Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés dans Monasticon Gallicanum

The ''Monasticon Gallicanum'' is a collection of 168

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an i ...

s of topographical views, with two maps, representing 147

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...

in France belonging to the reformist Congregation of St. Maur within the

Order of St. Benedict , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , found ...

, prepared between 1675 and 1694, when Dom Michel Germain, who commissioned them, died, but not published in full until 1870.

Creation 1675–94

The members of the Congregation of St. Maur had a strong interest in monastic history and produced many notable

historiographical Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

works on individual religious houses There was a need however for a work covering all the monasteries of the Congregation.Monasticon Gallicanum, 1870, vol 1 (text only); preface (Google Books)
/ref> Dom Michel Germain, a monk at the

Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conc ...

and a friend of

Jean Mabillon Dom Jean Mabillon, O.S.B., (; 23 November 1632 – 27 December 1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. He is considered the founder of the disciplines of palaeography and diplomatics. Early life Mabi ...

, undertook the task. From 1675 he wrote individual historical texts about, and commissioned the accompanying plates of, all the Maurist monasteries, but although by the time of his death in 1694 the plates had been engraved and most of the texts written, the work did not proceed to publication. The texts remained in manuscript, in the form of booklets and loose leaves. Over time they became disordered and some were lost; those surviving eventually found their way to the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national reposito ...

. As for the engravings, which Dom Germain commissioned from several different unknown engravers, a small number of prints were made at the time, which circulated loose, and the copper plates were then dispersed without trace. A very few sets were assembled and bound by different individuals from 1694 through the 18th century; these however included various additional prints foreign to the set.

Publication 1870-71

Achille Peigné-Delacourt, an antiquary and collector of mediaeval documents, realised the importance of Germain's illustrations, since so many of the original buildings had been lost in the interval. In 1860 he published reproductions of the engravings relating to the monasteries in the province of

Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded ...

, with the promise to publish the complete set of the engravings after taking care to remove the other illustrations that had been added to them by the various amateur collectors who had preserved them. The task of verifying which engravings were genuinely among those commissioned by Germain was undertaken by Louis Courajod, archivist and palaeographer attached to the Department of Prints and Photographs of the Bibliothèque Nationale (then the ''Bibliothèque Impériale'') for the complete edition of the illustrations of the ''Monasticon Gallicanum'' published in 1870-71, which successfully reproduced the prints at half-size without losing sharpness of detail. A couple of facsimile editions were published in the later 20th century.For example, as reviewe
here
/ref>

Creation 1675–94

Publication 1870-71

Notes and references

Further reading