WorkHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim

De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium [On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Arts and Sciences]

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535)

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No datable encounters with Agrippa von Nettesheim, Heinrich Cornelius have been catalogued yet.

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n.d.—

Plan for a Life of Goethe

p20

mentionedManuscript page

“One of his favorite books was "Agrippa de vanitate Scientiarum" which he recommended to me and thus set my young brain in confusion for some time.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Plan for a Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

The passage is a transcription from Dichtung und Wahrheit, recounting what Goethe's older acquaintance Huisgen recommended to him: 'Agrippa de vanitate Scientiarum.' The title is rendered in the abbreviated Latin form Fuller transcribes from Goethe's text. The full title is De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium atque excellentia verbi Dei declamatio invectiva, by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (Cologne [Antwerp], 1530) — a skeptical survey of human knowledge. This is quoted by Goethe in Dichtung und Wahrheit as a book that troubled him in youth.