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The Rhine Sibyl

Hildegard von Bingen is one of the most enigmatic women in history. Despite having lived almost a thousand years ago, his figure is still present in European culture.

Diverse events commemorating the birth of St. Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval figure who continues to amaze us today, were held all over the world in 1998. The Benedictine abbess of the 12th century, from the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, has bequeathed us a gigantic work where she deals with the human and the divine. One of its most enigmatic aspects was its ability to predict, to have revelations and its gift for mystical visions. It is a unique case in history because there has never been another woman who had visions and revelations in a state of vigil. Hildegard was able to enter into ecstasy without losing consciousness, seeing, hearing and knowing simultaneously as he continued to be conscious in the earthly world. During her lifetime she was admired and respected by monarchs, popes, noble knights and learned friars, something unheard of for a woman in the Middle Ages. Today many claim it as a precursor and inspiration, from New age musicians to ecologists or feminists.

Time of monks and knights

The 12th century in Europe was an exciting time. The feudal lords extended their power over their vassals but new and radical social changes were already appearing on the horizon. These were times of political crisis in the Church, of crusades to liberate holy land and of struggles against “heresies” like the Cathars. Despite this, peace reigned throughout almost the entire old continent and this brought prosperity to the peasantry and merchants, with the bourgeoisie emerging as a new and rising social class. The Romanesque gave way to Gothic art in an unprecedented building impulse and began to return the lost knowledge of ancient Greeks and Romans in Arabic translations to illuminate again the dark landscape of the medieval. This is the age in which Hildegard was born, into a noble family. Always weak and prone to disease, he had, since he was three years old, the wonderful capacity for divine vision that he never abandoned. At the age of eight she was send to a monastery to be educated, and after a while she professed perpetual vows, becoming an abbess in 1136. In 1141, during a vision, he was commanded to write everything he had seen and heard. It was then that he became a fundamental figure in European society.

Scivias

The first writing where we find his visions is the Scivias or Sci via Dei (Know the ways of God). If anyone wanted to be sure to follow the “right path” and the salvation of his soul, he could read this book, full of metaphors and visual imagination to have a broad sample of the earthly and heavenly world. In this medieval bibliographic jewel, the first Sibila’s visions are told, supported by illustrations of intense chromaticism, very luminous, unique for the time and made by monks under the direction of Hildegard herself. It was written with the collaboration of the monk Volmar, one of the three secretary-counselors that the nun had throughout her life. He wrote to St. Bernard of Clairvaux seeking understanding and conformity. He recommended his work to Pope Eugene III. The pontiff sent a commission to examine it, and the conallusions were so favorable that he asked her to continue writing. From this moment on, and already more than fifty years old, she began a life full of activity. In 1150 he founded his own monastery in Rupersberg, Germany, which brought him great problems because his previous convent did not want to lose this point of attraction, visits and, of course, money.

Art and Science

In the Hildegard´s correspondence we can find the most varied topics, from Theology to councils of political order. It is surprising how freely he addressed these powerful men who sought his words. He never minced with his words and responded directly to all, whether king or servant, and always according to his own reasoning. It is curious to see how great rulers, unaccustomed to the displeasure, greatly respected the abbess. This respect was not toward her as a woman, impossible at that time, but as a direct messenger of God. She herself knew that only in this way could she find an echo, as a “seer” and not as a woman, so she often presented herself as “a poor ignorant woman”.

Among the occupations of an abbess at that time was caring for the community in her charge, both spiritually and physically. But Hildegard’s interest in medicine and science went far beyond that. Among his works we find medical writings such as Liber simplicis medicinas or Physica and Liber compositae medicinas or Cusae et curae, where he describes the human being in relation to natural elements, symptoms and treatments of diseases. He argues that the alteration of the natural environment can lead to illness (concept that preceded ecology), the importance of food in health and the use of plants as remedies. In addition, he commented on the influence of psychic states on bodily ills, as modern theories of psychology do today.

The celestial harmony

Music is one of the mainstays of the abbess of Ruperstsberg’s work. He considers it a means of communicating with God and a way to rejoice the spirit before the sorrows of this world, recovering lost harmony. Most of his compositions are bold and deviate from the styles of the time. They are works that cover wide registers, with very elaborate melodies, where music is as important as poetry. It can be said that they constitute compositions like the Gothic temples made music. Among his best-known creations is the beautiful cycle of songs from the “Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly Revelations”. Today musicologists value his work very much, there are recordings of his complete work and curious mixes of his melodies with Techno and New age rhythms that may or may not like, but show the universal nature of his genius.

