 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was born on 14 September 1486 in Cologne. He matriculated at the University of Cologne in 1499 and graduated in 1502. The degree in medicine which he claimed to have earned was ruled out by Prost (1882: 67–74), who also raised serious doubts about his doctorates in Canon and Civil Law (in utroque iure). Nauert (1965: 10–11), however, suggested that they might have been obtained during the two periods of his life about which we have very little information: 1502–1507 and 1511–1518. Agrippa came into contact with the school of Albertus Magnus at Cologne, where it was still a living tradition and where he pursed his interest in natural philosophy, encountering the Historia naturalis (Natural History) of Pliny the Elder for the first time. Andreas Canter, the city poet of Cologne, probably introduced him to Lullism—later, Agrippa wrote a long commentary, printed at Cologne in 1531, on Lull’s Ars magna (Great Art). During his youthful studies, Agrippa also established personal relationships with those German humanists who shared his interest in ancient wisdom. He spent a short period in Paris, where he might have been a student. With some French friends, he formed a sodalitium, a sort of secret circle or initiatory brotherhood, which, according the collection of letters from and to Agrippa, included Charles de Bovelles (c. 1479–1533), Symphorien Champier (c. 1471–1539), Germain de Brie (c. 1489–1538), Germain de Ganay (d. 1520), the portraitist at the French court Jean Perréal (c. 1455–1530), and an unknown Italian friend, Landulfus. Between 1508 and 1509, Agrippa undertook a mysterious journey to Spain, seemingly engaged in a military mission. In 1509 he was charged with a course of lectures on Johannes Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico (On the Wonder-Working Word) at the University of Dôle in Burgundy. This academic appointment had been supported by the chancellor of the university, Archbishop Antoine de Vergy. In the inaugural lecture, Agrippa pronounced a prolusion in honor of the daughter of Emperor Maximilian, Margaret of Austria, Princess of Austria and Burgundy. He planned to develop the speech into a more comprehensive treatise in praise of womankind, dedicating it to Margaret. Therefore, he began to draft, but perhaps did not finish, his celebrated De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus declamatio (Declamation on the Nobility and Pre-Eminence of the Female Sex), which was published only in 1529. Agrippa’s teaching on Christian kabbalah attracted considerable interest among the members of the university and of the local Parlement, and he joined the collegium of theologians. Unfortunately, not everyone had a benevolent attitude to what sounded like an attempt to spread the “most criminal, condemned and prohibited art of kabbalah” (Expostulatio, p. 494) in Christian schools. The Franciscan Jean Catilinet, the provincial superior for Burgundy, preaching in the presence of Margaret at the court of Low Countries in Ghent, denounced Agrippa as a “judaizing heretic” (ibidem). This charge put an end to Agrippa’s teaching career in Dôle and dashed his hopes of obtaining Margaret’s favor. Returning to Germany, in the winter of 1509–1510 Agrippa went to the monastery of St. Jacob at Würzburg to meet Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim. Over the course of a few intense days, the famous abbot and his young visitor discussed a topic of mutual interest: natural magic and its role in contemporary culture. The meeting had a crucial impact on Agrippa. He quickly finished a compendium on magic, which he had been working on for some time. The first draft of De occulta philosophia was dedicated to Trithemius, who received the manuscript shortly before 8 April 1510 and generously praised Agrippa’s commitment. The book circulated in manuscript, as evidence from Agrippa’s correspondence shows; but he continued to assemble materials in order to revise this first draft. This aim was achieved only twenty years later.