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1533 Agrippa OCCULT PHILOSOPHY Kabbalah Grimoire FIRST Picture(s) and Description:
[Early Printing - Post-Incunabula - Germany] [Occult - Grimoires] [Kabbalah] [Demonology] [Witchcraft] [Alchemy] [Astrology] [Mysticism - Hermetica and Pythagoreanism] [Philosophy - Neo-Platonism] [Roman Catholic Church - Theology] Sine loco [Cologne (Köln)], sine nomine [Johannes Soter], July 1533. (Adams differs in giving the place of publication as Basel.) FIRST COMPLETE EDITION, and the only FOLIO edition. "Rare" (Caillet) Text in the original Latin (with numerous words in Hebrew). We are offering the VERY RARE first complete edition of Agrippa's compendium of esoteric wisdom: the "Three Books of Occult Philosophy", published clandestinely in Cologne (with no indication of printer's name and place) over vigorous protests of the Inquisition. Agrippa's "handbook of Renaissance occult sciences" (Frances Yates) is highly esteemed for its "systematic exposition of Ficinian spiritual magic and Trithemian demonic magic" (I. P. Couliano), and is considered by some "perhaps the most important textbook about magic that has ever been written" (Donald Tyson). This rare post-incunable edition in Folio is the FIRST TO CONTAIN ALL THREE PARTS, the first part having originally been published in Antwerp in 1531 in quarto, over twenty years after the initial draft of this famous work was first written (circa 1510), probably under the influence of the author's friend and teacher, Johannes Trithemius, abbot of WÜrzburg, and a renowned occultist and cryptographer. According to Ferguson, "there are four or five issues of this date, distinguished by typographical differences" (Bibliotheca Chemica, p.12). Of the several issues of this first complete edition our copy appears to be one of the earliest. Coumont in his "Demonology & Witchcraft: Annotated Bibliography" distinguishes two issues differing in the type-setting of the title and the colophon, of which our copy agrees with the first one: entry A15.3. Ebert (General Bibliographical Dictionary, 283) distinguishes two issues with slight textual differences, of which, again, ours agrees with the readings of the first (more correct one) : on p.19 cuivis in line 36; on p. 198 divinatio on line 9, protulisse on line 33, and formans on line 38. "Agrippa's De occulta philosophia added impetus to Renaissance study of magic and injected his name into early Faust legends. In this book he explained the world in terms of cabalistic analyses of Hebrew letters and Pythagorean numerology and acclaimed magic as the best means to know God and nature." (Enc. Britannica) The Three Books of Occult Philosophy deal with Elemental, Celestial and Intellectual magic. The books outline the four elements, astrology, kabbalah, numbers, angels, God's names, the virtues and relationships with each other as well as methods of utilizing these relationships and laws in medicine, scrying, alchemy, ceremonies, origins of what are from the Hebrew, Greek, and Chaldean context. This immensely important work presents "the first clear and useful survey of the field of Renaissance magic, with its peculiar blend of Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, cabalism, natural philosophy, and Christianity" (Norman), and proved to be a major influence on such later magical thinkers as Giordano Bruno and John Dee, but was ill-understood after the decline of the Occult Renaissance concomitant with the Scientific Revolution. The book (whose early draft circulated in manuscript since about 1510) is often cited as the source of inspiration for Albrecht DÜrer's famous engraving Melancholia I (1514). Agrippa quotes the definitions of inspired melancholy from Pseudo-Aristotle and classifies the inspiration, or demonic power which emanates from it, into three types, or grades. The first type is when the inspired melancholy fills the imagination, producing wonderful instruction in the manual arts. This classification accounts for the number "I" in the title of DÜrer's engraving: it represents the 1st type of melancholy in the classification described by Agrippa, concerned with the inspired imagination of painters, architects, and masters in other arts. Late in 1509 or early in 1510, Agrippa spent several days at WÜrzburg discussing his occult studies with a famous expert on the subject, the abbot Trithemius of Sponheim. Encouraged by their conversation, Agrippa completed a draft of his major work on magic, De Occulta Philosophia, which however remained unpublished for over 20 years. In the troubled and tumultuous life of Agrippa, the years 1526–28 were particularly painful: he found himself stranded and impoverished in France after serving as personal physician to the Queen Mother, Louise of Savoy (mother of Francis I). In 1529 Agrippa went to Antwerp where he "accepted ... the post of archivist and imperial historian at the court of Margareth of austria. Now Agrippa was finally able to dediacate himself to publishing his writings which had so far circulated only in manuscript. ... Agrippa superintended the publication of his De Vanitate Scienttiarum, which came off