Fig. 3. HILDEGARD’S SECOND SCHEME OF THE UNIVERSE
Reconstructed from her measurements. AB, CD, and EF are all equal to each other, as are also GH, HK, and KL. The clouds are situated in the outer part of the aer tenuis, and form a prolongation downwards from the aer aquosus towards the earth.
The earth lies concentrically with the aer tenuis, and its measurements are given thus: ‘In the midst of the aer tenuis a globe was indicated, the circumference of which was everywhere equidistant from the fortis et albus lucidusque aer, and it was as far across as the depth of the space from the top of the highest circle to the extremity of the clouds, or from the extremity of the clouds to the circumference of the inner globe’[68] (Fig. 3).
In her earlier work, the Scivias, Hildegard had not apparently realized the need of accounting for the independent movements of the planets other than the sun and moon. She had thus placed the moon and two of the moving stars in the purus aether, and the sun and the three remaining moving stars in the lucidus ignis. Since these spheres were moved by the winds, their contained planets would be subject to the same influences. In the Liber Divinorum Operum, however, she has come to realize how independent the movements of the planets really are, and she invokes a special cause for their vagaries. ‘I looked and behold in the outer fire (lucidus ignis) there appeared a circle which girt about the whole firmament from the east westward. From it a blast produced a movement from west to east in the opposite direction to the movement of the firmament. But this blast did not give forth his breath earthward as did the other winds, but instead thereof it governed the course of the planets.’[69] The source of the blast is represented in the Lucca MS. as the head of a supernatural being with a human face (Plate [VIII]).
Plate VIII. THE MACROCOSM THE MICROCOSM AND THE WINDS