Henry Cornelius AGRIPPA von Nettesheim 1486–1535



One of the most prominent of the sixteenth-century European occultists, Agrippa was an erudite and versatile scholar knowledgeable in the fields of science, medicine, magic, philosophy, and theology. 
Agrippa was born in Cologne into a family whose members worked for the royal house of Habsburg. After completing his education at the University of Cologne, Agrippa served in the army of Maximilian I of Germany, following him on a military campaign in Catalonia in 1509. That same year Agrippa lectured at the University of Dôle on John Reuchlin's cabalistic treatise De Verbo mirifico; when these lectures came to the attention of the monk John Catilinet, he accused Agrippa of heresy, forcing him to flee in order to avoid imprisonment. Agrippa accompanied Maximilian I on a diplomatic mission to England in 1510 and to Italy in 1511, remaining in Italy for seven years, supported by various noble patrons and lecturing at the University of Pavia on theology and medicine. In 1518 Agrippa was offered a post in Germany as a public defender, but he soon returned to Cologne after being publicly denounced by some monks for defending a woman accused of witchcraft. Having practiced medicine in Geneva and Freiburg, he was appointed physician to Louise of Savoy in 1524 and moved to Lyons. He left her service in 1528, apparently after a quarrel concerning a task she asked him to perform, to work as archivist and historiographer for Margaret, Duchess of Savoy. Suffering from financial difficulties for most of his life, Agrippa was imprisoned for debt in Brussels. After his release, he traveled to Cologne, Bonn, and France in search of work; he was arrested again while in France, allegedly for criticizing Louise

of Savoy, but was soon released. He died in Grenoble in 1535.

Major Works
Agrippa's first published work, Of the Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences (1531), was written in 1527; it was followed by Occult Philosophy, published that same year, but written in 1510. He had delayed publication of the latter treatise until after the appearance of the more acceptable Of the Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences because he feared persecution by powerful church representatives who considered his Occult Philosophy a dangerous and heretical work. Occult Philosophy incorporates elements of the cabala and numerology into a wide-ranging compendium of magic, and presents Agrippa's theory that the universe is divided into three spheres—physics, mathematics, and theology. A mixture of Christianity, Neo-Platonism, and occult science, Agrippa's work garnered much praise from his contemporaries and proved highly influential as a landmark in the Renaissance study of magic. Originally Occult Philosophy appeared in only three books. About thirty years after Agrippa's death, a fourth volume was added to the original work. Agrippa also wrote several other treatises, the most notable among them De nobilitate et praeccelentia foeminei sexus (The Nobility of the Feminine Sex), published in 1532 and dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy in gratitude for her patronage. Here, Agrippa asserts the natural superiority of the female sex, marshalling evidence in support of his argument from the Bible and from philosophy. While some critics regard this work as a standard piece of flattery to a patron, others now see it as a clever plea for the equality of women. Agrippa's commentary on the works of Catalonian philosopher Raymund Llull, entitled In artem brevem Raymundi Lullii commentaria, published in 1598, is considered a key contribution to the development of occultism in the sixteenth century.