Agrippa of Nettesheim received the nickname "the king of sorcerers" from his contemporaries. Theologian and lawyer, doctor and philosopher, mystic and scientist, he can rightfully be considered the ancestor of European occult philosophy. Cornelius Agrippa wanted to combine the scientific knowledge of his time with the Christian faith. In addition, he is one of the prototypes of Goethe's Faust.
Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (Heinrich or Henricus Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim) was born on September 14, 1486 in the town of Nettesheim near Cologne. He came from a local old, once rich, but impoverished noble family. Nothing is known about his childhood and early youth. There is information that he had a sister.
In one of the matrices (a list of persons enrolled in a higher educational institution) of the University of Cologne, opposite the date of July 22, 1499, it is written about the admission of Henricus de Nettesheym, the son of the father of the same name, to the Faculty of Arts. A record is preserved that on March 14, 1502, Agrippa was admitted to examinations for the title of licentiate.
Agrippa was a real polyglot. In one of his letters he admitted that he speaks eight languages, six of them he knows so well that he can speak, write and read them perfectly. Agrippa read all the fundamental books on magic and practiced gold making. Some of the sovereign princes allegedly resorted to his services as an alchemist, but, given the constant poverty of Agrippa himself, he could hardly help them financially.
At about 20 years old, he went to Paris to found a society for the study of the secret sciences. Then he lectures while traveling throughout Europe. In 1510, Agrippa found himself in Würzburg, when the famous Johann Trithemius was abbot there. During the discussions that took place among the mystics, Agrippa had the idea to write an essay on magic. This essay in three volumes, written in 1510, but published only in 1533, made a huge impression.
However, the outstanding English researcher of the Renaissance culture Francis Amelia Yates believed that “Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim is by no means the most significant of the Renaissance magicians, and his treatise“On Secret Philosophy”(De occulta philosophia) is not at all a textbook of magic, as he is sometimes called. The treatise does not provide a detailed description of the technical procedures and is not, contrary to its title, a thorough philosophical work.
Cardano - a really serious magician - treated him with contempt as a trivial work. Nevertheless, "On Secret Philosophy" is the first usable and, as far as the esotericity of the subject itself allows, a clear universal collection of Renaissance magic."
In this treatise, Agrippa claims that the universe consists of three worlds: the world of the elements (physics), the heavenly world (mathematics), and the intelligible world (theology). Each of these worlds receives currents from the world above it. Magic alone absorbs all three directions.
Promotional video:
In the middle of 1512, the master of arts Agrippa Cornelius von Nettesheim unexpectedly enters the imperial military service as an officer in the army of Emperor Maximilian I, takes part in the war with the Venetians, and for his bravery on the battlefield he is knighted - eques auratus.
The next year, as a theologian, he takes part in the diplomatic mission of Cardinal Santa Croce, which is sent to the cathedral in Pisa, where Giovanni Medici will become Pope Leo X. After his election, Pope Leo X will remove Agrippa from excommunication and return him to the fold of the church.
In 1515 in Pavia, Agrippa married, but the name and origin of his wife remained unknown. In Metz, his student was quite possibly Johann Weyer, later a famous physician who did much to shake the belief in the possibility of witchcraft.
In 1521, Agrippa set out on a journey to visit his old friends. During his absence, his wife died suddenly. Agrippa, with his four-year-old son, went to Geneva and worked there as a doctor. At the end of 1521, Agrippa married 18-year-old Jana Luisa Tissie, from a noble family of Geneva aristocrats, who gave birth to Agrippa six more children.
In 1524, he served in Lyon as the life doctor of Louise de Savoie, mother of King Francis I. Constantly in need of money, Agrippa unsuccessfully tried to get a job as a life doctor under Margarete von Österreich. At the beginning of 1529, Agrippa became a father for the seventh time. Plague raged in Antwerp that year, and his wife died on 17 August. Agrippa remained in the city to heal the sick.
At the end of the year, he received an invitation from the English monarch Henry VIII to take the position of lawyer at his court. However, Agrippa chose to stay on the continent and for some time took up the post of historiographer under Margaret of Austria, the governor of the Netherlands. Agrippa marries for the third time, and again the name and origin of his wife remain unknown.
Agrippa of Nettesheim, 48, died on February 18, 1535 in Grenoble. Buried in the Dominican Church. Many legends remained after his death.
A lot of all sorts of fables were told about the sorcerer Agrippa. In Louvain, a certain student, initiated by Cornelius into magicians, in his absence began to call the devil incorrectly, for which the unclean one took his life. When Agrippa returned home, he saw demons dancing on the roof. Then he ordered one of them to enter the student's lifeless body and go to the market. Here he released his spirit, and the student fell, lifeless, as if struck by lightning.
Another case is known from an episode from the tragedy "Faust" by Goethe, where Mephistopheles is presented in the guise of a black dog. The fact is that the people considered the black dog, who accompanied his master the warlock Agrippa, to be the devil himself.
Before his death, Agrippa took off the dog's collar with a magical inscription and ordered: "Go away, you damned creature, you are guilty of all my misfortunes!" The dog rushed into the river and disappeared. This episode will be included in Valery Bryusov's novel The Fiery Angel.