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Rupertsberg Scivias, Facsimile, Fol. 41v: II.1, Creation, Fall, and Redemption. From the Abbey of St. Hildegard.
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A significant point of contention within studies of the twelfth-century visionary saint and Doctor of the Church, Hildegard of Bingen, is the question of her role in the production of the illuminated Scivias manuscript known as the Rupertsberg Codex. While current German scholarship has tended to preclude Hildegard’s hand, pre-war German scholars,...
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... effort at the end of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Keller also came away with the consistent impression when making such comparisons that the images in Hildegard's manuscript are unique counterparts to Hildegard's unique visionary style. Thus, she could conclude, for example, that the subtleties of the image of Synagogue (fol. 35r, I.5; Fig. 13) are so "powerfully expressive of suffering"-in contrast to more traditional iconography-and "so belie the notion of an illustration mechanically reproducing the text, that one could even say that it is, as it were, a visual correction executed under the eyes of Hildegard herself." 68 However, this move to privilege the images' design, ...
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... iconographical barriers that approaches like Schomer's built around the manuscript's images, Meier and Saurma-Jeltsch have opened up new ways of interpreting the functions of the images in the manuscript by looking at the various visual vocabularies on which they draw. For example, in studying the image that accompanies Scivias II.1 (fol. 41v, Fig. 3), Meier begins, not with the text, but with the image alone, to see what it is trying to communicate. 72 The allure of the image is immediately striking: it draws the viewer in, inviting us to try to understand it. But using traditional iconographical, allegorical, and exegetical tropes, Meier can, in fact, understand most of the ...
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... of the ways that the images perform this orientating function is by drawing on traditional iconographical forms that may, in fact, diverge from the textual description of the image. We have already seen above in Meier's analysis of the Creation and Redemption vision that opens Part II (fol. 41v, Fig. 3), for example, that the illustration appropriates the standard iconography of the hexaemeron in place of the vision text's more unusual image of God the blacksmith striking sparks from the globe of the atmosphere to fashion it into its final form. Such useful divergences problematize Caviness' claim that the illustrations are based on ...
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... the visions of Part I, in those specific visions of Part II that deal with the original creation and with the Devil, and in the border and frame of the image of the Fallen Stars from the opening vision of Part III (fol. 123r, Fig. 2). The vivid vermillion red is most noticeable in the illustration of Part I's fifth vision, of Synagogue (fol. 35r, Fig. 13), where the heavy red border echoes Synagogue's large, blood-red (sanguineam) feet, which Hildegard tells us are stained with blood, "for at the end of her time she killed the Prophet of Prophets" (Scivias I.5.4). Red mixed with brown colors the bodies of the demon spirits in the small, quarter-folio second miniature to accompany the ...
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... in both the image for Part II, Vision 2 (fol. 47r, Fig. 5) and possibly in the symbolic coronets worn by Hildegard's nuns on high feast days. This color scheme of gold, blue, and silver also informs depictions of the Trinity in other images of the manuscript, adapting the circular forms of II.2 in the visions before and after it (II.1, fol. 41v, Fig. 3; and II.3, fol. 51r, Fig. 11), and in other places sprung from their circles, as for example in the background of the image of the celestial symphony, discussed above (Scivias III.13, fol. 229r, Fig. 4), silently expressing the triune God's omnipresence in "the lucent sky" (lucidissimum aerem). In trying to understand their appearance ...
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... not static, she does not imagine the divinity as fixed and remote, an inalterable and unapproachable truth. Rather, she focuses on the dynamic vitality of the divinity-its virtus, its active, moving power-bursting forth in living light that gives verdant life. 139 If we turn again to that illustration of the first vision of Part II (fol. 41v, Fig. 3), which recapitulates the Creation and Fall from Part I, Vision 2, by broadening it to include the coming of the Redeemer, we can see how this dynamic movement stretches down into the creation of humankind: 139 Barbara NEWMAN has recently noted a similar quality in the unique Trinitarian iconography used in the late thirteenth-or early ...
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... the color red-but just as with the silver of the Holy Spirit, in the manuscript's images, its properties of light take precedence over its redness. 145 The dawn light is, in Hildegard's visionary vocabulary, the preeminent marker of Christ's Incarnation, the turning point in salvation history. Thus, in the illustration of Scivias II.1 (fol. 41v, Fig. 3), the hemisphere of blue and gold that appears at the bottom of the image both echoes the circles of Father and Son above and heralds the dawn light of the incarnate Redeemer, who is thus depicted, not in sapphire blue but in gleaming gold. Furthermore, the Incarnation served as the ideal model for Hildegard's notions of virginitas, ...
