The scales of numbers: Agrippa's tables of correspondences

Among the most recognisable pages of the De occulta philosophia are a number of multi-row tables that interrupt the text of the second book. Agrippa calls them scales, such as the scale of unity, of the binary, of the ternary and so on up to twelve. In each one the number is followed through the different levels of the cosmos, from the divine world down to the infernal one, showing how the same structure repeats at every level. They are the most compact visual summary of his vision of the world.

How a scale is made

Each scale is divided into rows corresponding to the worlds. At the top stands the archetypal or exemplary world, that is, God and his names; then the intellectual world of intelligences and angels; then the celestial world of stars and planets; then the elemental world of earthly things; then the little world, that is, man; finally the infernal world of demons. In each row Agrippa places what, at that level, embodies the number in question.

The scale of unity is exemplary. In the archetypal world one corresponds to the divine essence, indicated by the Hebrew letter yod; in the intellectual world to the soul of the world; in heaven to the Sun, sole king of the stars; among elemental things to the philosophers' stone, which the alchemists sought as the single principle of perfection; in man to the heart; in hell to Lucifer, prince of rebellion. Thus the number becomes a thread running through the whole universe. For three, in the archetypal world, the correspondence is naturally with the Trinity; for ten, with the ten sefirot and the ten divine names of the Kabbalah.

The richest scales

As the numbers grow, the tables become more complex. The scale of four lines up the Tetragrammaton, the elements, the seasons, the humours of the body and the four primary qualities. The scale of seven, one of the densest, links the seven planets to the days of the week, the metals, the angels that tradition set over the heavens, and the seven members or openings of the human head.

The scale of twelve closes the series with a picture of exceptional breadth: the twelve signs of the zodiac, the months, the tribes of Israel, the apostles, twelve precious stones recalling the high priest's breastplate described in Exodus and the foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation. In a few rows Agrippa sums up an enormous mass of biblical, astrological and natural traditions, making them comparable at a glance.

A long line of descent

Agrippa's scales enjoyed lasting success. In 1801 the Englishman Francis Barrett published The Magus, a work that largely reproduced, often without acknowledgement, entire sections of the De occulta philosophia, tables included. In the late nineteenth century tables of correspondences became a central tool of British and French occultism, and the Agrippan model is clearly recognisable in them, even where the contents were expanded and altered.

For the historian of ideas these tables are interesting for another reason. They show a way of knowing based on analogy, in which to understand a thing means finding its place in a web of correspondences. It is the same principle that underlies the symbolic encyclopaedias of the Renaissance and the great theatres of memory, such as the one designed by Giulio Camillo in the very years when Agrippa was preparing his work for the press.