This large-format antiphonary from the Cloister of St. Gall, produced in the year 1544 at the request of Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1530-1564), contains songs to be sung during the liturgy of the hours on holy days throughout the year. The scribe who wrote this volume was the cleric, cathedral organist and calligrapher Fridolin Sicher (1490-1546), the illuminator who made the 22 figured initials and the full-page double illustration at the beginning of the antiphonary is unknown.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
An opulently illustrated large-format gradual containing four-part vocal pieces, from the Cloister of St. Gall, written and illuminated in the year 1562. By order of Prince-Bishop Diethelm Blarer, the Italian Manfred Barbarini Lupus from Correggio composed these challenging vocal pieces, Father Heinrich Keller (1518-1567) wrote the text, and the manuscript illustrator Kaspar Härtli from Lindau on the Bodensee illuminated the first pages with the important holy days of the church year. The volume has richly ornamented borders and numerous miniatures, among them five of full-page size, and contains the heraldic shields of St. Gall monks living at that time; the ornamented pages include many depictions of musical instruments of the period (some of which are no longer known).
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Large-format antiphonary with chants in four parts, written and illuminated between 1562 and 1564. By order of Prince-Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1530-1564), the Italian Manfred Barbarini Lupus from Correggio composed the pieces for four voices - antiphons, responsories, hymns and psalms for the principal feast days of the liturgical year as well as passions according to Matthew, Mark and Luke. Father Heinrich Keller (1518-1567) wrote the text and the illuminator Kaspar Härtli from Lindau on Lake Constance created a full-page All Saints picture with Christ on the cross (f. IVr), as well as a donor portrait with the coats of arms of the then-living members of the St. Gall monastic community (f. 1r).
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This Psalter contains the psalms in liturgical sequence with antiphons, followed by biblical canticles and a hymnal. The codex was written in 1545 (colophon f. 102v) by the organist and calligrapher Fridolin Sicher (1490-1546) by order of Prince Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1530-1564). Large parts were rewritten by numerous later hands, probably after the reform of the liturgy following the Council of Trent. The Psalter contains several figurative initials by an unknown illuminator.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
Antiphonary for the entire church year, written in German plainsong notation (“Hufnagelnotation”) on four lines. The volume probably originated in a French or Burgundian-Flemish Benedictine monastery; at least since about 1510, it has been part of the library of the Monastery of St. Gall. The book decoration consists of several large initials painted in opaque colors with scrolls and numerous cadels decorated with faces or animal motifs.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Great collection of St. Gallen tropes and sequences by Father Joachim Cuontz († 1515), compiled for Abbot Franz Gaisberg (1504-1529) shortly before the beatification of the St Gall monk Notker Balbulus († 912) in the year of 1513. Important document of late medieval choral history. Many of the melodies are, for the first time in St. Gall, provided with musical notation on five staves.
