The Plan of Saint Gall is a famous medieval architectural drawing of a monastic compound dating from the early 9th century. It is preserved in the Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen, Ms 1092.
It is the only surviving major architectural drawing from the roughly 700-year period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the 13th century. It is considered a national treasure of Switzerland and remains an object of intense interest among modern scholars, architects, artists and draftsmen for its uniqueness, its beauty, and the insights it provides into medieval culture.
Famous quotes containing the words plan of, plan, saint and/or gall:
“Solomon’s ... excess became an insult upon the privileges of mankind; for by the same plan of luxury, which made it necessary to have forty thousand stalls of horses,—he had unfortunately miscalculated his other wants, and so had seven hundred wives....
Wise—deluded man!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:
Whose high endeavors are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
And in himself posses his own desire;”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“A saint is good who wanders constantly.
Water is good which flows continuously.”
—Punjabi proverb, trans. by Gurinder Singh Mann.
“No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)