Incesant activity

During his last years, his fame continued to spread throughout the continent. Busy in a thousand tasks, unfolding an unstoppable activity, advising on spiritual matters, transcribing her visions, composing music and poetry, travelling, founding a new monastery…

She was the first and only woman in centuries authorized by the Church to preach, which she did on numerous tours of villages and temples in Germany. At the age of eighty came what was perhaps his worst experience: a conflict with the ecclesial authorities. The abbess had allowed the burial of an excommunicated nobleman in the Rupertsberg cemetery. Shortly before his death, man had reconciled himself with the Church, an action that escaped the knowledge of the clergy. Hildegard refused to comply with the episcopal order to exhume the body and remove it from consecrated land, alleging the final reconciliation of the deceased with God. They spent months of threats and prohibitions against their community. Finally, almost a year later, the archbishop, upon learning the details, lifted the penalties. It was the last victory of an exceptional woman in a difficult time. He died a few months later, on 17 September 1179.

From golems to mechanical duck

Small notes about a history of automatons…. (Work in progress). It is often thought that the empire of machines is modern, but its predecessors come from far away in the fog of time. Kircher has already tried to develop a curious telephone, anticipated by Galileo, with which to communicate faraway places and allow musical transmission. But, at that time, other restless scientists wanted to go further, into a territory forbidden by religion. Under danger of heresy, they wanted to imitate God and designed, and even built, the first humans and artificial animals.

They were the ancestors of our robots. The ancient legends said that living beings could be created from clay or other raw materials to be used as slaves. These are stories of alchemical homunculi and golems. A golem could be created using magic from elemental forces. The stories tell adventures of golems made with lots of corpses, robot movements and superhuman strength. What animated the golems was the spirit of the elemental matter with which they were molded, their “construction” required weeks of hard work for the magician. Those imaginary stories were like horror stories. The golems were so popular that “secret manuals” were written for their construction. Those made of meat were the easiest to bring to life. Their pieces were sewn together and obtained in cemeteries, their intelligence was very scarce. The clay golems were sculpted in a single block and, in order to infuse them with soul, the presence of a priest was necessary. The most powerful and intelligent golems were those of iron or stone. History after history, the adventures of those fantastic inert beings were told, some even had names.

Imagination gives way to reality to build animated machines. The golems were nothing more than a desire, a longing that humans carry in their interior, driving the manufacture of machines capable of doing things proper to people. From ancient Greece, automatons have been created, devices that, as their name says, can move by themselves. In Egypt there were “robotic” statues that served political and religious ends, it is not difficult to imagine the terror of the people before such apparitions. These statues were almost always animated by compressed air. Many automatons used as toys were manufactured in Greece and Rome, a trend that the Arabs inherited and exported to other fields, such as automatic water dispensers. Roger Bacon is said to have built a talking head, although no reliable data about the device is preserved.

The oldest surviving automaton is the Strasbourg Rooster, built in 1352, an astronomical clock located in the cathedral of that city, capable to move its beak and wings to mark the passage of time. In Spain, automatons such as the “Hombre de Palo”, made by Juanelo Turriano in the 16th century for the king Carlos V, were also built. He had the outward appearance of a monk, was able to walk and move his arms, head, eyes and mouth. The most impressive automatons date back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when the public was enthusiastic about them and the Church considered them little less than demonic artifacts. Some museums are now exhibiting the few surviving examples in perfect condition. Undoubtedly the most admired of the automatons of that time was the mechanical duck due to Jacques de Vaucanson.

The artificial animal travelled all over Europe, arousing the curiosity of the people invited to witness it. The duck was able to lengthen the neck to eat grain from the hand, then swallowed it and digested it to evacuate it later. He also drank, swam and squawked. From the same author are other jewels such as an automatic flutist, or an artificial heart that could not be finished when the artisan died during its construction. That was the beginning of another mechanized goal: industry. The looms were automated and the sewing machine was designed. Those inventions were despised and feared by many. Vaucanson himself produced many useful devices in the industry, such as a weaver’s chair, which brought the anger of silk tycoons in France, who threatened to kill the craftsman.

Martians, 1934

Now we know that, if there were life on Mars, it would be exclusively microbial. The time of the “martian fever”, which was encouraged by H. G. Welles, and later by Orson Welles, has passed. Nor should we forget the delirious history of the martian canals. It should be remembered, however, that in the 1930s science was already quite clear about this theme. Issue 15 of Science News, 1934, states emphatically:

Astronomers now feel sure that if life exists on our neighbor planets such as Mars, it is of the humblest kind.

Curta, a mechanical wonder before the era of digital calculators

Imagine a small black cylinder, made of high quality materials, looking like a high-tech pepper mill, about 10 centimetres high by 5 centimetres in diameter. Now, dream that by moving several dials and turning a wheel with a crank, you can perform various calculations with extreme precision, the result of which will be presented to us through an analogical numerical table. That wonder fit in the palm of his hand. With it one could add, subtract, multiply, divide and, with a little more practice, perform more complex mathematical operations.

It was the Curta, a truly amazing portable mechanical calculator. Well, it was surprising for its precision and mechanism but, of course, today it may not attract too much attention. After all, we have electronic calculators everywhere, even on mobile phones. Why bother looking back at a jalopy like the Curta? For the simple reason that, behind the little contraption, there is an astonishing story and technology that, when electronic calculators did not yet exist, took us very far. Engineers, architects, scientists and economists used the Curta calculators from their appearance in 1948 until they were forgotten in the 1970s, when electronics banished their use from the usual practice, turning these jewels from mechanical calculators into objects of collecting.

