sensory impressions (specially implicating the sense of smell), conspire to produce an immensity of
feeling one associates with revelation rather than reflection. Unlike the elegant, urbane creations of the
Victorines, Hildegard’s is a lyricism of mystical immediacy. (Nor is this the last time French and German
“schools” will be so differentiated.)
FIG. 3-4 Hildegard of Bingen, the twelfthcentury abbess of Rupertsberg, writing down her visions (or, possibly, her chants).
The illustration comes from a manuscript of her treatise Scivias (“Know the ways of the Lord”) called the Codex Rupertsberg.
It disappeared during World War II.
EX. 3-10 Hildegard of Bingen, Columba aspexit