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... in the last vision of Scivias (III.13), Hildegard devoted more works to the Virgin Mary (sixteen) than to any other subject. 147 Strangely, however, Mary appears in physical form in the visions of Scivias only once-in that last vision of the celestial symphony. Symbolically, however, she appeared in that golden dawn of Scivias II.1 (fol. 41v, Fig. 3 matrix through which the Redeemer's incarnate light burst forth into the world. 148 If we choose to conflate that blue and gold hemisphere with the Virgin as herald of the Incarnation, we enter into what Caviness has suggested is the most extraordinary of the Rupertsberg Scivias images' functions: the declaration of the feminine ...
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... theological meanings, then, inform our understanding of other places where gold and silver, dawn and cloud, appear in the work, e.g. the image of Synagogue on fol. 35r (Fig. 13). The massive, towering female figure seems visually matched to the grand Ecclesia thirty-one folios later, but contrastively so. Her body's two zones of desperate pale purple and disturbing shades of black have no shine or glow, save a ring of gold around her head and a bit of silver around her feet. Furthermore, her crossed arms and ...
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... None of them are included in Scivias; but the illustration for the heavenly symphony fills this lacuna. As I have argued (Campbell 2013(Campbell , 2021, the Rupertsberg manuscript uses a particular set of colors to illustrate the Trinity, based on the vision in Scivias 2.2. The background of heaven in the Scivias 3.13 image is created from panels of these three Trinitarian colors: gold, silver, and blue. ...
Despite the lush visual imagery of the twenty-six visions that form the foundation of Hildegard of Bingen’s first work, Scivias, the physical person of the Virgin Mary appears only once, as the Queen of the heavenly symphony in the book’s final vision. The images that coalesce in the musical compositions dedicated to the Virgin in that final symphony, however, resonate throughout the rest of the work, revealing Mary’s constant background presence. Moreover, analogues of traditional Marian imagery in both the text and the illustrations Hildegard designed for the work allow us to see how the Virgin exemplifies the life of the virtues from which Hildegard constructs the City of God. Finally, connections between Scivias and Hildegard’s third work, Liber diuinorum operum, demonstrate that the Virgin Mary models the path of virginity that Hildegard holds up as the singular road to holy perfection for herself and the nuns under her care.
... As I have shown elsewhere, discrepancies between the text of the Scivias and its illustrations may be part of Hildegard's re-visionary process to refine and clarify that orientation. 114 This often involved a slight regularization of iconography, to use existing visual codes to reintegrate Hildegard's unique visual language into the wider tradition. In the LDO, we find a similar reintegration in the treatment of the different exegetical modes in the Genesis commentary of Part Two. ...
As with the first two works in her visionary trilogy, St. Hildegard of Bingen’s masterpiece, the Liber diuinorum operum (written 1165-1173/74), includes as a “Table of Contents” summaries for each of its 316 chapters, originally composed separately from the main text but later distributed throughout, either before each of its three parts or, in one recension, before each chapter. It has been generally, if silently, assumed that Hildegard herself composed these summaries. However, a detailed study of the Capitula reveals significant divergences from the Visionary Doctor in terms of vocabulary and expression, interpretation, and style. Further technical aspects of the compositional process indicate that she was likely not their author. The second half of this study considers who among the circle of men who helped her in her final years might have been responsible for writing these summaries. After examining the roles of the three provosts of her abbey -Volmar of Disibodenberg, Godfrey of Disibodenberg, and Guibert of Gembloux - I turn to the adiutores whom Hildegard specifically mentioned in the “Epilogue” to the Liber diuinorum operum: Ludwig, abbot of St. Eucharius and Matthias in Trier; Godfrey of Kahler, a monk of St. Eucharius among the sapientes whom Ludwig sent to Hildegard’s aid; and Wezelin, her nephew and provost of St. Andreas in Cologne. The final two men - Godfrey of St. Eucharius and Wezelin - prove to be the only two probable candidates. In composing these Capitula, their author helped Hildegard to make her challenging visionary text more accessible by schematizing the work and orienting the reader.
El objetivo de esta investigación es profundizar en la vida y pensamiento de la religiosa Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) a través del análisis de las iluminaciones del universo con forma de ser humano de una de sus obras más destacadas, Liber Divinorum Operum (El libro de las horas divinas). En plena Edad Media y desde los espacios de clausura, Hildegard von Bingen desarrolló una abundante producción teórica creativa en áreas muy diversas, encabezó algunas de las reformas más importantes de su momento, tuvo relación con personajes relevantes de su época y adquirió el poder que a las mujeres les estaba vedado. Las imágenes estudiadas, con sus códigos propios de orden visual (formas, estructuración del espacio, colores), permitieron comprender mejor el contenido de sus visiones. Las conclusiones de este estudio enfatizan, por una parte, el interés de la autora por compartir la complejidad de sus revelaciones utilizando para ello la imagen como vehículo de conocimiento, algo que llamó la atención de sus contemporáneos. Por otro lado, dan cuenta de una profunda cosmogonía propia que desprende conocimientos literarios, filosóficos, teológicos, así como científicos y que se anticipa al pensamiento humanista del Renacimiento colocando al ser humano desnudo como centro del universo.
