Parlare dal corpo. Donne e scrittura mistica nel medioevo: il magistero di Ildegarda di Bingen

The article proposes an investigation into the dimension of the body in medieval female mystical writing. The analysis focuses on the founding teaching of Hildegard of Bingen (12th century), with her “dualitarian” vision of the human being – integrally and inseparably soul and body in the search for reharmonization with the divine –, which emerges both in works of a prophetic nature and in those of a naturalistic nature. The same category of mystical “vision”, origin and justification of the word and writing, sign of an unmediated relationship between the woman and God, involves the dimension of the body and gives shape to a “total language”, synaesthetic, which is linked to the experience and biography of the subject. In the visionary writings of the 13th century authors, the theme of the closeness between the woman and the divine Other is accentuated, which becomes intimacy of bodies, becoming a relationship of love.