Scivias and other visions — Paris 1513

Lefevre d’Ètaples, Jacques (Ed.)

Liber trium virorum & trium spiritualium virginum. — Emissum Parisijs ex officina Henrici Stephani … Anno Mil.ccccc.xiij sexto nonas Iunias.

Paris, H. Estienne, for himself and Jean de Bire, 30 May 1513

First editions of Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schönau e. a.

Folio (299 x 200 mm). α¹² a-z⁸ A⁶: (12), 190 leaves. Late 18th or 19th century quarter vellum.

Title-page repaired at lower outer corner. First 12 leaves reinforced at inner margin, last six leaves remargined. 

Wormholes turning into trace on f. 22-24, 51-55; two wormholes f. 109 to end. Spots on 57v, 58r. Dampstaining to lower outer corner and outer margin of first and last quires. Some underlinigs and early marginalia. Wide margins, a number of leaves with deckle edges. – Renouard 14 no. 2; Adams F-29.

„Lefevre’s most important publication in his program of editing the principal works of the medieval mystics. The volume contains the first editions of The Sheperd of Hermas, the Scivias of Hildegard of Binghen (1098-1179: the most influential woman of her century), the Visiones of Elisabeth of Schönau (1129-1164), the Liber specialis gratiae of Mechthild of Hackeborn (1241-1164), the Liber sermonum and Liber visionum of the 13th-century Dominican mystic Robert of Uzès, and the Vision of Huguetinus (now known to be the 8th-century Visio Wettini). ‚A volume of outstanding interest in this field of medieval publications … Lefèvre d’Etaple’s Liber trium virorum is one of the earliest examples of a publication of old texts by an antiquarian, and closely parallel in intention to the efforts of Andreae, Lascaris, Ficinus, and the other editors of the editiones principes of the classics.‘ (E. P. Goldschmidt, Medieval texts, 53.)

Of special interest is Lefèvre’s prefatory epistel to Adelheid von Ottenstein, abbess of the Benedictine convent of Rupertsberg, which had been founded in 1147 by Hildegard of Binghen, and where Lefèvre had discovered a manuscript of the Scivias.“ (Schreiber 16). 

The circles in the lower margin of f. 128 illustrate the text: „Erat autem spacium quoddam inter ipsas quatuor, circa medium punctum maioris, rubicumdum quasi flamma ignis …“