This large-format volume, bound like a Baroque missal in wooden boards with a leather cover and decorative plaques, contains the catalog of manuscripts of the library of the secularized Monastery of St. Gall, uniformly compiled in 1827 by the abbey librarian at the time, F. Ildefons von Arx (1755−1833). This is the oldest catalog of manuscripts from St. Gall; it lists the manuscripts in the order of the shelfmarks introduced in 1780/82 and still valid today: from Cod. Sang. 1 to Cod. Sang. 1399. The catalog begins with a brief history of the cataloguing of manuscripts at St. Gall Abbey up to this time (p. 1). Then the following, usually very brief information is provided in rubrics and columns (pp. 2−239), each codex taking up one double page: a) the manuscript's shelfmark; b) the date (usually in centuries); c) the format of the codex and the old shelfmark from F. Pius Kolb's manuscript catalog (cf. Cod. 1400/1401); d) the author and title of the manuscript, sometimes a short summary of its contents; e) the incipit of the manuscript; f) a specification of the number of the last page, sometimes the explicit of the manuscript; g) the scribe, script, writing material, binding, former owner; h) general relevant information about the codex. In 1846 Carl Johann Greith (1807−1882), who later headed the abbey library and who, for the last twenty years of his life, was Bishop of St. Gall, completed the catalog with identically ordered information for codices 1400 to 1500 (pp. 240-257). The last pages are blank. (smu)

Online Since: 06/25/2015