Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
ST. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN. – Mystic, called, on account of her importance, the “prophetess of Germany,” was born into the noble Vermersheim family at Bermersheim (province of Rheinhessen) in 1098 (cf. M. Schrader, Heimat und Sippe der deutschen Seherin St. Hildegard, Salzburg-Leipzig 1941; cf. also: id., Die Heimat und Abstammung der hl. Hildegard, in Studien und Mitteilungen zur Gesch. des Benediktiner-ordens, 54 [1936], pp. 199-221; 57 [1939], pp. 117-133), and died at Bingen on 17 Sept. 1179. At the age of three she began to experience celestial visions; at eight she was entrusted to the guidance of Jutta of Spanheim, who at Disibodenberg abbey received noble girls to prepare them for monastic life; at fifteen she took the Benedictine habit. Upon Jutta’s death (1136) she accepted the leadership of the small community, which between 1147-50 she transferred to the monastery she founded at Bingen. In 1165 she founded a daughter-house at Eibingen near Rüdesheim.
One may say that her entire life was one of uninterrupted illness; yet this did not prevent her from undertaking numerous journeys for the good of the Church, the clergy, and religious persons, nor from displaying a prodigious literary activity, all the more remarkable since, owing to her limited education (Jutta had taught her only the Psalms of David), she had to rely on many secretaries and correctors. Numerous miracles rendered her tomb famous; a canonization process was also ordered by Gregory IX, though it never reached completion (cf. Martyr. Romanum, p. 403); yet she was venerated as a saint from the 13th century onward. Her feast is celebrated on 17 Sept.
Her principal works are: the *Liber Scivias* (= *Scito vias lucis*), composed between 1141-51, in which she describes her visions and prophecies, approved in 1147 by Eugenius III and by St. Bernard (PL 197, 383-738; better in J. B. Pitra, *Analecta sacra spicilegio Solemensi parata*, VIII [Montecassino 1882], pp. 503-17, 600-603) and in A. Damoiseau, *Novae edit. opp. omnium s. Hildegardis experimentum* [2 vols., Sampierdarena 1893-99]); the *Liber vitae meritorum*, between 1159-64, on virtuous living (Pitra, op. cit., pp. 1-224); the *Liber divinarum operum*, composed between 1164-70, in which from natural things she derives symbols and expressions of spiritual realities (PL 197, 741-1038); other works treat of music, medicine, literature, and the natural sciences (notably, amid some fanciful notions, her view that the earth revolves around the sun, that the sun is the center of the world, that the fixed stars move, and that blood circulates in the organism); besides these, there are poems and musical compositions (Pitra, op. cit., pp. 441-67) and an important correspondence that reveals her as an adviser.
ST. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN. – The saint dictates her visions. Miniature from the small codex of I. (1151-79) – Wiesbaden, State Library of Nassau.
In the most important matters concerning the reform of ecclesiastics and religious persons (145 letters in PL 197, 145-382 and another 145 in Pitra, op. cit., pp. 320-440; 518-82).