the press of the press of Johannes Graphaeus in September 1530. At the same time he was busy revising and expanding the De Occulta Philosophia, which and Graphaeus produced an editionof it in 1531 consisting of only Book I (including tables of contents for Books II and III). It was dedicated to the archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied. Other editions of these two books appeared in Antwerp, Paris and Cologne, and once more Agrippa found himself having to deal with the religious authorities. Questioned by Margareth herself, the theologians of Louvain condamned the De Vanitate as scandalous, impious and heretical... [and soon he] lost favour of court, and his job. Agrippa still managed to work on his De Occulta Philosophia, even during these storms, adding extra material culled from latest reading, as well as re-ordering, reviewing and expending the first Book which he had already published. In the wake of his Flemish misadventures, Agrippa was offered protection by Hermann von Wied, the dedicatee of the [1531] partial edition of De Occulta Philosophia. Agrippa accepted and installed himself in the archbishop's houehold in June 1532. The complete, final version of the three books of the De Occulta Philosophia was ready, dedicated in its entirety to Agrippa's new patron, and in November the Cologne printer Johannes Soter had already begun typesetting, when shortly before Christmas the Dominican inquisitor Conrad Köllin of Ulm denounced the book as "doctrina haereticus et lectione nefarius". The city's senate ordered the the printing to be suspended. Agrippa sent the senate a long, impassioned and - as usual - controversial letter insisting on the worth of his work ... He also indicated the ideal precedents for his views... However, Agrippa's defence of his book became a fierce attack against certain aspects of the culture of his day, against the arrogance and stupidity of the censors and even against the excessive compliance of the senate, which he accused of allowing itself to be swayed by the religious powers. In the end it took a forceful intervention by archbishop Hermann to resolve the impasse, and De Occulta Philosophia appeared in its entirety in July 1533, though without any indication of the printer' name and place of publication, and accompanied by an appendix including some chapters of De Vanitate which attacked magic." (V. Perrone Compagni, Introduction to 1992 Brill, Leiden ed. of De Occulta Philosophia, pp.8-10) "No one knew the risks and rewards of magic better than Agrippa. His notorious handbook, De occulta philosophia, had been circulated in manuscript by 1510, though it was printed only in 1533, over the complaints of Dominican inquisitors. Meanwhile, he had written another famous book, De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum where he recanted magic for religious reasons that had become urgent in the early years of the Reformation. Agrippa's change of heart – not really a change of mind – did nothing to diminish the enormous influence of the Occult Philosophy. Agrippa's occult philosophy was of great importance for natural philosophy because of its account of natural magic... The plan of Agrippa's book reflects the triple hierarchy of his cosmos, where causality runs from above to below, from Ideas in God's mind down through spiritual intelligences and heavenly bodies to animals, plants and stones beneath the moon. Humans can ascend the magical channels that carry divine energies down to earth. Magicians can attract powers from on high by manipulating qualities, quantities and minds: qualities of objects made of earthly matter in the lowest elementary world; quantities (figures and shapes as well as numbers) in these same lowly things and in the more sublime objects made of celestial matter in the middle world of heavenly spheres; and immaterial angelic minds, stationed in the highest intellectual world and free of bodily quality or quantity. These three realms correspond to the three parts of Agrippa's occult philosophy: natural, mathematical and ritual. Currents of power fuse the three realms in Agrippa's ambitious theory of magic. Just as forms flowing from God's mind reach down to the lowest material objects, so elements and qualities of matter extend upward, ever more refined, suffusing the whole hierarchy. Binding the whole together is the tenuous substance called spirit (spiritus, pneuma), not quite matter and not quite mind, the vehicle for exchanges of power between bodiless and embodied things. While in one sense the whole is embodied, through sympathies and similitudes, in another sense and through the same forces it is ensouled. A world-soul mirrors not only human souls but also those of angels and demons, unencumbered by bodies and therefore very powerful. To energize links among minds, souls, spirits and bodies, the magus starts with the natural magic of objects here on earth and moves up through mathematical, spiritual and psychological magic, working on the self and on others and entering the middle world of figures and celestial influences, where the power of human imagination resonates with great effect." (Brian