Note 87 — THE SCIENTIFIC VIEWS AND VISIONS OF SAINT HILDEGARD (1098–1180)

The MS. from which Plate XVI is taken (Paris, Bibl. nat., Latin 11229) was written about the end of the fourteenth century. It has been described by K. Sudhoff, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Med., ii. 84, Leipzig, 1910. The relation of the central figure to the signs of the zodiac in this plate bears a manifest resemblance to the relation of the central figure to the beasts’ heads in Plate vii. The lines which cross and recross the figure in Plate VII are analogous also to the lines of influence of Plate XVI. The verse above the figure in Plate XVI is taken from the Flos medicinae scholae Salerni; cp. de Renzi, loc. cit., i. 486. This Melothesia and that of the next figure is identical with that propounded in Manilius, ii. 453 (edition of H. W. Garrod, Oxford, 1911).