A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

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Pentachronon and other pseudepigraphical adaptations and compilations
of Hildegard’s original texts. Geographically, it is obvious that Hildegard’s
writings initially found reception in Germany. Beginning in the 13th and
14th centuries, multiple traces of her works and their influence appear in
the Netherlands, Italy, France, England, and Bohemia.
In the Low Countries, her texts were primarily disseminated through
the abbeys of Gembloux and Villers. Guibert of Gembloux, Hildegard’s last
secretary and the editor of a fragmentary vita of the seer, was particularly
important for the propagation of her reputation. In later periods, there
was also a strong reception of Hildegardian thoughts in the Low Countries.
Lodewijk Clysters holds that the famous altar in Ghent from Hubert and
Jan van Eyck (c.1415–1425) was deeply influenced by Hildegard’s Scivias
(especially 3.13).2
Hildegard’s Italian reception is attested in a text by William of Lucca
(Wilhelmus Lucensis, d. 1178). In his Comentum in tertiam ierarchiam Dionisii
que est de divinis nominibus, composed between 1169 and 1177, he cites
Hildegard’s exorcism of Sigewize of Cologne. References to the Scivias also
appear in his work.3 In addition, an illuminated manuscript of the Liber
diuinorum operum arrived in Lucca, possibly as early as the 12th century,
where it now resides in the state library (Biblioteca Statale di Lucca, Ms.
1942). Possible proof of the influence of this text appears in one of the frescoes
on the Camposanto Monumentale in Pisa, painted in 1391: a depiction
of the cosmography by Piero of Puccio shows links to these illuminations.
In addition, the baptismal font (third quarter, 12th century) in the Basilica
di San Frediano in Lucca displays motifs that could have been inspired
by the Liber diuinorum operum manuscript of the same city.4 Since the
Middle Ages the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence has likewise
held Cod. S. Crucis, Plut. 22, dex. 4, a manuscript containing the Litterae
ignotae, an excerpt from the Scivias, and a number of Hildegard’s letters.
The most complete extant manuscript of the Liber simplicis medicinae also
arrived in Florence, but at a later date (Bibl. Med. Laur., Cod. Laur. Ashb.
2 Lodewijk Clysters, Kunst en mystiek: De aanbidding van het Lam, Naar een genetische
verklaring (Tongerloo, 1935).
3 See Wilhelmus Lucensis, Comentum in tertiam ierarchiam Dionisii que est de divinis
nominibus. Ed. Ferruccio Gastaldelli, Testi e Studi 3 (Florence, 1983), pp. XCII, XCIII, and
221. Ferruccio Gastaldelli, Scritti di letteratura, fijilologia e teologia medievali (Spoleto, 2000),
pp. 177–316.
4 Romano Silva, “Aspetti e problemi iconografijici della scultura ‘romanica’ lucchese,”
Actum Luce 2 (1973): 88, 93f.