H.C.Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1538)
Agrippa is important for various reasons. He was a disciple of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, a pupil of Trithemius and a teacher of Johann Weyer. His humanistic pursuit of occult sciences and his critique of scholastic learning were popular with aristocratic patrons but heavily criticized by Franciscans and Dominicans during his lifetime and by Jean Bodin and others after his death, who claimed that he was in league with the Devil. He is notable as a defender of women and he was influential among later neo-Platonists and occultists such as Thomas Vaughan.
He
enrolled at Cologne University in 1499 and received his MA in 1502, presumably
having already taken his BA. In 1506, he went to Paris for further
study. He later claimed to have an MD, but this seems unlikely.
He then went in military service to Catalonia, and subsequently wandered
to Barcelona, Naples, Avignon, and Dôle. In 1509, he set up
an alchemical laboratory in Dôle and sought to gain the patronage
of the Princess Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian I and regent of the
Netherlands. He lectured in the University of Dôle on Johann
Reuchlin's Kabbalistic work, De verbo mirifico, with the support
of the University's chancellor, the Archbishop of Besançon Antoine
de Vergy. He wrote his proto-feminist work, De Nobilitate et præcellentia,
to curry favour with Margaret, and sent the first draft of his notorious
De
occulta philosophia to his friend and teacher Johannes Trithemius,
abbot of Spanheim, near Würzburg. Trithemius wrote: "I wonder...
that you, being so young, should penetrate into such secrets as have been
hid from most learned men, and not only clearly and truly, but also properly
and elegantly set them forth". Opposition from the Franciscans, who
accused him of judaising heresy, forced him to flee to England, where he
spent some time with the humanist John Colet before returning to Cologne,
where he held theological disputations.
Agrippa's own account of this period of his life is hard to trust, as he depicts himself as a diplomatic agent for Maximilian and then as a prominent participant in the Council of Pisa, called by French cardinals in opposition to the papacy. However, in the years 1511-18, he was living in northern Italy and probably earning a living as an alchemist. He attempted to secure a position at the University of Pavia, lecturing on Plato and hermeticism, and at Turin, where he lectured on Pauline theology. At this period, he was supported by a Kabbalist aristocrat, the Marchese del Monferrat, to whom he dedicated his De triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum, and attempted to secure the patronage of the Duke of Savoy. He claimed to have taken doctoral degrees in medicine and laws, but various towns later refused to accept these claims.
In 1518-20, he was a public advocate in Metz, where he undertook several high profile cases, including the defence of a women accused of witchcraft, which may have led to his departure for Geneva, where he practised medicine. At about this time, he inherited the magical texts from the library of Trithemius. After a short period in Fribourg, he became physician to the queen-mother at the court of King Francis I in Lyons. He also appears to have been court astrologer. He wrote a work on artillery for the king and a book on marriage for his sister, the queen of Navarre. The queen-mother left Lyons when the king was imprisoned in Italy, made vague promises of employment in Paris, and then left without paying Agrippa. This left him destitute and he even began trying to make gold again.
Various
patrons supported him, including Connétable de Bourbon, who died
at the sack of Rome (1527) and an unidentified merchant from Genoa with
contacts in the Netherlands gave him enough support so that he could take
his family to Paris for recuperation, and eventually leave for the Netherlands.
He settled in Antwerp and attempted to get the position of court physician
to Queen Margaret of Austria. He failed, but worked in Antwerp as a physician,
especially during the plague, but was banned from practising medicine without
a permit by the medical faculty, who were presumably angered both by his
methods and his boasting about having stayed to serve the town during the
plague. His pupils at this time included Johann Weyer, critic of
demonology, who is the main source for Agrippa's last years.
In 1530, he moved to Mechlin, where Queen Margaret had her court, and worked as court historian. He also published his De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum, an attack on all the orthodox arts and sciences. The first edition of De occulta philosophia appeared from the press of John Grapheus at Antwerp, but opposition delayed the appearance of the complete work. He was unpaid on Margaret's death and was put in debtor's prison. Cardinal Campeggio, Cardinal Lamarck, and the Archbishop of Cologne, helped him to escape. He fled to Cologne, under attack from Louvain and Paris, then Bonn and finally Lyons. There, he was arrested and seems to have escaped to Grenoble, where he died in obscure circumstances.
