The Abbey of Saint Gall is a former monastery that existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall had erected his hermitage. It became an independent principality between 9th and 13th centuries, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. The library of the Abbey is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world.
The city of St. Gallen originated as an adjoining settlement of the abbey. The abbey was secularized around 1800, and in 1848 its former church became St. Gallen Cathedral, the seat of the Diocese of Saint Gallen. Since 1983 the abbey precinct has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Abbey library of Saint Gall is recognized as one of the richest medieval libraries in the world. It is home to one of the most comprehensive collections of early medieval books in the German-speaking part of Europe. As of 2005, the library consists of over 160,000 books, of which 2100 are handwritten. Nearly half of the handwritten books are from the Middle Ages and 400 are over 1000 years old.
The library also preserves a unique 9th-century document, known as the Plan of St. Gall, the only surviving major architectural drawing from the roughly 700-year period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the 13th century. The Plan drawn was never actually built, and was so named because it was kept at the famous medieval monastery library, where it remains to this day. Watch the video below to learn more.
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