Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/130
88 DESCRIPTION OF THE ANCIENT PLAN tion Awhich was painted on the walls of the abbot's house, (the "abbatia,") which records that the hall was finished by the architects of the palace, " a palatinis magistris," and deco- rated by painters from Augia[1]. Charlemagne himself was so fond of the monastery of St. Gall, and so familiar with its monks, that they used to call him "our Charles," "noster Karolus[2]." But if we consider that the inscription sheAvs the plan to have been made in the days of Gozpertus, while the chronicled history tells us that the buildings of the monastery and the internal arrangements of the church, with its altars, confessionary, &c., were not completed until after his death, it must be concluded that the plan was merely a design for a complete monastery, intended to assist the abbot in planning his new buildings ; and we need not be surprised to find, by means of various allusions in the chronicles, that the monastery itself, as completed by Hartmotus and Grimaldus, varied in several particidars from the plan itself. It must nevertheless be considered as a most curious document, illustrating not merely the monastic habits, but the general arrangements of the buildings of Charlemagne's period, namely, the beginning of the ninth century.
A copy of this plan was first published by Mabillon, in the second volume of his Annals of the Benedictine Order. But this copy had no pretensions to the character of a fac- simile, either in its manner or in respect to the inscriptions with which the original is covered. A very accurate fac- simile was published by F. Keller at Zm'ich in 1844, accom- panied by a good, but somewhat prolix, descriptive and his- torical memou". I have gladly availed myself of the latter part of his description, but have found it necessary to draw up an entirely new and more concise historical introduction, and a new description of the church, in the explanation of which I have been compelled to differ from Keller in several respects.
and was made abbot of Selgenstat, where he died in 839. The abbacy of Gozpertus began in the next year after the death of Charlemagne.
In puriete.
Splendida niarmoreis ornata est aula columnis En Grimvvaldus ovans alto fundamine struxit Ornavit, coluit, Hlvodvici principis almi Temporibus, multis lætus feliciter annis.
In alio pariete.
Aula palatinis perfecta est ista Magistris, Insula pictores transmiserat Avgia claros.
Canisii. Thes., tom. ii. 3, 228.