Of the Magical Virtue of Letters and Characters
Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (2:37): new, except for a passage from W, 2: 5
This chapter, sunt imaginibus (“Of the Magical Virtue of Letters and Characters”), 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.
According to Perrone Compagni's table of comparison, this chapter is new in the 1533 edition and has no direct counterpart in the Würzburg manuscript (W = MS M.ch.q.50). The description notes: \u201cexcept for a passage from W, 2: 5.\u201d Its addition reflects the conceptual enrichment Agrippa undertook between approximately 1510 and the early 1530s, incorporating sources and arguments unavailable or unexplored in the juvenile draft.
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 chapter on magical virtue in letters and characters links Book II's mathematical programme to the language-theory that Miles (2008) identifies as central to DOP's philosophical argument. Miles shows that the elaborate character-systems of Book II appear to endorse a 'natural language' model in which signs directly embody power — yet the deeper theoretical statement of III:11 qualifies this, insisting that power resides not in the sign itself but in the faith and virtue of the operator.