Only four women have been recognized as Doctors of the Church:the Italian Catherine of Siena, the Spaniard Thérèse of Ávila, the French Thérèse of Lisieux and, since 2012, the German Hildegarde de Bingen. Born into a noble family in 1098, Hildegard shared the cell of a recluse from the age of 8. They are withdrawn from the world, but do not live in a convent. Quickly, the child is plagued by visions. At 15, she took the Benedictine veil. At 38, she is an abbess already famous because of her revelations. But the monks are wary of it. "Woman is the devil's door", already wrote Tertullian in the II e century. So much so that Hildegarde had the Scivias written , which describes his visions. In addition to her religious writings and the 356 letters she wrote to great people, she is also the author of the Book of the Subtleties of Divine Creatures , a collection of remedies inspired as much by ancient Greek physicians as by popular Germanic remedies. Finally, she is a composer whose more than 70 tunes have come down to us.