Copenhaver, 'Magic', in The Cambridge History of Science: Early Modern Science, pp.519-520) Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (born 14 September, 1486, at Cologne; died at Grenoble or Lyons in 1534 or 1535) was one of the remarkable men of the Renaissance period. Described as a "knight, doctor, and by common reputation, a magician", Agrippa earned and repaid the bitter enmity of his more conservative contemporaries. We find him a student at Cologne and Paris (1506), in Spain (1507-08), a teacher of Hebrew at Dole (1509), a teacher in England (1510), about which time he finished his work "De occulta philosophia". He spent some time in Italy in the military service of the Emperor Maximilian, who rewarded his bravery by making him a Ritter or knight. He soon turned however, to other pursuits, studied medicine, Hebrew, alchemy, theology, and finally devoted himself to "Cabalism" under the influence of Reuchlin and Raymund Lully. He lived and taught in various places, making friends or enemies wherever he went, but was apparently not very successful financially, as he was banished from Cologne for debt, and spent his last days in poverty, a typical example of the irregular, vicissitudinous life led by his kind at that time. His numerous works, chiefly philosophical, have a strong bias toward "occultism", and run counter to the received opinions of his time in theology and scholastic philosophy. He lived and died nominally a Catholic, but was openly in sympathy with Luther, whose tone towards the Church and her institutions he adopted, while professing that he was merely attacking abuses, not the Church, an attitude frequently assumed at that period. (Catholic Encyclopedia) His death in Grenoble gave rise to the notorious and widely repeated anecdote that on his deathbed he cursed his demonic black dog, after which his canine companion leaped into a river. This extremely rare 1533 edition of Agrippa's occult masterpiece is profusely illustrated with woodcuts including numerous magic seals and talismans. Several of the woodcuts illustrated this volume are by the noted German Renaissance painter and engraver Anton Woensam von Worms (before 1500-1541). Curiously, the printing privilege of the Emperor Charles V, to whom Agrippa was archivist and historiographer, is here printed in French on verso of the title, a double anomaly (as Caillet notes) for a Latin work printed in Germany. Bibliographic references: Adams A-386; Caillet 93; Coumont A15.3; Ferguson, Bibl. Chemica I, p.12; Ebert 283; Scholem, Bibl. Kabbalistica p.3; Wellcome I, 91; Ackermann I, 309; Rosenthal 18; Merlo 994, 120 f-i; DSB I, 80. Physical description: Folio (leaves measure 265 x 182 mm). Bound in early 20th century full vellum with an inked manuscript title and a drawn portrait of Agrippa on spine. Pagination: [12], 362 pp. (paginated in roman numerals). Last page numbered correctly, indicating an early issue. Signature collation: aa6 a-q6 r8 s-z6 A-G6 [-F6, -G6 (blank)] Missing the final blank G6 and leaf F6 which is supplied in very neat 17th century manuscript on old paper (this leaf belongs to the Appendix, and is not a part of the De Occulta Philosophia). Otherwise COMPLETE. Printed chiefly in roman type, numerous words in Hebrew type. Title-page with woodcut portrait of the author. Letterpress astrological and kabbalistic tables and numerous woodcut figures, including several large cuts showing the proportions, occult correspondences and properties of the human body. Eight of the woodcuts are by Anton Woensam von Worms. Numerous 8- to 4-line woodcut historiated initials. At the end of the volume are included additional material: some of Agrippa's epistles, and excerpts from his De vanitate denouncing magic. Colophon on leaf G5v. Preliminaries include the privilege of the Emperor Charles V in French on verso of title; preface Ad Lectorem; two prefatory epistles to abbot Trithemius (one dated April 8, 1510); the Dedication to the archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied, dated January 1533, and the Table of contents. Condition: Good antiquarian condition. One leaf of the appendix supplied in 17th century manuscript. Title with outer corners repaired and with two tiny holes (with no loss to text or woodcut). A faded ink possession note dated 1647 to bottom margin of title. Several other small marginal notes, pen or pencil marks and occasional underlinings. Two final leaves with inner margin strengthened. Occasional light spotting, end-papers browned. Vellum binding slightly soiled and a bit bowed (as usual). Margins a bit cropped with the rather wide table on leaf z1 slightly shaved at fore-edge, but without textual loss. Generally clean, solid and very presentable example of this important and rare first edition. Please click on thumbnails below to see larger images. The winner must contact us within three days, and payment is due within seven days after the end of the auction. Please be responsible and bid only if you have a serious intention to purchase the item. This rare book will be shipped by FedEx FREE of charge to any US location. International express shipping offered at discount cost.
