*Ø* Blogmanac September 14, c. 1486 | Cornelius Agrippa, alchemist
Recent historical investigation ... assigns him a central place in the history of ideas of the Middle Ages; he is seen as characterizing the main line of intellectual development from Nicholas of Cusa to Sebastian Franck. Modern opinion evaluates him on the basis of his Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic influences – primarily in the De occulta philosophia ...
On Cornelius Agrippa; Dictionary of Scientific Biography
1486 or 1487 Cornelius Agrippa (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim) (born in Köln (Cologne), Germany; died 1535), late-medieval/Renaissance alchemist; secret agent; soldier; feminist; physician to Louisa de Savoy, mother of King Francis I; orator; law professor, secretary to the Emperor Maximilian, and author (De Nobilitate et præcellentia; De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum; Three Books of Occult Philosophy).
Agrippa lived and died nominally a Catholic, but was openly sympathetic to Martin Luther, and perhaps it was for this reason that England’s Protestant King Henry VIII invited him to live in England, an offer the alchemist declined. Paulus Jovius, in his Eulogia Doctorum Virorum, says, that the devil, in the shape of a large black dog, attended Agrippa wherever he went. For the Emperor Charles V, the magician successfully summoned up the spirits of both King David and King Solomon. However, despite his talents, and although he was supposed to be able to turn dross into gold, he was always poor, and it was said that when he paid his bills, the money immediately turned into worthless material.
One day, while Agrippa was away from home in Louvain, Belgium, a handsome young lodger inveigled the alchemist’s wife to lend him the key to Agrippa’s study. There, the youth found Agrippa’s grimoire, or book of spells, and played with it, summoning forth a demon who strangled him to death. On finding the body, Agrippa raised him from the dead and sent the demon to carry the lad to the marketplace and process him around. With his arm through that of his demonic murderer, the boy walked very lovingly with him, in sight of all the town. At sunset, the lodger fell down again, cold and lifeless as before, and was carried by the crowd to the hospital. Meanwhile, the demon disappeared. Or, so it is said. The alchemist was nearly charged with murder and had to flee town. In 1520 another close scrape occurred: Agrippa’s defence of a woman accused of witchcraft led to his being hounded by the Inquisition out of Cologne.
Percy Bysshe Shelley listed Agrippa and Paracelsus among his favourite writers in a discussion with the early anarchist William Godwin in 1812.
Much more on Agrippa including many images from his books
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
Recent historical investigation ... assigns him a central place in the history of ideas of the Middle Ages; he is seen as characterizing the main line of intellectual development from Nicholas of Cusa to Sebastian Franck. Modern opinion evaluates him on the basis of his Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic influences – primarily in the De occulta philosophia ...
On Cornelius Agrippa; Dictionary of Scientific Biography
1486 or 1487 Cornelius Agrippa (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim) (born in Köln (Cologne), Germany; died 1535), late-medieval/Renaissance alchemist; secret agent; soldier; feminist; physician to Louisa de Savoy, mother of King Francis I; orator; law professor, secretary to the Emperor Maximilian, and author (De Nobilitate et præcellentia; De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum; Three Books of Occult Philosophy).
Agrippa lived and died nominally a Catholic, but was openly sympathetic to Martin Luther, and perhaps it was for this reason that England’s Protestant King Henry VIII invited him to live in England, an offer the alchemist declined. Paulus Jovius, in his Eulogia Doctorum Virorum, says, that the devil, in the shape of a large black dog, attended Agrippa wherever he went. For the Emperor Charles V, the magician successfully summoned up the spirits of both King David and King Solomon. However, despite his talents, and although he was supposed to be able to turn dross into gold, he was always poor, and it was said that when he paid his bills, the money immediately turned into worthless material.
One day, while Agrippa was away from home in Louvain, Belgium, a handsome young lodger inveigled the alchemist’s wife to lend him the key to Agrippa’s study. There, the youth found Agrippa’s grimoire, or book of spells, and played with it, summoning forth a demon who strangled him to death. On finding the body, Agrippa raised him from the dead and sent the demon to carry the lad to the marketplace and process him around. With his arm through that of his demonic murderer, the boy walked very lovingly with him, in sight of all the town. At sunset, the lodger fell down again, cold and lifeless as before, and was carried by the crowd to the hospital. Meanwhile, the demon disappeared. Or, so it is said. The alchemist was nearly charged with murder and had to flee town. In 1520 another close scrape occurred: Agrippa’s defence of a woman accused of witchcraft led to his being hounded by the Inquisition out of Cologne.
Percy Bysshe Shelley listed Agrippa and Paracelsus among his favourite writers in a discussion with the early anarchist William Godwin in 1812.
Much more on Agrippa including many images from his books
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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