Agrippa von Nettesheim, Heinrich Cornelius (1486-1535)

German theologian, doctor, soldier, and cabbalist. During his varied career he worked for several European rulers, notably for Emperor Maximilian I 1511-18 as both soldier and diplomat. His writings are as varied as his career, but the majority reflect his lifelong interest in the occult which culminated in his De occulta philosophia/The Occult Philosophy (1533).

Born near Cologne, he studied in Cologne, Paris, and then Pavia in Italy, where he took a keen interest in the Cabbala. About 1510 he wrote the first draft of De occulta philosophia. In 1510 he went briefly to London to study with the English scholar John Colet, and in 1515 he was back in Pavia teaching occult science. He then moved to Metz in France but opposition forced him to leave and he settled briefly in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1522 he became a doctor and was appointed physician to Louise of Savoy, queen mother of France, though his duties consisted mainly of casting horoscopes. In 1528 he was made historian to Emperor Charles V but hostility to his occult studies led to his disgrace. In 1530 he published De vanitate et incertitudine scientiarum et artium/The Vanity and Uncertainty of the Sciences and the Arts, a sceptical survey of the state of knowledge in which human learning is unfavourably compared with divine revelation. He spent his last years in poverty in Grenoble, France.