Anna became the Abbess of Quedlinburg in 1755, although she chose to spend most of her time in Berlin, where she devoted herself to music, and became known as a musical patron and composer. In 1758, she began a serious study of musical theory and composition, engaging as her tutor Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. She composed chamber music, such as flute sonatas, and wrote music to Ramler's Passion cantata "The Death of Jesus". This was also her favorite piece. Only a few of her works have survived, and it is highly likely that she destroyed many of her compositions. After all, she did described herself as being very self-critical person. In addition to that, princess Anna was also a collector of old music, preserving over 600 volumes of works by notables such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, George Philipp Telemann, and others. This act in itself was a significant contribution to Western culture. Her library was split between East Germany and West Germany after World War II, and despite serious damage by fire in 2004, still survives today.
]]>It seems that princess was a very brave and passionate woman. When she was twenty years old, Anna met Friedrich von der Trenck, whose adventurous life inspired works by literary giants such as Victor Hugo and Voltaire. In 1743, Anna secretly married him. When her brother, who was already a king, discovered she had married secretly and was pregnant, he annulled her marriage and imprisoned her husband for ten years. Then Frederick exiled her in anger to Quedlinburg Abbey, a place where many aristocratic women were sent to give birth to children out of wedlock. However, Anna continued to correspond with Friedrich von der Trenck until her death.
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In my blog entries, I describe mostly outstanding creative people who had God given talents in spite of the harsh times that they were living. Luckily, not everybody is born a genius. There were other composers. I would not call them minor talents or diminish their creativity in any way. They also deserve the utmost respect and gratitude of the following generations. One of these dedicated people was Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia. I found out about her when I was doing my regular research for my web analytics company.
Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia was one of eight children of Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia. She was a younger sister of the famous Frederick II, King of Prussia and she was born in 1723 in Berlin. Among her other famous close relatives were Wilhelmine, Margravine of Bayreuth, Louise Ulrika, Queen of Sweden and Augustus William, Prince of Prussia. Anna was eleven years younger than her brother Frederick, and would have been seven years old when he made his attempt to run away from home, after being humiliated by his father. Both children were musically inclined, but for Anna formal musical instruction was only possible after the death of her father, who hated music with all his heart. Music was her secret consolation against his cruelty to her - in his bursts of rage he would often drag her across a room by the hair. Fortunately, her mother encouraged Anna to learn how to play the harpsichord, flute, and violin. And she received her first lessons from her brother, future king.
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She speaks of time spent in Lydia, one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries of that time. More specifically, Sappho speaks of her friends and happy times among the ladies of Sardis, capital of Lydia, once the home of Croesus and near the gold-rich lands of mythical King Midas.
Sappho's poetry centers around passion and love for various personages and genders. The word "lesbian" itself derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos. Her name is also the origin of its less common synonym sapphic. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love for various women.
In antiquity, Sappho was commonly regarded as the greatest, or one of the greatest, of lyric poets. An epigram in the Anthologia Palatina, ascribed to Plato says:
Some say the Muses are nine: how careless!
Look, there's Sappho too, from Lesbos, the tenth.
And I could not agree more.
]]>Everybody heard about Sappho, at least in connection with the island of Lesbos. Researchers say, that Sappho's birth was sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC, and that she died around 570 BC. Unfortunately, the bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.
Guess, what? No contemporary historical sources exist for Sappho's life — only her poetry. Scholars have rejected a biographical reading of her poetry and have cast doubt on the reliability of the later biographical traditions from which all more detailed accounts derive. So what do we know about Sappho?
It seems that she was born into an aristocratic family, because her language is so sophisticated. References to dances, festivals, religious rites, military fleets, parading armies, generals, and ladies of the ancient courts are all reflected in her writings.
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]]>I went through more manuscripts and found more interesting personalities from so called Dark Ages.
