A German nun known for her numerous visions, Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179) was a strongly religious person, nonetheless devoted to the pursuit of knowledge in a scientific way. Very ahead of her time, she wrote on many different topics among which are botany, medicine, music, love and anatomy. Hildegard von Bingen was very much contested and had numerous enemies within the Catholic Church, whose leading members thought her writings were threatening the integrity of religion without adding any constructive element to it. Later canonized in 2012, she was largely a victim of misogyny in her days, which prevented her ideas from having a greater impact.

In her Liber Divinorum Operum, she talks about her visions and describes them so that they are accessible to other literate people, mostly part of the clergy. In the very same book, whose intention clearly is driven by religion, we can find her “universal man”, a drawing of a man with very elaborate anatomical details. It is extremely interesting that, only in the 12th century, a religious woman chose to represent this sort of information in a book, as the human body was very much disregarded and seen as an impure topic. If this drawing could be seen as a testimony for the premises of a separation between society and religion, it is probably a bit daring to say so. In fact, Hildegard von Bingen embodies both, so it could rather be seen as a progressive account for the compatibility of religion and science.

• Liber Divinorum Operum, catalogue entry. [online] Available at: http://www.internetculturale.it/opencms/opencms/it/viewItemMag.jsp?id=oai%3Awww.internetculturale.sbn.it%2FTeca%3A20%3ANT0000%3ALU0022_ms.1942&mode=all&teca=MagTeca+-+ICCU  [Accessed 08 March 16]
• Saint Hildegard, Encyclopaedia Britannica. [online] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Hildegard [Accessed 08 March 16]