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The legacy

Cornelius Agrippa died in 1535, but his name has never ceased to circulate. This section follows the long journey of occult philosophy after the Renaissance: from the Faust of the popular book of 1587, of Marlowe and of Goethe, to the English translations of 1651, which made Agrippa accessible to those who could not read Latin. We meet the Rosicrucian manifestos, Johann Valentin Andreae and Robert Fludd, the alchemical studies of Isaac Newton, and then the nineteenth-century revival with Francis Barrett, Éliphas Lévi and the Golden Dawn. There is also Mary Shelley, who had the young Victor Frankenstein read Agrippa. Finally come the twentieth-century historians who gave magic back its place in the history of ideas, from Eugenio Garin to Frances Yates, from D. P. Walker to Paola Zambelli, and the traces of Agrippa in art and popular culture, where legend and history must be carefully told apart.

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The 1587 Faust Book: the birth of a literary legend

The Historia von D. Johann Fausten printed by Johann Spies in Frankfurt in 1587: the magician's pact, its sources and its ties to Agrippa's world.

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Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: «as cunning as Agrippa was»

In Christopher Marlowe's tragedy Faustus dreams of equalling Agrippa. Dates, the 1604 and 1616 texts and the Elizabethan image of the magician.

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Goethe's Faust: Renaissance magic as a question about the world

From his youthful alchemical reading to the Faust of 1808 and 1832: how Goethe turned the Renaissance magician into a symbol of modern humanity.

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Agrippa's black dog: the rise and refutation of a legend

Paolo Giovio, Johann Weyer and Jean Bodin: how Cornelius Agrippa's dog became a demonic familiar and why his pupil firmly denied it.

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London 1651: the Three Books of Occult Philosophy translated by «J. F.»

The first English translation of De occulta philosophia, published in 1651, and the pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book of 1655: who made them and why they mattered.

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Francis Barrett and The Magus: Agrippa rediscovered in London in 1801

The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer, published in London in 1801: a manual that borrowed largely from Agrippa and revived English occultism.

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Éliphas Lévi and high magic: the Renaissance reread in Paris

Alphonse-Louis Constant, known as Éliphas Lévi, and his Dogme et rituel de la haute magie: how the tradition of Agrippa and Paracelsus became modern occultism.

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The Golden Dawn and Agrippa's magic squares

Founded in London in 1888, the Golden Dawn drew on the second book of De occulta philosophia for planetary seals and squares: the story of a legacy.

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Victor Frankenstein reads Agrippa: magic in Mary Shelley's novel

In Frankenstein (1818) young Victor discovers Agrippa, Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. Why Mary Shelley chose these authors to set the drama going.

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The Rosicrucian manifestos: Fama, Confessio, Chemical Wedding (1614-1616)

Between 1614 and 1616 three anonymous texts announced a secret brotherhood of sages. History, contents and links with the magical culture of the Renaissance.

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Johann Valentin Andreae: the Tübingen author of the Chemical Wedding

Lutheran pastor, utopian and author of the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz: Andreae between literary game, reform and Christian mysticism.

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Robert Fludd: the English physician who drew the macrocosm

Defender of the Rosicrucians, author of the monumental Utriusque cosmi historia and opponent of Kepler and Mersenne: Robert Fludd, last great heir of Agrippa.

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Isaac Newton and alchemy: the secret manuscripts of the father of physics

Thousands of alchemical pages, the 1936 sale and Keynes's verdict: how Newton studied the Hermetic tradition alongside celestial mechanics.

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Frances Yates and the Hermetic tradition: a new history of the Renaissance

From her Giordano Bruno of 1964 to the Elizabethan occult philosophy of 1979: how Frances Yates put magic back at the centre of the history of ideas.

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After Yates: the debate on Hermetic magic and the scientific revolution

Casaubon and the dating of the Corpus Hermeticum, the critiques of Westman, McGuire and Vickers: how historians scaled back Frances Yates's thesis.

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D. P. Walker and spiritual and demonic magic from Ficino to Campanella

In 1958 the English historian Daniel Pickering Walker distinguished the magic of natural spirits from that of demons. Agrippa's pivotal role in his book.

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Eugenio Garin: magic and astrology in Italian Renaissance culture

The historian Eugenio Garin showed that magic and astrology were a living part of humanist culture. His works, method and influence on studies of Agrippa.

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Paola Zambelli and studies on Agrippa: white magic, black magic

The Florentine historian Paola Zambelli reconstructed Agrippa's network of friends, quarrels and texts. Her works and the critical edition of his magnum opus.

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Agrippa in popular culture: black books, children's tales, false quotes

From grimoires called «Agrippa» in French folklore to Struwwelpeter: how the philosopher's name entered popular culture, and why caution is needed.

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Agrippa in art: from Dürer's Melencolia I to the images of Faust

The magic square of Melencolia I, the human figures of De occulta philosophia, Rembrandt's etching known as Faust: Renaissance magic in images.