In my previous post I mentioned that Medieval women worked a lot on illumination. Manuscript illumination affords us many of the named artists of the Medieval Period including Ende, a tenth century Spanish nun; Guda, a twelfth century German nun; Claricia, twelfth century laywoman in a Bavarian scriptorium. Hildegard of Bingen is a particularly fine example of a German Medieval intellectual and artist. She wrote "The Divine Works of a Simple Man", "The Meritorious Life", sixty-five hymns, a miracle play, and a long treatise of nine books on the different natures of trees, plants, animals, birds, fish, minerals, and metals. From an early age, she claimed to have visions. When the Papacy supported these claims by the headmistress, her position as an important intellectual was galvanized. The visions became part of one of her seminal works, which consists of thirty-five visions relating and illustrating the history of salvation. The illustrations showing Hildegarde experiencing visions while seated in the monastery at Bingen, differ greatly from others created in Germany during the same period. They are characterized by bright colors, emphasis on line, and simplified forms. While Hildegard likely did not pen the images, their nature leads one to believe they were created under her close supervision.
]]>In the twelfth century there was the rise of the city in Europe, along with the rise in trade, travel, and universities. These changes in society also influenced the lives of women. Women were allowed to head their spouses' businesses, if they were widowed. Women also became more active in illumination. Many women worked alongside their husbands or fathers, including the daughter of Maitre Honore and the daughter of Jean le Noir. By the 13th century, most illuminated manuscripts were being produced by commercial workshops, and by the end of the Middle Ages, when production of manuscripts had become an important industry in certain centers, women seem to have represented a majority of the artists, and scribes, employed, especially in Paris.
I processed a lot of the manuscripts on a research, and I found a lot about the women in the Middle Ages. Especially, about the ones with artistic talents. In the Medieval period, women often worked alongside men. They created manuscript illuminations, embroideries, and carved capitals and what-not. Documents show that they also were brewers, butchers, wool merchants, and iron mongers. Women who were artists, often were of two literate classes, either wealthy aristocratic women or nuns. Women in the former category often created embroideries and textiles. Those in the later category often produced illuminations, and even composed church music.
]]>After passing of Jutta who had many followers, Hildegard was elected to be a leader of her sister community. Then she was still in doubt about her visions. But then Hildegard decided that her visions were instructions from God. She confided in Jutta about the visions, who could not keep this secret and told it to several other people. Yet, Hildegard would not record her predictions and visions. Only when suddenly she became extremely sick, she overcame her fear and was more open about her visions that she continued to get throughout her life. Her work on vision was always in progress. In the end accounts of visions were compiled in three books and stopped only in 1179 with her death.
Hildegard founded several monasteries and was respected throughout all medieval Germany. Among her heritage there are many medical, botanical and geological works, poems, plays and music. Amazingly, she was the first woman in Europe to write about feminine sexuality and the first to describe scientifically origin of female orgasm. She remained at the level of beautification and her name was was taken up in the Roman martyrology. But never was formally canonized by Rome. Nevertheless, for Germans she was and would remain Saint Hildegard and she is highly popular there even today.
]]>There was something unusual about her right from the start. She was born in 1098, and since childhood started to experience visions. And when she was just a little kid, Hildegard astonished her parents with her psychic powers. She told her parents that a pregnant cow would give a birth to a calf. She described it in details, including spots on its forehead.
Hildegard was the tenth child from the family of free nobles in Germany. She did not have a robust health. Since her childhood till the end of her days, Hildegard could predict many things or simply describe something that would only happen in future. Many centuries later we can only guess whether Hildegard was a true psychic or had just some telepathic abilities. Her parents were smart enough to offer her to a church under the care of a highly popular nun Jutta. One can say that Hildegard got extremely lucky, because any other wrong move of her parents could lead her directly to be burnt in a fire and accused to be a witch.
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Some would call Hildegard of Bingen who lived in early medieval period a polymath or a Renaissance woman who was ahead of her time. But I would call her a true psychic, who also had unusual telepathic abilities. In the barbaric times of the eleventh century, seeking the answers, Popes of Rome, kings, queens, statesmen and clerics and even some canonized in future Catholic saints visited her just to hear her predictions and prophecies. Here is what I found during my research for a local web analytics company.
She was quite a popular figure of her times, like a big rock star, if we compare her to our modern times. All we have to say is that she was the only woman in Middle Ages who had her preaching tours! She was not just a visionary, she was also a famous composer, artist, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, activist of her times.
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