Online Since: 05/24/2007
A collection of vitae of 13 saints, among them – preserved only here – the vita of St Germanus of Moutier-Grandval in the canton of Jura, Switzerland, written by Bobolenus of Luxeuil ca. 690. A copy from the early 10th century.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
A collection of vitae of various saints from around 900, among them the vita of St. St. Gall monk Notker Balbulus from the early 13th century, written by an unknown monk. The manuscript also contains the so-called "St. Galler Schularbeit" (earlier known as "Ruodpert's Letter") from the 11th century.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
A composite manuscript containing the lives of the 12 Apostles and lives of additional ancient Roman saints, produced in about 900, probably not at the Abbey of St. Gall. The second and third parts were written in St. Gall during the 11th century and include, respectively, three Sermones (homilies) and two fragmental texts with liturgical content.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
Hagiographic manuscript collection containing the lives of numerous saints, especially the Benedictine saints, written and compiled in the Cloister of St. Gall between the 10th and 13th centuries. Among other items it contains the lives of saints Remaclus, Gangold, Willibrord (originally written by Alcuin of York), Ulrich of Augsburg (originally written by Abbot Bern of Reichenau) and Magnus (older and newer lives). Between the newer and older versions of the lives of Magnus is a pen sketch of the healing of a blind person in Bregenz on the Bodensee.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
Vitae of ancient Roman saints, among them – preserved here only – the Life of Pope Gregory the Great, composed by a monk from the English monastery of Whitby.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
Manuscript compilation from the second half of the 9th century, predominated by lives of the early Christian and early Frankish saints. The codex contains, among other items, the life history of St. Augustine written by Possidius as well as a catalog of the writings of Augustine, a copy of the life history of St. Remaclus with dedicatory letter and prologue (from the 11th century), and the lives of Saints Sualo (an Anglo-Saxon who lived at Einsiedeln), Pelagius, and Purchard.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
A copy of the Life of the Saint and Pope Gregory I. by Johannes Diaconus (825-880/882), produced at the Abbey of St. Gall around the year 900.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Manuscript collection produced at the monastery of St. Gall, containing the oldest known surviving version of the Casus sancti Galli by the monk Ratpert, in a copy from about 900. Additional longer texts, written down between the 9th and 13th centuries contain sermons by the early Church fathers, a register of the abbots of St. Gall from the 7th through the 13th centuries, hymns, and excerpts from the Collectio Canonum by Pseudo-Remedius as well as the Micrologus by Bernold of Konstanz.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
A copy of the excerpts made by Junianus Justinus from the lost history of the world (Historiae Philippicae) by the Roman historian Pompeius Trogus, produced in the 9th century, probably at the Abbey of St. Gall. At the end of the text is the famous Old High German St. Gallen scribal verse: Chumo kiscreib filo chumor kipeit.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Hegesippus/Flavius Josephus, Jewish War. Copy from the 9th century.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Manuscript compilation containing a collection of fables (Ulrich Boner's Edelstein), decorated with simple pen drawings, farcical stories – preserved only here – by the so-called "Swiss Anonymous" as well as chronicle notes on the history of Zurich and Glarus.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
This voluminous paper manuscript was written by Gallus Kemli († 1480/81) approximately in the period 1466 to 1476. It transmits tools, compendia, and summaries of theology, canon law, liturgy, and confession and penance, as well as prayers and chants with German Plainchant (Hufnagel) notation for the mass, a rituale, and, finally, further prayers, blessings, sermons and exhortations, partly in Latin and partly in German. The manuscript is bound in a limp wrapper with a red leather cover. Gallus Kemli, monk of Saint Gall, who led an erratic itinerant life outside the abbey, left at his death a large collection of books, including this one.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This two-part manuscript was written in Italy in the period between the middle of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century. It preserves writings concerning procedural law, among them the little known Ordo iudiciarius Quoniam ut ait apostolus, as well as finding aids and surveys on decretal law. The manuscript probably came into the possession of the St. Gall citizen Johannes Widembach († 1456) from a Canon from Zurich, and has been held by the Abbey Library at least since the 16th century.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
This codex contains the best-known work by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius, his epic poem about the war of the Seven Against Thebes (Thebais), along with metrical argumenta on lib. II–IV. Two quires containing lib. IV, V. 578 – lib. VII, V. 30 (between pp. 75 and 76) are missing, as well as a bifolium with lib. IX, 671–751 and lib. X, 5–84 (between pp. 128 and 129 as well as 132 and 133). The beginnings of the books and of the metrical argumenta (p. 3, 21, 40, 58/59, 92, 112, 132, 173) are accentuated with initials, partly in two colors (red/green). There are numerous marginal and interlinear glosses, mainly from the 12th and 13th century. On pp. 196–197, probably in the same hand, is the Planctus Oedipodis, Inc. Diri patris infausta pignora (Oedipus' lament about the death of his sons). The poem comprises 21 rhyming stanzas of four lines each, the first of which has neumes on a staff of four lines. This form of notation argues against the manuscript's originating in St. Gall.
Online Since: 06/22/2017