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+--- Thread: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) (/thread-2453.html)
Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - Koen G - 15-08-2018
Hildegard wrote the first of her vision-books, known as the Scivias , around 1151. Until WWII, one copy (Rupertsberg) survived which was made shortly after her death, and certainly under the immediate influence of her surroundings. This MS was lost to the war, but fortunately it was copied in the early 20th century. Most Scivias images you have seen are from this modern copy (Eibingen).
The following fragment is from the Eibingen copy. We can assume that this is more or less how Hildegard herself had envisioned it. The six days of Creation
- Night and Day
- Sky and Sea
- Land and Vegetation
- Stars, Sun and Moon
- Sea creatures including fish and Birds
- Animals and Mankind
Illustrations of Hildegard's work could give rise to comparison with Voynich images. The style isn't standard medieval and the compositions deviate from stock scenes. There are cosmological elements and many naked figures (souls in Hildegard, "nymphs" in the VM).
Now upon closer inspection I'd say that the earliest Hildegard MSS are in style much more like the Spanish Beatus MSS of a century before, and don't share much with the VM apart from some degree of strangeness.
Now, to get to the point, what made me open this thread is the 6-days-scene from the 12th century You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
The overall style of the images is still quite different from the VM, and the same is true for the contents (an explosion of angels and Jesuses). But especially in the cosmological elements there is a departure from Hildegard's style towards things we are more used to, especially from the rosettes foldout. Note the eye-shape in the first day (top left), the blob representing the Earth with its waters, human heads in Sun and Moon, the green wave pattern under the dragon bottom left. Note certainly the "wavy starfish" bottom middle, which here represents the four rivers of paradise. Also androgynous human nudes, but that's not too exceptional in such works.
So, any thoughts? Has anyone studied this MS before?
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - bi3mw - 28-10-2021
(15-08-2018, 07:14 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Illustrations of Hildegard's work could give rise to comparison with Voynich images.
I see here some stylistic similarities to the VMS, especially on panel 4 in the Scivias. This perception is of course purely subjective. If Hildegard had designed a world map, I think it could well have shown similarities with the rosettes folio in the VMS.
Scivias Codex: Book I -3rd Vision
by Hildegard von Bingen
German Manuscript
1165 CE
Wiesbaden, Landesbibliothek
Ms. Scivias Codex, folio 14r ( Panel 4 )
Theme: God, Cosmos and Humanity
The codex has been lost since 1945, the entire manuscript is documented in a handmade parchment facsimile from 1927-33.
All 35 panels ( german description ):
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RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - Koen G - 28-10-2021
It is an extreme coincidence that you bring up this three year old thread now. I am preparing a new blog post with Cary, and just a few days ago she sent me the following comparison:
She noticed that if you turn the bottom left rosette so that the text is "right way up", its resemblance with Hildegard's "egg cosmos" becomes clear. An irregular shape in the middle, surrounded by an oval with stars, surrounded by scallop shapes, surrounded by flames/rays of light.
This prompted me to search the forum for what had been written about Hildegard images. Marco wrote a very helpful post about this very image You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which I definitely recommend. He also linked to the explanation of the allegory You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I am definitely not a Hildegard specialist, but my impression after heaving read these explanations is that she started from religious/devotional concepts and shapes her universe in such a way to allegorically align with them. Her religion is not shaped to explain the cosmos - rather, her cosmos takes a form that supports her religion.
There are some striking similarities between this Hildegard image and the bottom left rosette, like the oval 'cosmos'. But of course this cannot be a literal Hildegard illustration, because every detail matters in her work. The Sun stands for Christ, the Moon for the Church and so on. Those things are absent in the VM image. But it's certainly got a Hildegard vibe.
