St Gall, a Swiss canton lying between the Lake of Constance on the N. and the Grisons on the S., with Zurich on the W. The country is for the most part mountainous, rising to 10,660 feet in Ringelspitze, and to 8216 in Säntis, and consists of a series of valleys radiating outwards from the high canton of Appenzell, which St Gall entirely surrounds. The Rhine flows along the eastern border. Portions of the lakes of Constance, Zurich, and Wallen lie within its boundaries. Sandstone and slates are quarried. The mineral springs of Pfäfers and Ragatz are well known. But the chief source of wealth is the embroidery of cottons, muslins, and jacquets, carried on principally at St Gall and Wattwyl. Rorschach, on Lake Constance, is a port of some trade. Area of canton, 779 sq. m.; pop. (1888) 229,441, of whom three-fifths are Roman Catholics, the rest Protestants of the Reformed Church. They speak German. The canton is governed by a Great Council, chosen by the communes for three years (see SWITZERLAND).
ST GALL, the capital of the above canton, stands on the Steinach, 2196 feet above sea-level (the highest town in Europe), 53 miles by rail E. of Zurich, and 9 from Rorschach on the Lake of Constance. The buildings of its famous Benedictine monastery are now used as government offices and schools, and for housing the monastic library, founded in 830, of 41,700 volumes and 1800 MSS., several of these last of great antiquity and value. Other buildings are the old abbey church, thoroughly restored in 1756-66, and made a cathedral in 1846; the Protestant church of St Lawrence (restored 1851-53); the town library, founded in 1536, and containing 60,400 volumes and 500 MSS.; and the museum with collections of natural history, works of art, and antiquities. The city carries on a large trade in its staple commodity, embroidered textiles (cotton, muslin, &c.), and in agricultural products. Pop. (1888) 27,910. The original nucleus of the place was the cell of St Gall (c. 550-645), an Irish follower of St Columban, who settled here in 614. Around this soon grew up a monastery of the Benedictine order, which was promoted by Charles Martel to the dignity of an abbey. The abbey gradually became one of the masterpieces of mediæval architecture; whilst the monks were indefatigable in the collection and transcription of MSS.—biblical, patristic, historical (sacred and profane), classical, liturgical, and legendary. Several of the classics, especially Quintilian, Silius Italicus, and Ammianus Marcellinus, have been preserved solely through the MSS. of St Gall. Its monastic schools enjoyed the greatest reputation for learning from the 9th to the 12th century. Amongst its more distinguished pupils were Notker and Ekkehard. They were noted also for the cultivation of music (Notker Labo being the chief ornament), and its MSS., preserved in the library, have been extensively made use of by the restorers of ancient ecclesiastical music. By the 10th century a walled town had grown up around the monastery. After long struggles the townsmen succeeded, in the 13th century, in throwing off the supremacy of the abbey, though shortly before this the abbots were elevated to the rank of princes of the empire. In 1454 the town was admitted to the Swiss confederation, and in 1528, through the influence of the reformer Vadianus, it embraced the new doctrines. At the close, however, of the religious war in 1531 the Catholic religion was re-established, and the abbot reinstated. At the French Revolution the abbey was secularised (1798), and its revenues were soon afterwards sequestered (1805). By a later arrangement (1836) St Gall was erected into a bishopric. The French republicans created the canton of Sântis out of the town and abbey lands, with others, in 1799; and in 1803 the existing canton of St Gall was formed.
See historical works by Von Arx (4 vols. St Gall, 1830), Baumgartner (3 vols. Zurich and Einsiedeln, 1868-90), Henne-Ain Rhyn (1863), and Näf (1867).