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Reading Agrippa Von Nettesheim’S De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres: Textual Structure And Central Arguments, Allison Kavey

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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 …