The Hildegard image this thread is about is another one with VM echos, as I apparently wrote before (I had forgotten all about this thread). Here is another oval and another blobby thing, the first two days of Creation:
So there may be something about separation of light and darkness and shapeless matter. Or maybe not... much hinges on the identification of the blob thing. Is it earth? An ugly flower representing the Sun? Pole star? I still find it very unclear.
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - Aga Tentakulus - 28-10-2021
If you let your imagination run wild, it looks like one has to go inside the other.
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - CaryR - 29-10-2021
It is indeed an extreme coincidence that you bring this up, since as Koen said, recently (so recently that we had not yet discussed it anywhere else!) I sent him this comparison that I noticed of Hildegard's egg-shaped cosmos and the shape in the lower left Rosette. I was especially interested in how similar the overall structure of the layers is. Not only the visual similarity of each layer, but also of their ordering of placement. Although Hildegard had very specific meanings for each layer, and I don't necessarily think those same meanings could apply to the VM, it makes me wonder if there is some conceptual link. Hildegard's depictions of the winds at the sides of the oval-shaped layers also reminded me of the four corners of this shape in the Rosettes, from which something seems to emanate in each of the four directions.
The comparison that Koen makes to the shapes representing the first days of creation seem like they could be relevant too-- comparisons like this make me think that the Voynich may draw inspiration from a variety of iconographic traditions, combining it in its own unique way.
I think it is likely that when the majority of text is oriented the same way next to certain parts of the Rosettes imagery, the image is meant to be "read" that way as well. When the bottom left Rosette is oriented like that, its "egg" shape also stands out as similar to a mandorla, a significant shape in Christian iconography. Some mandorla imagery, like this one from a fresco of the Chora Monestary, contains stars too:
I wonder if this VM rosette is conceptually linked to such a motif, which was expressed in a similar but unique way by Hildegard.
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - Koen G - 29-10-2021
(28-10-2021, 10:36 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you let your imagination run wild, it looks like one has to go inside the other.
Why use
imagination when you have 
Photoshop ?(NB: this is just for fun, nothing else)
If we simply rotate the top to accommodatie for the bottom oval and keep their sizes as they are on the scan, it looks like this. (I removed the flames/teeth inside the top thing because like that I could whip this up in two minutes, if I had to keep them it would take much longer).
It's pretty cool, like the bottom is a jewel to be set in an empty socket. On its side like this it looks like the scaly eye of some cosmic dragon. One useful thing this weird exercise does show is that the scallops in the bottom are a totally different shade of blue than the ones on the top. They look almost green in comparison.
If I jut try to fit one oval into the other, it becomes something like this, but this requires upscaling of the interior oval:
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - bi3mw - 29-10-2021
(29-10-2021, 12:18 AM)CaryR Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I wonder if this VM rosette is conceptually linked to such a motif, which was expressed in a similar but unique way by Hildegard.
On folio 14r in the Scivias, the theme is "God, Cosmos and Humanity". This means that an explicit interpretation of the representation as Christ - mandorla would be another variant. This is quite possible, since the basic form ( egg ) is the same and the lack of references to direct, Christian symbolism is characteristic of the VMS. In any case, the depiction on the rosette folio has a message that needs to be interpreted.
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - Aga Tentakulus - 29-10-2021
@Koen
Looks somehow as if it must be so.
Surely there are now great discussions on the net. ( New picture of the VM manuscript discovered.)
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - Koen G - 30-10-2021
Related to Hildegard, the Rosettes and "drawing Christ without drawing Christ", I would also point to the plant of f40v, which seems to do what I did in Photoshop: fill the oval with stars.
Here, the central item is not a blob, but a radiant sun-like flower. Hildegard uses the sun for Christ, which was by then already a well-established metaphor.
RE: Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard) - bi3mw - 30-10-2021
An interesting reference, Koen. I had not seen You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in this context before. Another thing to note is that the outer edge of the "flower head" looks like it has flames on it. That would be a match with folio 14r in the Scivias, so a reference to the universe and not Christ. Both interpretations are possible.