by Leo Ruickbie
The adventure began much like Faustus’s trip to Munich. He was in Wittenberg when he was approached by students from Hungary, Poland, Carinthia and Austria, or simply Polish noblemen according to Pfitzer, who wished to see the Leipzig Fair. Some desired only to satisfy their curiosity, others wanted to try and make money. Faustus’s motives were unclear. An ‘old folk legend’ recorded in 1839 had Mephistopheles cajole Faustus: ‘Why do you live like a broody owl in the wilderness, wasting your life in desolate loneliness?’23 The solution was to whisk him off to Leipzig.
In the earlier tales, like a magical taxi-driver, Faustus delivered his demanding friends to the town. In Widmann the party simply set out to walk the seventy kilometres, whilst in Pfitzer Faustus ‘procured by his art’ a peasant’s cart and horses in which they ‘mounted in good cheer and drove on rapidly.’ Widmann’s journey was uneventful, but Pfitzer threw in the alarum of a hare running close by – an omen of bad luck that ‘induced them to conceive timorous thoughts’. However, they spent so long debating whether it was an evil sign for their journey that before sunset they found themselves, ‘to their great astonishment’, at Leipzig.24
Wandering through the Fair the next day they came by a cellar where the wine porters (called ‘shooters’ or ‘whitecoats’ on account of their long white coats) were struggling to extract a large barrel. Widmann tells us that this cask could hold sixteen or eighteen ‘buckets’, but Pfitzer was content with only seven or eight. Whatever size it was, the shooters found that they could not shift it. The 1728 version of the story has Faustus and his companions laughing ‘long and loud’ at their predicament. In Pfitzer, Faustus, ‘nearly sneering’, said to the men, ‘how do you set so awkwardly about it, yours are so many, and you can not force such a cask out of the cellar? Yet an only one might do it, if he managed it properly.’25
One can imagine the effect: ‘the shooters, like useless knaves, were very angry at such a language, used foul words.’ They challenged him to do it, if he could, ‘in the Devil’s name’. The cellar-master appeared on the scene and extended the challenge, offering the barrel as a reward to the one who could bring it up, convinced it was beyond any of them. A crowd gathered to see the fun, for surely a miracle or a fight was promised. Faustus descended into the cellar. The next moment he popped out like a champagne cork, riding astride the troublesome barrel. The cellar-master ‘much aghast’ and objecting that ‘such was not done naturally’, grudgingly kept his word. For once Faustus was shown in a good light, sharing his bounty. He threw an enormous party that lasted for several days until every last drop has been drained from the cask.26
13
All the Victories in Italy (1521–1527)
The whole world was now in warfare.
– Cellini1
A remark supposedly made by Melanchthon suggests that Faustus was neither holding court in a Leipzig inn nor in Germany at all to witness the peasants’ uprising, but farther south with those much needed soldiers of the Swabian League. To be sure, the sporadic nature of the Italian campaign would not necessarily prevent either of these possibilities, but Manlius reported that Melanchthon had said that ‘the same magician Faustus, a wicked beast and a sewer of many devils, lyingly boasted that all the victories of the Emperor’s armies in Italy had been won by means of his magic.’2
Up until the 1520s there were not many victories to lay claim to. Despite a flair for self-promotion as ‘the last knight’, Maximilian I’s campaigning had been largely unsuccessful. During the War of the League of Cambrai from 1509 to 1515, the French had won the majority of the battles. But under Charles V the imperial generals would win their laurels. From 1522 to 1530 Charles and his allies would wrest a series of victories from the French, all of which Faustus could have laid claim to having magically guaranteed. In particular, the Empire struck a resounding blow against the French at the Battle of Pavia, inflicting a loss on their enemy such as the French had not suffered since Agincourt. Where Maximilian had waged an ineffectual and ramshackle campaign, it did indeed seem as if magic had suddenly and decisively changed the fortunes of the Imperial armies.
Of course, Manlius said that Melanchthon did not believe a word of Faustus’s claims: ‘This was a vain lie … I, truly, tell this because of the young men, that they do not immediately give flattering assent to such vain men.’3 But nor should we accept Melanchthon’s (or Manlius’s) view. What is important is that the statement ascribed to Faustus is related as some sort of lesson to his students, which means that it is unlikely (but not of course impossible) that he is simply making it up. He may have heard it second hand, but the location of this passage in his text after recounting Faustus’s adventures in Wittenberg does present the possibility that Melanchthon may have had it first-hand from Faustus himself. Indeed, Lercheimer was to later make the claim that Faustus had been acquainted with Melanchthon whilst the two were in Wittenberg.
