Sub-project: Pilot Project: Digital Abbey Library of St. Gall
January 2005 – December 2006
Status: Completed
Financed by: the Paul Schiller Foundation, the UBS Cultural Foundation, the Ernst Göhner Foundation, the Otto Gamma Foundation, the Jubilee Foundation of Swiss Mobiliar Insurance, the Research Funding Foundation of the University of Fribourg, the Jubilee Foundation of the Zurich Insurance Group, and the Friends of the Abbey Library of St. Gall
Description: In the pilot project a selection of medieval manuscripts from the Abbey Library of St. Gall was digitized. This start-up project was made possible by different financial supporters.
All Libraries and Collections
From the time of Abbot Werdo (784-812): the "sententiae" of Isidore of Seville.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
A copy of the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville from the time after 800. Most probably not written in the monastery of St. Gall. In the front, on a page with pen trials, a faded and much studied early medieval map of the world. The encyclopedia written by Isidore of Seville in the early 7th century is one of the most read and most quoted books of the Middle Ages.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
Manuscript collection by Winithar with illustrations (the oldest from St. Gall) of Isidore of Seville's De natura rerum.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
Collection of Astronomical-computistical tables and charts with high-quality pen drawings of the constellations.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
A careful copy of the commentary of Hrabanus Maurus on Kings I and II, written in the monastery of St. Gall around 920/925.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
Superbly crafted Sacramentary of St. Gall from the time of Abbot Norpert of Stablo (1034-1072) for the celebration of the Mass. With Calendar, Gradual and Sacramentary, illustrations include five full-page, high-quality miniatures of the principal feast days of the liturgical year (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost).
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Superbly crafted St. Gall sacramentary from the time of Abbot Norbert of Stablo (1034-1072) for the celebration of the Mass, containing a calendar of saints, a list of incipits of the spoken and chanted texts for the Mass on the principal feast days of saints and the sacramentary itself, which is illustrated with four splendid full-page miniatures, two full-page initials and numerous smaller initials.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Earliest complete extant gradual of St. Gall. The different parts of the manuscript date from different periods. Illustrated with numerous initials and several pen drawings (especially in the Sacramentary part).
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Pontifical-missal of the St. Gall Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1530-1564) – the finest 16th century manuscript in Switzerland.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
According to new research, the so-called Evangeliary of Wolfcoz - an early masterpiece from the second quarter of the 9th century - was created not at the St. Gall Monastery, but instead in the scriptorium at Reichenau under the librarian Reginbert. This new conclusion was reached on the basis of paleographic studies as well as later-added pericopes on the Reichenau saints George, Mark and Pancras (p. 201-219).
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Epistolary originating from Reichenau/St. Gall, illustrated with a portrait of the epistle-writer Saint Paul and five painted Christological miniatures from the third quarter of the 11th century.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Gradual from St. Gall, dating from the 12th century, with two illustrations of the monk Luitherus.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
Deluxe manuscript for the celebration of the Mass in the monastery of St. Gall, dating from 1050/70, containing sequences of the St. St. Gall monk "Notker the Stammerer" (died 912).
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Musical manuscript in small format from the monastery of St. Gall containing a calendar, a computus, a tropary, a sequentiary, an antiphonary, offertory and tractus from the middle of the 11th century as well as an appendix with sequences from the 13th century.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
Small music manuscript from the middle of the 11th century containing an (incomplete) calendar, computus, tropary and sequentiary in an elegant hand, with delicate neumes.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Winter volume of the so-called Hartker Antiphonary: Chants for the liturgy of the hours of the St. St. Gall monks, written and provided with finest neumes by the St. St. Gall monk Hartker. A masterpiece of script, neumes and illuminated initials. The most important choral manuscript, with four colored pen drawings of outstanding quality.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Summer volume of the so-called Hartker Antiphonary: Chants for the liturgy of the hours of the St. St. Gall monks, written and provided with finest neumes by the St. St. Gall monk Hartker. A masterpiece of script, neumes and illuminated initials. The most important choral manuscript, with four colored pen drawings of outstanding quality.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
The Liber Benedictionum by Ekkehard IV.: a collection of his personal poetic works that he probably began during his time as a monastery pupil and constantly revised until the end of his life. The manuscript is written completely by Ekkehard IV. and is one of the few known autographs of the early Middle Ages (ca. 1010-1060). It contains, among other items, the Benedictiones super lectores per circulum anni (poetry for the different feast days of the year), the Benedictiones ad mensas (benedictions of different foods and drinks), the Versus ad picturas domus domini Mogontinae (verses on the projected picture series for the Cathedral of Mainz), Versus ad picturas claustri sancti Galli (verses for the [projected] picture series for the cloister [?] in the monastery of St. Gall) and the Latin translation of the Old High German Galluslied by Ratpert.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Book of hours, composed for an unknown female convent in the diocese of Basel: excellent example of early Gothic book art. With a Calendar, 14 miniatures of the life of Christ and Mary, the Psalter, Canticles and an All Saints' Litany.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
105 sermons from the first Sunday in Advent (end of November / beginning of December) to Annunciation Day (March 25).
Online Since: 06/12/2006