptis bibliothecarum S. Galli", printed in 1659 by the St. Gallen cloister press.
Online Since: 12/20/2007