AGRIPPA, CORNELIUS, born at Cologne in 1486, a man of considerable learning, and by common report a great magician; for the monks at that time suspected every thing of heresy or sorcery which they did not understand. He composed his treatise of the Excellence of Women to insinuate himself into the favour of Margaret of Austria, governess of the Low Countries. He accepted of the charge of historiographer to the emperor, which that princess gave him. The treatise of the Vanity of the Sciences, which he published in 1530, enraged his enemies extremely; as did that of Occult Philosophy, which he printed soon after at Antwerp. He was imprisoned in France for having written something against the mother of Francis I. On being liberated, he went to Grenoble, where he died in 1535.