Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen
- The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Life and Monastic Context
- Part II Writings and Reputation
- Part III Music, Manuscripts, Illuminations, and Scribes
- Chapter 10 Music, Liturgy, and Intertextuality in Hildegard of Bingen’s Chant Repertory
- Chapter 11 The Ordo virtutum and Benedictine Monasticism
- Chapter 12 Picturing Hildegard of Bingen’s Sight: Illuminating Her Visions
- Chapter 13 Hildegard of Bingen and Her Scribes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
Chapter 12 - Picturing Hildegard of Bingen’s Sight: Illuminating Her Visions
from Part III - Music, Manuscripts, Illuminations, and Scribes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2021
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen
- The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Life and Monastic Context
- Part II Writings and Reputation
- Part III Music, Manuscripts, Illuminations, and Scribes
- Chapter 10 Music, Liturgy, and Intertextuality in Hildegard of Bingen’s Chant Repertory
- Chapter 11 The Ordo virtutum and Benedictine Monasticism
- Chapter 12 Picturing Hildegard of Bingen’s Sight: Illuminating Her Visions
- Chapter 13 Hildegard of Bingen and Her Scribes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
Summary
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.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen , pp. 257 - 279Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Primary Sources
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Hildegard of Bingen Scivias., ed. Führkötter, Adelgundis and Carlevaris, Angela. 2 vols. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 43 and 43A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1978.Google Scholar
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