Trithemius, Johannes

Abstract

Johannes Trithemius was an abbot from the Benedictine monastery of Sponheim, and later the monastery of Würzburg. During his studies in Heidelberg, he was involved in learned humanistic societies, and later he applied the ideal of humanistic eloquence in his works. Trithemius built large libraries and wrote a number of mystical, monastic, historic, and biographic writings. He became famous especially due to his book Steganographia which dealt with cryptography on the basis of natural magic and astrology working with angelic mediations. Though Steganographia remained in manuscript form, it influenced occult sciences in the sixteenth century and cryptography. Trithemius was also accused of necromancy and demonic magic.

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Trithemius, Johannes
Born: 1 February 1462, Trittenheim
Died: 16 December 1516, Würzburg
TomášNejeschleba
Centre for Renaissance Texts, Department of
Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Palacky University,
Olomouc, Czech Republic
Abstract
Johannes Trithemius was an abbot from the
Benedictine monastery of Sponheim, and
later the monastery of Würzburg. During his
studies in Heidelberg, he was involved in
learned humanistic societies, and later he
applied the ideal of humanistic eloquence in
his works. Trithemius built large libraries and
wrote a number of mystical, monastic, historic,
and biographic writings. He became famous
especially due to his book Steganographia
which dealt with cryptography on the basis of
natural magic and astrology working with
angelic mediations. Though Steganographia
remained in manuscript form, it influenced
occult sciences in the sixteenth century and
cryptography. Trithemius was also accused of
necromancy and demonic magic.
Alternate Names
▶Johannes von Heidenheim;▶Trithemius
Biography
Born in a village in the valley of the river Mosel,
Trithemius became one of two celebrated thinkers
of this region –next to Nicholas of Cusa, as it was
emphasized by his contemporary Konrad Celtis
(Arnold 1991). Trithemius studied in Trier, the
Netherlands, and Heidelberg, where he was
influenced by the humanistic movement. Together
with Celtis, Jakob Wimpfeling, and Johannes
Reuchlin, he formed a Rhenish literary society
there. In 1482, Trithemius entered a Benedictine
monastery in Sponheim. In 1483, he was elected
abbot, and in the following years, he reformed
monastic life and built a large and famous mon-
astery library containing manuscripts and printed
books from different areas of contemporary
knowledge. In 1505, after being denounced by
the monks, he had to leave Sponheim, and after
traveling through Germany, visiting the court of
the emperor Maximilian I and other various
courts, he accepted an offer to become abbot in
the Benedictine monastery in Würzburg, where he
spent the rest of his life, building a second library
and reforming monastic life there.
#Springer International Publishing AG 2017
M. Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_570-1

Heritage and Rupture with the Tradition:
Innovative and Original Aspects
Trithemius was the author of numerous mystical
and monastic writings, in which he follows Jean
Gerson and Nicholas of Cusa in advocating the
idea of learned piety in monastic life (Brann
1999). Trithemius also wrote a number of histor-
ical writings, containing fantastic fictional stories,
and cultivated a genre of bibliographical literature
(Grafton 2006). In all his writings, the list of them
is given by Klaus Arnold (Arnold 1991), Tri-
themius develops the humanistic ideal of elo-
quence of text.
Influenced by humanism, Hermetic writings,
Neoplatonism, Pythagorean numerology, Renais-
sance Platonism, medieval scholasticism (Albert
the Great), and Kabbalah, Trithemius created a
conception of mystical magic (Brann 1981,
1999; Zambelli 2007). He worked with alchemi-
cal and astrological precepts leading to mystical
magical illumination, which was kept in secret. In
his unfinished and unpublished book Steganogra-
phy (Trithemius 1605), the ascent to heaven is
realized on the basis of a hierarchical cosmologi-
cal system, with the assistance of spiritual sub-
stances. Provided that occult harmony binds all
parts of reality, these substances are steganogra-
phically in a cryptic language invoked for the sake
of the soul, to achieve the eternal bliss. In the book
Polygraphia (Trithemius 1518), Trithemius
defends himself against accusations of practicing
black magic and creates another form of cryptog-
raphy not comprising angelic mediations.
Impact and Legacy
Trithemius was visited in Sponheim by Agrippa
of Nettesheim, who was influenced by him in both
his systematic book on occult philosophy, De
occulta philosophia, and his skeptical work, De
vanitate (Müller-Jahncke 1991). Trithemius thus
became one of the important founders of Renais-
sance magic and occult sciences (Walker 1975).
The cryptological aspects of his work had influ-
ence on Giambattista della Porta, Paracelsus, and
John Dee. On the other hand, the Carmelite
Arnold Bostius, to whom Trithemius sent a part
of his Steganography, and philosopher Carolus
Bovillus, another of Trithemius’visitor, accused
him of advocating and practicing demonic
magic. Trithemius was then also accused of nec-
romancy and was later connected with Dr. Faustus
legend (Baron 1991).
In the seventeenth century, Trithemius’
Steganographia and his cryptography still
remained popular. It was considered to be the
discipline of language by the members of Royal
Academic Society in particular. The occult prin-
ciples, i.e., the angelic-astrological mediation
lying under the cryptologic theory, were neglected
in the favor of encoding and enciphering. As a
magician and mystical theologian, on the other
hand, Trithemius was praised in modern theoso-
phy (Brann 2006).
Cross-References
▶Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius
▶Bovelles, Charles de
▶Celtis, Konrad
▶Dee, John
▶Della Porta, Giambattista
▶Natural Magic
▶Neoplatonism
▶Nicholas of Cusa
▶Paracelsus and Paracelsianism
▶Reuchlin, Johannes
▶Wimpfeling, Jacob
References
Primary Literature
Trithemius, Johannes. 1518. Polygraphiae Libri VI.
Basileae: M. Furter.
Trithemius, Johannes. 1605. Steganographia, hoc est, ars
per occultam scripturam animi sui voluntatem
absentibus aperiendi certa. Frankfurt am Main: ex
officina typographica Matthiae Beckeri, sumptibus
Joannis Berneri.
Secondary Literature
Arnold, Klaus. 1991. Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516).
Würzburg: Ferdinand Schöningh.
2 Trithemius, Johannes

Baron, Frank. 1991. Trithemius und Faustus:
Begegnungen in Geschichte und Sage. In Johannes
Trithemius: Humanismus und Magie im Vorreforma-
torischen Deutschland, ed. Richard Auernheimer and
Frank Baron, 38–57. München: Profil.
Brann, Noel L. 1981. The Abbot Trithemius (1462–1516):
The Renaissance of Monastic Humanism. Leiden: Brill.
Brann, Noel L. 1999. Trithemius and Magical Theology:
A Chapter in the Controversy over Cccult Studies in
Early Modern Europe. Albany: SUNY Press.
Brann, Noel L. 2006. Trithemius, Johannes. In Dictionary
of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. Wouter
Hanegraaf, 1135–1139. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Grafton, Anthony. 2006. Johannes Trithemius: Magie,
Geschichte und Phantasie. In Erzählende
Vernunft, ed. Sebastian Lalla, Anja Hallacker, and Gün-
ter Frank. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Müller-Jahncke, Wolf-Dieter. 1991. Johannes Trithemius
und Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. In
Johannes Trithemius: Humanismus und Magie im
Vorreformatorischen Deutschland, ed. Richard
Auernheimer and Frank Baron, 29–37. München:
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Walker, D.P. 1975. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From
Ficino to Campanella. Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press.
Zambelli, Paola. 2007. White Magic, Black Magic in the
European Renaissance. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
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