Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Timeline

1. 1486–1506Cologne · EuropeBorn on 14 September 1486 at Nettesheim near Cologne into a knightly family. At the University of Cologne he studied philosophy, languages and theology widely, becoming especially fascinated by Kabbalah and Neoplatonism. There he met fellow students and formed a secret circle for the study of the occult, beginning a systematic reading of Hermetic texts and various works on natural magic. This period laid the intellectual foundation for his later work across both occult philosophy and humanism.
2. c. 1506–1519Pavia · EuropeFrom about 1507 he went repeatedly to Paris, on secret intelligence work or travel. In 1509 he publicly lectured at Dole in Burgundy on Johannes Reuchlin's Kabbalistic works and, accused of spreading Jewish heresy, was attacked by local theologians and forced to leave. Around 1510 he completed a first draft of De Occulta Philosophia and sent it to the abbot of the monastery of Sponheim for comment. He then went to Italy, lectured at the University of Pavia (1515), and travelled to Turin, Metz and elsewhere as a surgeon and diplomat, accumulating rich experience in both scholarship and practical affairs.
3. 1519–1530Mechelen · EuropeIn 1519 he left Italy for Metz to serve as city advocate, again provoking controversy by defending an old woman accused of witchcraft. After 1521 he moved through Geneva, Fribourg and Lyon in difficult circumstances. He practised medicine at Lyon in 1524–1528, and in 1529 was summoned by Margaret, regent of the Netherlands, to serve as court historian. In 1530 he published at Cologne the highly critical De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum, which in a mocking and satirical style denied the certainty of all human knowledge, causing a sensation in European scholarship but also drawing condemnation from many quarters.
4. 1530–1535Grenoble · EuropeIn 1531 he published at Cologne the De Occulta Philosophia libri tres, revised over more than twenty years; this great work systematically integrated the three levels of natural magic, celestial magic and ceremonial magic, fusing Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Christian Kabbalah into the most influential occult philosophy of the Renaissance. With the death of the empress dowager Margaret, however, Agrippa lost his court patronage and fell into financial hardship, at one point even being imprisoned for debt in Brussels. After his release he went south to France and died around February 1535 at Grenoble (some say Lyon) in poverty and illness, aged about forty-eight.