Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (September 15, 1486 – February 18, 1535) was a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist. Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486. In 1512, he taught at the University of Dole in the Free County of Burgundy, lecturing on Johann Reuchlin's De verbo mirifico; as a result, Agrippa was denounced, behind his back, as a "Judaizing heretic." Agrippa's vitriolic response many months later did not endear him to the University. In 1510, he studied briefly with Johannes Trithemius, and Agrippa sent him an early draft of his masterpiece, De occulta philosophia libri tres, a kind of summa of early modern occult thought. Trithemius was guardedly approving, but suggested that Agrippa...