After his death, many stories circulated about Agrippa's life as a necromancer and his mysterious death. This one is taken from Nathaniel Crouch, The Kingdom of Darkness (London, 1688):
"Cornelius
Agrippa the great Magician going one day out of Town from Lovain
in Flanders where he dwelt left the Keys of his study with his Wife
strictly charging her to let no body go in till his return, but it happened
that the same day, a friend and companion of his came to the house, and
having long had a desire and curiosity to see some of this Negromancers
books, he with much importunity got the Keys of his Closet and then entring
the room and viewing the Books he perceived among the rest a Manuscript
of Agrippas own writing which seemed a Compendium of the mystery
of the Black Art, in which while he greedily reads, he in a short
time raises an ill favoured Devil, who entring the Study asked him, what
he would have that he conjured him so to appear; The man being unexperienced
and affrighted at this dreadful Apparition knew not what answer to make,
but remained silent, whereupon the Devil instantly choaked him and left
him dead on the ground. Not long after Agrippa returns home and
finds the Devil dancing and rejoicing on the top of the house, at which
being astonished he goes into his Study and finds the dead Body; Whereupon
he commands the Dæmon to enter into it and carry it to the place
where the Students used to meet, which being done and the Spirit then quitting
the body it fell down dead, and the Person was thought to have died of
some sudden disease and was accordingly buried without any observation
of his misfortune, only some marks of strangulation were perceived about
his throat; But not long after the whole matter was discovered, and Agrippa
was forced to fly into Germany for his security."
Agrippa, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex (1529); fairly free English translation, 1670.
Declamation on the nobility and preeminence of the female sex, translated and edited by Albert Rabil, Jr (Chicago, 1996)
Agrippa, Of the vanitie and uncertaintie of artes and sciences, edited by Catherine M. Dunn (Northridge, CA, 1974)
Agrippa von Nettesheim, Three books of occult philosophy, translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson (St. Paul, Minn., 1993)
De occulta philosophia libri tres, edited by V. Perrone Compagni (Leiden, 1992)
Of occult philosophy, book four, edited and translated by Robert Turner (Gillette, NJ, 1985)
Michael H. Keefer, "Agrippa's Dilemma: Hermetic 'Rebirth' and the Ambivalences of De vanitate and De occulta philosophia", Renaissance Quarterly 41 (1988) 614-653
Charles G. Nauert, Jr., "Agrippa in Renaissance Italy: The Esoteric Tradition", Studies in the Renaissance, 6 (1959) 195-222
Marc van der Poel, Cornelius Agrippa, the humanist theologian, and his declamations (Leiden, 1997)
Humanismus in Köln: Humanism in Cologne,ed. James V. Mehl (Köln, 1991) [good for general background, article in English by Charles Zika on Agrippa's appeal to the city council]
Nancy G. Siraisi, "Medicine, physiology, and anatomy in early 16th-century critiques of the arts and sciences", in New perspectives on Renaissance thought: Essays ... in memory of Charles B. Schmitt, ed. John Henry and Sarah Hutton (London, 1990) 214-229 [discusses Pico, Agrippa and Vives]
A.G. Molland, "Cornelius Agrippa's mathematical magic", in Mathematics from manuscript to print, 1300-1600, ed. Cynthia Hay (Oxford, 1988) 209-219
John S. Mebane, "Skepticism and radical reform in Cornelius Agrippa's On the uncertainty and vanity of the arts and sciences", Renaissance Papers [The Southeastern Renaissance Conference] 1987: 1-10
William Newman, "Thomas Vaughan as an interpreter of Agrippa von Nettesheim", Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 29 (1982) 125-140
Arlene Miller Guinsburg, "The counterthrust to 16th-century misogyny: The work of Agrippa and Paracelsus", Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 3 (1981) 3-28
Eugene Korkowski, "Agrippa as ironist", Neophilologus 60 (1976) 594-607
Paola Zambelli, "Magic and radical reformation in Agrippa of Nettesheim", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976) 69-103
Wolf Dieter Müller-Jahncke, "The attitude of Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535) towards alchemy", Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 22 (1975) 134-150