Curta Calculator. Image of Larry McElhiney. CC-BY-SA-2.5.

There were two basic models of Curta mechanical calculator. The second of these models was introduced in the mid-fifties and could represent up to 15 digits in the result window (in the first model were 11 digits), something that surpasses in precision many current electronic calculators. The mechanics of use were somewhat complicated, but once you took some confidence in the machine, its use became virtually addictive. The digits were entered, one by one through sliding dials, then a set of turns was executed with the crank handle to add numbers or to select operating and result modes. A simple hoop trigger made it possible to erase the memory and start again with another operation. With practice, a person could perform complex calculations at high speed, all with mechanical interface, without any electronics.

In certain applications, this calculator even came to be used in the eighties, as happened in the field of calculations carried out in motor racing. Curta calculators were manufactured for about three decades by Contina AG Mauren, Liechtenstein, and are considered to be the most perfect hand-held mechanical calculators ever built.

Now, there is something in the Curta that makes them very special objects. Behind their intricate mechanics, on the other side of the engineering that animates them, is the story of a lonely man who managed to survive one of the most terrible places ever seen in human history. And precisely because of his calculator, he was able to overcome that. It’s the story of Curt Herzstark, father of the Curta calculator.

Herzstark’s calculator reigned unrivalled for many years, but while engineers, technicians and scientists were using them, they were unaware that they had in their hands a device stemming from the most terrible of despair. It seems incredible that a machine that stood out for its amazing precision would have emerged precisely in the mind of a tormented man who had been confined to a Nazi concentration camp: Buchenwald. Before Herzstark there were many different models of calculation machines, some very precise, whether mechanical or electromechanical, but no real portable precision calculator had been manufactured, which could be carried in hand. Curt Herzstark was born in Vienna in 1902 and died in Liechtenstein in 1988. All his life he was surrounded by machines and clockwork mechanisms. His father was the owner of an office machinery distribution company which, over time, became the owner of its own calculator manufacturing workshop. It was a business with great competence, especially in post-World War I Europe, when many manufacturers of war materials tried to survive by converting themselves into manufacturers of machinery for industries and offices. But, there was something that all calculator users were looking for and that no company, however many they proliferated at the time, was able to offer: A portable calculator was needed! Actually, carrying a heavy load of equipment in a backpack cannot be considered very practical (there were some “portable” models but they were very cumbersome and impractical). So Curt Herzstark put a lot of effort into achieving his goal: to build a simple, elegant and precise calculator that could fit in one hand. By the end of the 1930s he had already designed the basic aspects of what was to be a revolution, but another terrible war was set in the middle to ruin his plans.

The annexation of Austria by Hitler’s Germany changed all plans of Herzstark who belonged to a family of Jewish origin. From then on, the entire production of his company was to be used for precision machinery for war vehicles, the portable calculators and other “nonsense” had to be forgotten on Hitler’s orders. Bad enough, it wasn’t terrible either, at least they were allowed to continue working, but an incident with several workers in 1943, accused of spying on behalf of the allies, led to his arrest and imprisonment without trial. After passing through a terrible cell, Herzstark was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where his fate was sealed. But all of a sudden everything changed when an SS officer offered to continue living in exchange for working on the creation of precision parts for warplanes and missiles like the V2. Herzstark was put in charge of the machinery manufacturing operations in Buchenwald, which made it easier for him to “hire” other prisoners, thus saving their lives. It was all terror and fear, any day could be the last. However, fate smiled upon Herzstark. The Nazis learned of the pre-war engineering efforts to bring a portable calculator to life. They offered him a deal, namely, to be able to live in exchange for building one of those machines as a “gift of victory” for Hitler.

Herzstark continued to work as a forced prisoner, but was allowed time to devote to the task of designing the portable calculator. Little by little he was giving shape to the plans, in detail, while the war continued its course and his companions in captivity were falling. He believed that he would never get out of that hell alive, but when spring 1945 arrived the camp was liberated by the Allies. Free, at last, he travelled with primitive prototypes to Vienna, where he found that his factory no longer existed. He patented the machine in hopes of attracting some manufacturer’s attention, but no one listened until the news about a brilliant engineer and a calculator fascinated the prince of Liechtenstein. And there in the mountains, lost in that alpine corner, he found all the support he needed. This is how Contina was born, which in 1948 marketed the first Curta model. The success was immediate and, although there were certain conflicts with investors, Buchenwald’s survivor maintained his position and lived surrounded by successes until the end of his days. Highways, industries, power lines and even satellites and spacecraft were built with the help of Curta portable calculation machines. It can be said, without exaggerating, that an important part of the technology of the mid-20th century saw the light of day thanks to the dream turned into reality in one of the darkest hells created by the Nazis. Herzstark’s mathematical and mechanical dexterity saved him from death.

More information: The CURTA Calculator Page