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Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen ; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis ; 1098 - 17 September 1179), also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German abbess, artist, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, activist, visionary, and composer. Elected a magistra in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. She is the first composer with an extant biography. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum , has been called the first form, and possibly the origin, of opera. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature illuminations. At least one modern biographer described Hildegard of Bingen as a polymath.
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