The Medieval Universe and Mystical Vulvas

Here you are looking at a diagram of the Medieval universe. Or, a giant mystical vulva — your choice.

In the Middle Ages, it was common to depict the macro-cosmos as a sort of expanded version of the micro, much like the fresco painted in the late fourteenth century by Piero di Puccio (4th slide), which has a teeny planet earth, surrounded by rings that represent the elements, the planets, the zodiac constellations — ultimately, there is a heavenly realm with the body of Christ sort of holding and absorbing it all.
The Christian writer, musical composer, and Church abbess, Hildegard von Bingen, expressed this view from her unique perspective. The quote on slide three from her explicitly compares the body of a man with natural features in the larger universe, so that stars and their heat equate to veins and blood.

The illustration she did for her work _Scivias_ (finished by 1152 CE), however, is supposed to be a picture of a mystical vision she had — the second slide labels different parts of her painting that correspond to the universe. But also, it looks like a giant vulva. As EmilyAnn Gisler writes, “we see the clitoris being the large red star at the top . . . And below it the urethra depicted by the gray orb and below it the vaginal opening depicted with four separate rings . . . .”. Hildegard wasn’t trying to be a feminist — she explicitly upheld the Church patriarchy even as she exercised more power than most women of her time. But nevertheless, she subconsciously ended up making her work representative of women’s perspective.