Of the Seals and Characters of Natural Things
Revised & ExpandedPerrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (1:23): W, 1:17 + many short additions
This chapter, 1:23 (“Of the Seals and Characters of Natural Things”), 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.
This chapter corresponds to W 1:17 in the Würzburg draft, with shorter additions in the 1533 text. The core argument is preserved from W, but Agrippa refined it with supplementary passages, qualifying or extending particular points.
The extent of revision in this chapter illustrates the dynamic character of Agrippa's rewriting process. Rather than simply updating facts, he appears to have substantially reconfigured the argument. Comparison with the partial edition A — which represents an intermediate stage — may reveal whether the additions were introduced gradually or in a single later revision.
Scholarly Perspectives
The language and sign chapters of Book I form the first part of Agrippa's extended meditation on magical signification. Miles (2008) argues that these chapters appear to endorse a 'natural language' model in which signs directly embody power, but that this surface reading is complicated by deeper passages in Book III that deny intrinsic power to all human linguistic signs. Lehrich (2003) reads the sign-chapters as steps in the ascending movement from material signatures to celestial characters to the divine Word.