A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

the medical, the magical, and the miraculous 253
identifijied with the Physica and the latter with the Cause et cure.17 Hildegard
probably began work on a medical text in the 1150s, after completion
of her fijirst visionary work, the Scivias.18 In the prologue of the Liber vite
meritorum, the second of her three visionary works, she mentions a vision
she had experienced the year before that had shown her “the simplicity of
the various natural creatures”;19 from this allusion is derived the title Liber
subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum (Book on the Subtleties of
the Diffferent Natures of Created Things), currently used by some scholars
for the Physica. Despite this reference, the claim of divine inspiration for
either the Physica or the Cause et cure has enjoyed little support.
The 1983 discovery of a Florentine manuscript of the Physica resulted in
two critical editions. The edition by Irmgard Müller and Christian Schulze,
which appeared in 2008, features a comparison to the Patrologia Latina
edition of the text on the facing page;20 that published by Reiner Hildebrandt
and Thomas Gloning two years later includes the Berlin fragment as
an appendix and provides a second volume consisting of textual variants.21
The Physica text is extant in fewer than a dozen manuscripts, the one in
Florence being the oldest and most complete.22 The title, Physica, fijirst
17 Reiner Hildebrandt casts doubt on the connection of the Cause et cure with the
Liber compositae medicinae in “Hildegard von Bingen—16 Jahre nach der Entdeckung der
Florentiner ‘Physica’—Handschrift,” in Sprachgeschichte—Dialektologie—Onomastik—
Volkskunde. Beiträge zum Kolloquium am 3./4. Dezember 1999 an der Johannes Gutenberg-
Universität Mainz Wolfgang Kleiber zum 70. Geburtstag, eds. Rudolf Bentzinger, Damaris
Nübling, and Rudolf Stefffens (Stuttgart, 2001), p. 46.
18 Victoria Sweet argues for a somewhat earlier chronology in Rooted in the Earth,
Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine, Studies in Medieval History
and Culture (New York, 2006), pp. 47 and 131.
19 Hildegard of Bingen, The Book of the Rewards of Life (Liber Vitae Meritorum), trans.
Bruce W. Hozeski (New York, 1994), p. 9; Vite mer., p. 8.
20 Hildegard von Bingen: Physica: Edition der Florentiner Handschrift (Cod. Laur. Ashb.
1323, ca. 1300) im Vergleich mit der Textkonstitution der Patrologia latina (Migne), eds. Irmgard
Müller and Christian Schulze (Hildesheim, 2008).
21 Hildegard von Bingen, Physica. Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum.
Textkritische Ausgabe, eds. Reiner Hildebrandt and Thomas Gloning, 2 vols. (Berlin,
2010). Citations in this essay are from the fijirst volume of this edition. The “Berliner fragment”
(Codex Berolinensis) is in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. Lat.
Qu. 674, fols 104r–116r.
22 Physica: Edition der Florentiner Handschrift, pp. XI–XII, provides a useful overview of
the manuscripts and editions. Physica. Liber subtilitatum, 1, pp. 14–21, presents a slightly
diffferent set of manuscripts; they include the 1533 print edition by Johannes Schott as
well as the Augsburg manuscript but omit four manuscripts containing only fragments.
Irmgard Müller discusses the signifijicance of the Florence manuscript at length in “Die
Bedeutung der lateinischen Handschrift Ms. laur. Ashb. 1323 (Florenz, Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana) für die Rekonstruktion der ‘Physica’ Hildegard von Bingen und ihre Lehre
von den natürlichen Wirkkräften,” in Umfeld, pp. 421–40.