SAN GALLO - Crypt of St Omar (11th century)
A large church and monastery, built in the style of that early Gothic which originated in Burgundy and is known as Cistercian. Construction of the buildings continued throughout the century under the direction of monk-architects, probably French, but with the participation of Sienese craftsmen, whose style is evident in those parts of the masonry built with alternating bands of stone and brick and in other details, such as, for example, in the windows of the chapter house. These are bifora windows: one of them has an upper arch and two arches of falcate form, following Pisan examples that reached Siena via the Valdelsa. The church has a Latin-cross plan with three naves, divided by cruciform piers. The transept opens onto the choir and rectangular chapels. Originally the building was covered with ribbed groin vaults, most of which collapsed together with the bell tower towards the end of the 18th century, due to the neglect of the commendatory abbot of that time.
Even in its partially ruined state, the monument presents a majestic and evocative appearance. Its architecture was of great importance for the development of Gothic forms in the Sienese territory in the 13th century, also because the monks of S. G. were entrusted by the Commune of Siena with overseeing the continuation of the works on the Cathedral and the hospital of S. Maria della Scala.
Of the monastery there remain, in their original forms, the chapter house, the refectory, other rooms, some reassembled remains of the cloister, and the little chapel of the cemetery.
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SAN GALLO – City and Diocese of Switzerland, capital of the Canton of the same name
The diocese also includes the two Appenzell Cantons.
It has an area of approximately 2,420 sq km with a population of 344,340 inhabitants, of whom 188,553 are Catholic, distributed across 133 parishes served by 341 diocesan priests and 145 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 12 male religious communities and 31 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 353).
S. Gallo arrived with St Columbanus on the southwestern shores of Lake Constance at the castrum Arbona, north of present-day S. G. While St Columbanus, having shattered the idols, erected a chapel in honour of St Aurelia, St Gallo chose his hermitage between the two rivers Steinach and Reuss, in the place called Hiniclinberg, where around 613 there arose the monas-
San Gallo – Crypt of St Omar (11th century).
San Gallo – Ivory book cover (9th century) – S. G., Library.
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SAN GALLO – Library of the Abbey of S. G. (18th century)
Among its later prelates are remembered: Msgr A. Egger (1882–1906), F. Ruegg (1906–13), R. Bürkler (1913–30), A. Scheiwiler (1931–37), J. Meile from 1938 onwards.
Four building periods can be distinguished in the Cathedral: the first, after ca. 820, due to Abbot Fito of Reichenau with a double choir and crypt; the second, under Abbot Gotbert with the church of St Otmar (9th century) with modifications in the 11th century; the third, under Abbot Norbert with the church of St Michael (11th century); and finally the present Cathedral, the work of Celestine II Gugger von Standbach (1755–67), an era in which the other monastic buildings were also modified. – See pl. CXI.