HERRAD of LANDSBERG (LANDSBERG). - Abbess, born ca. 1125-30, from the noble Alsatian family of the Landsberg; she entered the monastery of Hohenburg (Odilienberg, Alsatia) and was a faithful disciple of Abbess Relinda, whom she succeeded in office in 1171. Following in her footsteps, she brought the monastery to great prosperity.
Indeed, to improve the religious service of the monastery, she founded nearby the Convent of St. Gorgon, entrusting it to the Premonstratensians; and she founded another with a hospice at Trutenhausen for the Augustinians. For the instruction and edification of the nuns, she composed the *Hortus deliciarum*, a kind of encyclopedia of all twelfth-century theological and secular learning: Sacred Scripture, expounded especially in its medieval mystical meanings, theology, philosophy, geography, history, the fine arts, etc. The title was chosen by the author (and was common in medieval Latin) because the work gathered, as in a garden of delights, all the flowers that could be culled from the works of the Fathers, theologians, philosophers, and the books of the Bible. Indeed, passages are sometimes quoted verbatim from authors ranging from the earliest Fathers to contemporaries such as Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) and Rupert of Deutz (d. 1135). H. herself added some of her own poetic works, accompanied by musical notation.
ART. - A manuscript of the *Hortus deliciarum*, precious for the miniatures with which it was adorned, was preserved along with the only existing copy in the Library of Strasbourg, and both were lost in the fire of the Library on 23 Aug. 1870. Fortunately, it has been possible to recover about 230 of the 336 miniatures of the original manuscript, thanks to reproductions in studies made before the destruction and to casts made at the behest of J. de Bastard, now in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. These reproductions have been collected and published by A. Straub and G. Keller (2 vols., Strasbourg 1901). It is from these, in particular, that one can form an idea of the originals, resplendent with vivid colors and a drawing of remarkable care, sometimes achieving notable expressive power. It is evident, however, that there were several illuminators, given the alternation of various styles in the different miniatures, where a Byzantine schematism gives way to a majesty of almost classical composition, especially in the figures of Christ and the Apostles, or to a vivacity and expressive power typical of Romanesque art. Taken as a whole, moreover, the miniatures present considerable interest for Christian iconography and symbolism: see, for example, the myth of Ulysses and the Sirens.
Gérard saw an intimate fusion between text and miniatures, so much so that he did not hesitate to attribute these also to H. Marignan, on the other hand, not only denies the famous abbess the honor of composition—considering it beyond the capacity of a woman—but after a careful and detailed examination of the miniatures, thinks that both the costumes and the iconography and the very character of the representations point to the beginning of the thirteenth century; he therefore concludes that it was not the original that was illustrated, but a second copy dating to about 1230. See plate XCI.