Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henry Cornelius | D. P. Walker (essay date 1958)
D. P. Walker (essay date 1958)
SOURCE: "Ficino's Magic in the 16th Century," in Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella, The Warburg Institute, 1958, pp. 85-144.
[Below, Walker focuses on the ways in which Agrippa's writings called attention to demonic elements in the philosophy of Marsilio Ficino.]
Any discussion of Agrippa's views on magic is made somewhat uncertain and complicated by the following facts. He did not publish his De Occulta Philosophia, which had been completed by 1510, until 1533, several years after the publication of his De Vanitate Scientiarum (1530), which contains a retraction of the former work and several discussions of various kinds of magic. Agrippa reprinted these at the end of the De Occ. Phil.; in his preface he refers the reader to them and uses Ficino's feeble words to excuse himself for printing a book he had publicly renounced: "I am merely recounting these things, not...
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