El objetivo de esta investigación es profundizar en la vida y pensamiento de la religiosa Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) a través del análisis de las iluminaciones del universo con forma de ser humano de una de sus obras más destacadas, Liber Divinorum Operum (El libro de las horas divinas). En plena Edad Media y desde los espacios de clausura, Hildegard von Bingen desarrolló una abundante producción teórica creativa en áreas muy diversas, encabezó algunas de las reformas más importantes de su momento, tuvo relación con personajes relevantes de su época y adquirió el poder que a las mujeres les estaba vedado. Las imágenes estudiadas, con sus códigos propios de orden visual (formas, estructuración del espacio, colores), permitieron comprender mejor el contenido de sus visiones. Las conclusiones de este estudio enfatizan, por una parte, el interés de la autora por compartir la complejidad de sus revelaciones utilizando para ello la imagen como vehículo de conocimiento, algo que llamó la atención de sus contemporáneos. Por otro lado, dan cuenta de una profunda cosmogonía propia que desprende conocimientos literarios, filosóficos, teológicos, así como científicos y que se anticipa al pensamiento humanista del Renacimiento colocando al ser humano desnudo como centro del universo.
Augustine’s followers – Hildegard of Bingen, among them – inherited an unclarity about the possi-bility of knowing the invisible God through the visible nature. On the one hand, Augustine discussed how the physical visible world points to God as its creator. On the other hand, he demonstrated that knowledge derived from sensory perceptions of the visible is limited and inferior to inner learning. Although Hildegard embraced Augustine’s opinion that sensory perceptions are limited, she still con-sidered them important for believers. Vision 6 in Scivias II depicts a complex relationship between the visible and the invisible with regard to the Eucharist: Christ’s blood and body are not only superi-or to the wine and the bread, but are also identical to the latter and complete it. Thus, visible objects are not mere creations of the invisible but also reflect the invisible reality. In the first two sections of this article, I examine these theological dissimilarities. The last sections of the article suggest that the importance of the visible affected the structure of Vision II.6. Moreover, the illustrations of Vision II.6 present the complex relationship between the visible and the invisible. These illustrations display how an invisible concept may be reflected in a visible depiction
This chapter explores the development and purpose of the illustrations in two manuscripts of Hildegard of Bingen’s works: one designed by Hildegard (the Rupertsberg Scivias), the other designed by a later generation of her monastery’s nuns (the Lucca Liber divinorum operum). An overview of her visionary experiences demonstrates the prophetic mission of their detailed images to communicate theological truths. The author argues that Hildegard designed the Scivias images to aid that communication and provide visual exegesis of her visions, serving as a teaching tool to guide the reader through the manuscript. The next generation of nuns followed Hildegard’s impulse to illustrate her visions with the later Liber divinorum operum manuscript, but its famous cosmological diagram diverges from the text because the designer did not understand its meaning. The chapter closes with an assessment of the very limited influence of Hildegard’s illustrations in the later Middle Ages, with one story from the preaching of Johannes Tauler demonstrating their liability to reinterpretation.
Resumo Este artigo examina a obra da abadessa alemã do século 12 Hildegard von Bingen. Em meio a sua prolífica e multifacetada obra se destaca Scivias (abreviatura de Scito Vias Domini, que se traduz por Conhece os Caminhos), composta de visões místicas e apocalípticas, acompanhadas de comentários exegético-teológicos e iluminuras. Discutimos as estratégias discursivas que promoviam a legitimidade de sua pregação e mensagem, em meio a um contexto institucional e teológico masculino e hierárquico. Hildegard explora o potencial de criação e atualização de mensagens dos textos bíblicos por meio de sua linguagem visionária, que é altamente conectiva e criativa. Desta forma a abadessa consegue seguir inserida no quadro institucional do catolicismo do seu tempo, de cuja hierarquia teve reconhecimento e autorização, sem abrir mão da mística visionária e de seu potencial der produção e atualização de mensagens. Analisamos mais detidamente a segunda visão do terceiro livro do Scivias, intitulada A coluna da Palavra de Deus, no texto e na iluminura, na tensão e complementariedade entre os dois, com o objetivo de explorar a relação entre os profetas bíblicos, os leitores e o Espírito, em diálogo e multiplicação de revelações. Palavras-chave: Hildegard von Bingen, mística, visões, interpretação bíblica medieval Abstract This article examines the work of the German abbess of the 12th Century, Hildegard von Bingen. One of the most important among her prolific works is Scivias (shortening of Scito Vias Domini, translated as Know the Ways), composed of mystic and apocalyptic visions, followed by exegetical and theological commentaries and illuminures. We discussed the discursive strategies that legitimated her preaching and message, in a masculine and hierarchic institutional and theological context. Hildegard explores the
