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The first part of this composite manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel contains Aristotle's writing on the soul, De anima, in William of Moerbeke's translation, copied in Paris in 1459 by the scholar Johannes Heynlin. The main text, decorated with artistic initials with gold leaf as well as fleuronné initials, is closely surrounded by commentary in marginal and interlinear glosses, written in a small, compact semi-Gothic script. Bound into this volume as the second part is Aristotle's De animalibus, printed in Venice in 1476; this text's uncharacteristic lack of decoration at least raises the question of whether it was also part of Heynlin's library.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
The commentary of French Franciscan Nicholas of Lira (ca. 1270/1275-1349) on the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, with illustrations produced in central Switzerland.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
The first part of a breviary intended for use by a Franciscan, perhaps a Poor Clare, was referred to as Horae canonicae in earlier literature. It was written in 1459 on high quality parchment by the well known scribe Johannes Frauenlob. The coats of arms of Constance families Schatz and Guldinast allow us to make inferences about who commissioned it. Rich book decoration includes gold-grounded initials, filigree, and margin borders. About 30 figured and illustrated initials by two stylistically distinct hands, of which the first is distinguished by particular virtuosity: «Der mit zahllosen Farbpunkten vorgenommene Farbauftrag, die heitere Rankenmalerei […] und auch das geschärfte Verständnis für Fernwirkung bei Landschaftsdarstellungen sind beinahe einzigartig für diese Zeit in der Bodenseemalerei.» (Bernd Konrad).
Online Since: 12/19/2011
The two main components of this manuscript are the lives of the house saints of St. Gall (Gallus, Otmar, Wiborada and Notker Balbulus) and of the apostles and early Christian saints and martyrs, and the Chronicle of the Abbey of St. Gall, from the Casus sancti Galli by Ratpert (612-883) to the Continuatio by Conradus de Fabaria (1204-1234). St. Gall reformer Vadian added marginal notes, some of them quite detailed and critical, to the text describing the history of the cloister. The codex also contains chronicalistic notes about St. Gall and Switzerland (14th/15th centuries), the Reise in das Heilige Land by Steffan Kapfman, and computistic, medical, astronomical and theological texts. On two previously empty pages (pp. 324-325) St. Gall abbey librarian Idelfons von Arx added four recipes for making faded handwriting legible.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This volume contains the Manuale confessorumby the Dominican Monk Johannes Nider, born in Isny and later active in Nuremberg and Vienna (p. 3-124), the work De generatione et corruptione by Albertus Magnus, also known under the title Problemata Aristotelis (p. 129-168), the second Book of Aristotle's Physics In librum secundum physicorum (p. 169-212), the treatise De constellacione [siderum] in nativitate (p. 212-213), the late medieval collection of anecdotes and tales Gesta Romanorum (p. 258-453). The text on pages 129-213 is dated to 1459; pages 259-453 were completed on 30 August 1402 by the copyist Konrad Heinrich von Tettnang.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
A copy of the commentary on Aristotle by the French scientist and philosopher Nicolas Oresme († 1382) Quaestiones super libros Meteororum; according to the colophon (on f. 175v) this copy was completed in September 1459.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
Copy of the commentary on the first twelve books of Artistotle's Metaphyiscs by the philosopher Nicholas Theoderici of Amsterdam († before 1456 in Greifswald), completed on 21 May 1459 (fol. 203v). Following the text, there is a table of contents on fol. 204r−205r. According to the note of ownership on fol. 209v (Liber monasterii sancti Galli), this volume probably was part of the Abbey Library of St. Gall around 1500. Prior to that the volume probably was held in Eastern Switzerland, as suggested by notes on fol. 1r (naming Wernher Müntzmaister; Jakob Grübel; Albert von Glarus). From 1422 on, Theoderici was professor of the theological faculty at the universities of Rostock, Leipzig and Greifswald; it has been verified that in the 15th century there were students from St. Gall in Leipzig.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall's eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). Folders 10-14 and 18-32 contain fragments of late-medieval charters, whose texts are incomplete to various degrees. The contents of the charters are indicated in the registers of Karl Wegelin (1803–1856), who examined most charters during his period as Abbey Archivist of St. Gall (1834–1856). The register's content is reproduced with the orthography and wordflow unchanged, and only exceptionally in abbreviated or modified form. In contrast to Karl Wegelin, who only reports the year, the date is presented, when possible, on the basis of the charter text. The abbreviation P.L. (=Philipp Lenz) indicates supplemental free-standing observations on the content. The descriptions do not mention the old numeration scheme in blank ink, which Karl Wegelin probably introduced. If a charter fragment has no explicit dating, the script is described and dated. Measurements give height x width at the maximal point of the documents, according to the reading direction, and thus independent of the direction the charters were bound. The twenty-sixth folder contains German-language fragments of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century documents and a letter, from Germany and Austria.
Online Since: 08/21/2025