The Book of Divine Works by Hildegard of Bingen

The best-known religious woman of the twelfth century was Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). She joined the double monastery of Disibodenberg in the Rhineland as a child and became the abbess of its community of nuns. In 1147 she experienced a vision that caused her to leave Disibodenberg and set up her own community, solely of nuns, at Rupertsberg near Bingen in the Rhineland.Hildegard was a cultured woman of wide learning: she composed music, was a prodigious letter-writer and wrote texts on medicine and herbalism. However, she was best known in her time for her visions, which were set down in writing and illustrated by the nuns of her community. The two books of Hildegard's visions are entitled Know the Ways of God (lost since 1945) and The Book of Divine Works.

The first illustration to the Book of Divine Works represents the Vision of Divine Love, who holds the Lamb of God, and tramples upon Discord and the devil. This abstract concept is embodied in the traditional form of a young woman. Her face is bright red, a colour associated in the twelfth century both with divine love and the element of fire, and from the top of her head emerges the face of an old man. Below the illustration is a small vignette of Hildegard writing down her visions on wax tablets with the assistance of the nun Ricardis; to the left her confessor and life-long friend, the monk Volmar, copies the text into a book.

The manuscript at Lucca is an early thirteenth-century illustrated copy of Hildegard's work.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes): Hildegard of Bingen: O Spiritui Sancto