Abstract
Abstract: This article reads Agrippa von Nettesheim’s De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres (1531/1533) as a comprehensive model of the universe that integrates magic as part of the original Creation. It focuses on the text’s structure to make sense of a book that has sometimes been dismissed as an encyclopedia or read primarily through the lens of Agrippa’s other works. It concludes that each of the three sections of this text provides evidence to support Agrippa’s model of the universe and that an early modern reader would have had the ability and reading style to put those pieces together. It further proposes Agrippa’s universe is built upon a foundation of natural philosophy, astrology and mathematics, and religious practice and belief intertwined into magical work that allows virtues to be drawn down from the heavens to change the earth and to be directed upwards from the earth to affect the heavens. Thus DOP is both a traditionally neoPlatonic book and proposes a fundamentally more powerful role for Renaissance magic.
Recommended Citation
Kavey, Allison
(2020)
"Reading Agrippa von Nettesheim’s De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres: Textual Structure and Central Arguments,"
Accessus: Vol. 6:
Iss.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/accessus/vol6/iss2/4
Included in
European History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Intellectual History Commons