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Primary sourceBook1170-1174

Liber Divinorum Operum

Hildegard of Bingen · 1170-1174

A page from a 1170-1174 copy of Hildegard's visionary work, made very close to her original wax-tablet text.

This manuscript preserves Hildegard's own visionary writing, copied during her lifetime from her original wax tablets.

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Open manuscript book showing two facing pages of dense medieval Latin text in brown ink, with red initial letters and marginal marks. The book has a dark leather binding visible at the edges against a black background.
Liber divinorum operum, folio 056, Rupertsberg copy, 1170-1174.

About this source

What it is

This page comes from a manuscript copy of Hildegard of Bingen's Liber divinorum operum, made at Rupertsberg between 1170 and 1174, during her lifetime. Because Hildegard wrote on reused wax tablets, no original copy by her hand survives, making this manuscript the closest surviving version to her original text. The photo shows two facing pages of dense Latin text with red initials in a dark leather binding.

Why it matters

This book is one of Hildegard's visionary writings, which had a wide influence on mysticism in the Western Latin church. Its corrections let researchers study how Hildegard composed and revised her text, giving rare insight into her working process as an author.

Look closer

  • Why does the lack of an original wax-tablet copy make this manuscript especially valuable?
  • What might the corrections visible in the manuscript tell us about how the text was written or edited?
  • What limits our ability to know exactly what Hildegard's own wax-tablet version looked like?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Hildegard of Bingen on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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