Of the Virtue of Names Derived from Numbers and Figures
Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (1:24): W,
This chapter, Qua; res subsint Lunae (“Of the Virtue of Names Derived from Numbers and Figures”), 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 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.