Scivias

Scivias is an illustrated work by Hildegard von Bingen, completed in 1151 or 1152, describing 26 religious visions she experienced. It is the first of three works that she wrote describing her visions, the others being Liber vitae meritorum and De operatione Dei (also known as Liber divinorum operum). The title comes from the Latin phrase "Sci vias Domini" ("Know the Ways of the Lord"). The book is rather long – over 150,000 words, or what would be about 600 pages of printed text. The book is illustrated by 35 miniature illustrations, more than that are included in her two later books of visions.

The work is divided into three parts, reflecting the Trinity. The first and second parts are approximately equal in length, while the third is as long as the other two together. The first part includes a preface describing how she was commanded to write the work, and includes six visions dealing with themes of creation and the Fall. The second part consists of seven visions and deals with salvation through Jesus Christ, the Church, and the sacraments. The third part, with thirteen visions, is about the coming kingdom of God, through sanctification, and increased tension between good and evil. The final vision includes 14 songs, plus a portion of the music drama which was later published as the Ordo Virtutum. In each vision, she first described what she saw, and then recorded explanations she heard, which she believed to be the "voice of heaven."

Scivias survives in ten medieval manuscripts, two of them lost in modern times. The most esteemed of these was the well-preserved Rupertsberg manuscript, prepared under her immediate supervision or that of her immediate tradition, being made around the time of her death. It resided in the Wiesbaden Hessische Landesbibliothek until World War II, when it was taken to Dresden for safekeeping, and lost. Some hoped that the German reunification in 1990 would cause it to reappear, but to date it has not. Only black-and-white photographs of this manuscript survive. The original manuscript was 12.8 by 9.25 inches, and in 235 parchment pages with double columns. A faithful illuminated copy was made at the Hildegard Abbey in Eibingen in 1927-1933, which is the source of the color reproductions now available. Other copies are in the Biblioteca Vaticana (made in Rupertsberg), Heidelberg (12th century), Oxford (12 or 13th century), Trier (1487), and elsewhere.

...
Wikipedia