A Long Time Quiet - St. Gallen

It's been a while since I updated this online journal and for that I apologize. But not much; I've been doing lots of work with digital photography and participating on the Flickr community as well as traveling with work quite a lot.

September and October were fine months to be in Switzerland this year. There were few particularly dreary days and many fine days. As is usually the case at this time of year, the air was particularly clear and the Alps were showing their pre-snow faces.

This trip was busy, work-wise, so I was unable to get away to do much touring on the weekends. I did spend a very delightful day in St. Gallen. As you can tell from my flickr pages, I spent an enjoyable morning in the Botanical Garden there, taking many photographs of the very fine collection housed there. The day was very sunny and even a little warm, so photography was an exercise in controlling contrast and depth of field to achieve decent results. Thank goodness for high capacity data cards!)


Like all great gardens, it was a very sensual place filled with racous colors, shapes, and textures. Some amazing plants were in bloom - the lithops and the carnivorous pitcher plants in particular, as well as the Nirene Lilys and the always gaudy passion flowers, to say nothing of the usual cast of autumn bloomers like Datura, Salvia Veridis, African Daisies, asters of various sorts, and Solanum. As one might expect, the changing colors of the autumn leaves were quite brilliant in the intense sunlight light; the end of season seedpods and berries were miniature delights of color and intricate shape. Of particular beauty was the Wisteria and Japanese Maple lined alley. The Wisteria had yet to lose it's foliage and the long dangling seedpods looked like chimes hanging from trellises that were punctuated with ivy covered brick columns and brilliant overhead flashes of maroon, scarlet, and orange from the Japanese Maples.

The afternoon was given to touring the old town including the marktplatz, the cathedral and that amazing room, the St. Gallen Abbey Library. Founded by Gallus, one of those amazing, itinerate Irish monks who imposed exile on themselves, the eponymous Abbey was, during the 9th and 10th centuries, one of the lights of western civilization on that side of the alps and the library was it's treasure.

The collection was never sacked or burned, and so contains works beginning with illuminated manuscripts dating from the 9th century and continuing until the present day. I cannot fully describe or even do justice to the feeling of gazing on hand lettered manuscripts, each lovingly decorated with capitals of gold leaf and precious, hand ground pigments. One is, in the presence of the real article, immediately taken with the composed design of each page: letterforms, blocks of text, illustrations, and marginalia all contributing to a unified whole. One wonders if the monks drew rough drafts in sand or dust before laying out and executing the final designs on each sheet of vellum or parchment. Equally amazing to me, and completely unexpected, were the illuminated musical scores - hymns with scores that are, in equal parts, musical notation, lyrics, and linear story lines decorated with saints, sinners, and symbols of belief.

To match such a priceless collection, the library itself is a room that takes one's breath away. The single room containing the collection is astounding - an amazing confection in high baroque style. The two stories of stacks around the perimeter of the room are punctuated by expansive, tall windows, all overarched by a series of allegorical murals painted across the ceiling, each surrounded by heavily carved frames, standing well out from the murals, giving a dimension of depth. Two rows of glass and wood display cases stand in the center of the room, each filled with particularly rare volumes, opened to pages of interest and beauty. The stacks themselves are framed with ornate carving and fronted by a finely made but open wire mesh. Secreted in some of the stacks, nestled on top of books are stuffed local and exotic animals: ferrets, lizards, and the like, each joining the putti and cherubim silenty watching over the precious boards, papers, and inks that make up this tiny gem of a place.

The Abbey cathedral, also executed in the high baroque style, was also nothing short of incredible. In the presence of such grandeur, I tend to go for the details; the gestalt of it is so overwhelming. Of all those details one that caught my eye and keeps returning to memory was a memorial bookstand in the very back of the church, under the organ loft. Shaped like a candelabra, the piece was composed of metal with two huge volumes of Psalms, each propped open facing away from the other. The candelabra sprung upward from between the books, with single huge, clear quartz crystals substituting for candles of wax. The base of the candelabra was anchored by a collection of rounded river cobbles, each a memorial to some beloved soul: some deeply engraved with a name and a date, others with only hand-written inscriptions of ink on stone. It was a beautifully executed piece that seemed somehow oddly personal but no less heartfelt than the other parts of this awe-inspiring place.

Of course, the old town, clustered near the walls of the abbey was full of life: a small farmer's market, a clutch of fountains both large and small, and a dense promenade of people, bustling along or relaxing in front of restaurants, bakeries and sweet shops.



And so it goes while traveling: amazing places seen and photographed, remembered and talked about for long hence. But it's always nice to get home to the comforts of familiar books, music, food, and one's own space.