Referring to the Saint's work entitled De Natura Hominis, Elementorum, Diversarumque Creaturarum—a treatise on the nature of man, the elements and divers created things—no less an authority than Dr. Charles Daremberg declares that it will always hold an important place in the history of medical art and of inanimate and animate nature—insignis semper locus debetitur in artis medicæ rerumque naturalium historia.[165]
He even goes further and affirms that Hildegard was familiar with numerous facts of science regarding which other mediæval writers were entirely ignorant. More than this. She was acquainted with many of nature's secrets which were unknown to men of science until recent times, and which, on being disclosed by modern researches, have been proclaimed to the world as new discoveries.[166]
One reason why St. Hildegard's writings on botany, zoölogy and mineralogy are not better known is that few students care to make the effort to master her voluminous works. They require long and assiduous study and a knowledge of her peculiarities of style and expression which is acquired only after patient and persistent labor. But the labor is not in vain, as is evidenced by the numerous monographs which have appeared in recent years, especially in Germany, on the scientific works of this marvelous nun of the twelfth century. All things considered, the Abbess of Bingen may be said to hold the same position in the natural sciences of her time as was held in the physical and mathematical sciences seven hundred years earlier by the illustrious Hypatia of Alexandria.
After the death of St. Hildegard, full six centuries elapsed before any one of her sex again achieved distinction in the domain of natural science. And then, strange to relate, the first woman who won fame by her knowledge of science and by her contributions to it, did so in the field where a woman would, one would think, be least disposed to exercise her talent and least likely to find congenial work. It was in the then comparatively new science of human anatomy—a science which had been inaugurated in the famous medical schools of Salerno and which was subsequently so highly developed in the great University of Bologna.
The name of this remarkable woman was Anna Morandi Manzolini. She was born in 1716 in Bologna, where, after a brilliant career in her favorite branch of science, she died at the age of fifty-eight. She held the chair of anatomy in the University of Bologna for many years, and is noted for a number of important discoveries made as the result of her dissections of cadavers.
But she won a still greater title to fame by the marvelous skill which she exhibited in making anatomical models out of indurated wax. They were so carefully fashioned that some of them could scarcely be distinguished from the parts of the body from which they were modeled. As aids in the study of anatomy they were most highly valued and eagerly sought for on all sides. The collection which she made for her own use was, after her death, acquired by the Medical Institute of Bologna and prized as one of its most precious possessions.
Three years after her demise, Luigi Galvani, professor of anatomy in the same university in which Anna had achieved such fame, made use of these wax models for a course of lectures on the organs and structure of the human body.
These famous models, first perfected by Anna Manzolini, were the archetypes of the exquisite wax models of Vassourie as well as of the unrivaled papier-mâché creations of Dr. Auzoux and of all similar productions now so extensively used in our schools and colleges.
Even during the lifetime of the gifted modeler there were demands for specimens of her work from all parts of Italy. From many cities in Europe, even from London and St. Petersburg, she received the most flattering offers for her services. So eager was Milan to have her accept a position which had been offered her that the city authorities sent her a blank contract and begged her to name her own conditions. But she could never be induced to leave the home of her childhood and the city which had witnessed and applauded her triumphs of maturer years.
Men of learning and eminence, on passing through Bologna, invariably made it a point to call on the learned professora in order to make her acquaintance and to see her wonderful anatomical collection, which was celebrated throughout Europe as Supellex Manzoliniana. Among these visitors was Joseph II of Austria. So greatly was His Majesty impressed by Anna's rare intellectual attainments and by her marvelous skill in reproducing the various parts of the "human form divine" that he could not take leave of her without showing his appreciation of them by loading her with gifts worthy of a sovereign.[167]