Of the Virtues of Plants and Their Celestial Agreement
Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (1:20): W,
This chapter, quibusdam vero in certis suis particulis aut membris (“Of the Virtues of Plants and Their Celestial Agreement”), occupies a significant place in Agrippa's systematic exposition of occult philosophy. In the 1533 Cologne printed edition (De occulta philosophia libri tres, sigla K in Perrone Compagni's critical apparatus), the text represents Agrippa's mature formulation of the ideas it addresses, the product of over two decades of reading, travel, and revision since the composition of the Würzburg draft.
Perrone Compagni's table of comparison indicates: “W,.” This relationship between the 1510 Würzburg draft and the 1533 printed edition reflects the complex evolution of Agrippa's thought across two decades.
The stability of this chapter across the manuscript and printed versions suggests it belongs to the secure core of Agrippa's natural-magical argument as it was constituted by 1510. Such chapters allow scholars to reconstruct the intellectual foundation on which the more elaborate structures of the 1533 edition were built.
Scholarly Perspectives
The stellar and planetary image chapters represent the practical heart of natural magic. Lehrich (2003) analyses the tradition of astrological talismans as drawing on the Arabic Picatrix and Ficino's De vita coelitus comparanda, both of which Agrippa incorporates into his tripartite cosmological framework. The images are not illustrations but operative instruments: by reproducing celestial forms in material media at astrologically propitious moments, the magician draws down specific planetary virtues.