Images of revelation: Illuminations of the universe in Hildegard von Bingen’s Liber Divinorum Operum

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore the life and thought of the nun Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) through the analysis of the illuminations of the universe in one of her most outstanding works, Liber Divinorum Operum (The Book of Divine Hours). Living in the Middle Ages and in cloistered spaces, Hildegard von Bingen developed an abundant creative theoretical production in very diverse areas beyond the theological, led some of the most important reforms of her time, had a relationship with relevant characters of her time and acquired a power that was forbidden to women. The images studied, with their own codes of visual order (shapes, spatial structuring, colours), allowed a better understanding of the content of her visions. The conclusions of this study emphasize, on the one hand, the author's interest in sharing the complexity of her revelations by using the image as a vehicle of knowledge, something that attracted the attention of her contemporaries. On the other hand, they reveal a profound cosmogony of her own, which emanates literary, philosophical, theological, and scientific knowledge and which anticipates the humanist thought of the Renaissance by placing the naked human being as the centre of the universe.