Cornelius Agrippa, the Humanist Theologian and His Declamations:

Marc van der Poel, Ph.D. (1987) in classics, Research Fellow of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (1992-1997), teaches Latin at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. He has published on Renaissance rhetoric and the transmission of ancient Greek and Latin literature.

This study, based on a fresh reading of the entire correspondence, the surviving orations, declamations and other relevant treatises, contains an innovative interpretation of the philosophical and theological thought of Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1486-1535).The first chapters contain a close study of his controversy with the scholastic theologians, which Agrippa carried on throughout his life, particularly with the theologians of Louvain University. Detailed analyses of Agrippa's declamations are included in the second part of the book.The chapter on the humanist declamation offers a new approach to the interpretation of rhetorical texts in the heyday of learned humanism in Northern Europe; in this context, special attention is paid to Agrippa's indebtedness to Erasmus. Throughout the book, Agrippa emerges as an important intermediary between scholasticism and humanism, and a strong opponent of the professional theologians of his time.