If Faustus actually did make this claim, then what sort of magic might he have been referring to? Given what we know of his career so far, we can form a reasonable impression of what occult services he may have rendered. The association with von Sickingen – believed to have never attempted any move without consulting an astrologer – and then the documented judicial astrology for Georg III, Bishop of Bamberg, suggests an astrological role, perhaps divining auspicious times of action for the Imperial army. Melanchthon, however, specifically mentioned magic. With demonic steeds, flying cloaks and magical armies at his command – according to the legends – the Prince of Necromancers could draw upon a wide repertoire of forbidden practices, perhaps including the alchemical manufacture of gold to assist his Emperor in foreign wars.
In Italy, Faustus would find that her men of war were, like his compatriot von Sickingen, greatly interested in the arcane arts. As an astrologer used to high society and one who sought its patronage, Faustus would have made himself known to the leaders of this campaign, for how else was he going to promote his art and win himself honours and riches?
One of those men was Alfonso d’Avalos, Marquis del Vasto, who would later govern Milan (1538–1546) and be immortalised by Titian. Del Vasto is known to have consulted Cardano about his horoscope sometime after 1543 and showed a keen interest in the occult. He supported Giulio Camillo Delminio (1480–1544), usually known as just Giulio Camillo, the architect of the L’idea del theatro or ‘memory theatre’, an ingenious amphitheatre designed to give access to the entire works of Cicero by word and phrase, and organised according to the perceived structure of the universe. A life-size model of the project was constructed that could accommodate several people. Viglius Zuichemus wrote to Erasmus in 1532, describing it as ‘a work of wonderful skill’ enabling people inside it ‘to discourse on any subject no less fluently than Cicero’.4 But it was also a lot more than just a device to induce rhetorical eloquence.
Camillo belonged to the Hermetic-cabbalistic tradition of Pico della Mirandola and constructed his theatre on those principles. This intricate system of spatial mnemonics was built to represent the order of eternal truth with depictions of the creation, from the first cause through the angels, the planetary spheres, and down to man. It was also an enormous magical machine. The theatre was decorated with planetary images that acted as astral talismans, drawing down the celestial influences so that they could be channelled and put into action. In theory the operator could harness the magical powers of the universe by mastering the proportions of cosmic harmony replicated in the theatre’s elaborate structure. Camillo’s L’idea del theatro was published in Venice in 1550 and had seen ten editions by 1584, such was its popularity. Italy, the source of the Hermetic tradition, was rich ground for the Renaissance magician. Faustus, as it were, was coming home.
Faustus was not unique in claiming to have used his magic for military purposes. There are precedents to consider that may give us insight into his possible activities at this time. Hartlieb recounted meeting a famous soldier in 1455 who told him that the Teutonic Order always planned their
campaigns according to the prognostications of the breastbone of a goose, which was especially valued as a weather oracle. The conjuration of magical armies was part of the standard repertoire of the magician. In The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage there is just such a formula for their invocation. The magician can chose from invoking an entire army to an unspecified number of ‘armed men’, or even ‘cause a Siege to appear’ through the intervention of the spirits. Abraham, the supposed author of the Sacred Magic, described once having had cause to use just such a spell himself. According to Abraham, he rescued Friedrich I (1369–1428), Duke-Elector of Saxony, from a tight spot during the Hussite Wars by the timely invocation of 2,000 knights.
While the tales of Abraham may be a late composition merely posing as fifteenth century, the better authenticated Codex 849 also has a prescription for summoning an instant fighting force. The spell ‘For obtaining a castle’ adds a fortress to Abramelin’s host of armed men, but still comes with a number of useful defenders and can indeed be used solely for ‘summoning countless legions of armed men’. The compiler of the Codex, like Abraham, also claimed to have put the spell to use, although in this case he brought forth an ‘innumerable horde’ of demonic knights to assault the Emperor and his entourage while they were out hunting in a gloomy forest and erected the magic castle as their refuge. The compiler of the Codex describes his magical operation as a test to see if it worked, but the Emperor and his knights surely felt that a practical joke had been played at their expense when the castle and besiegers vanished to leave them standing in the middle of a marsh. In the Faustbooks there are several examples of Faustus raising troops of supernatural soldiers, but it is the case of Conrad Kyeser of Eichstätt (1366–c.1405) that best shows how Faustus may have provided specifically martial advice to the generals.
Kyeser was a physician by training, a soldier by choice and a diplomat by preferment. He was also an astrologer and likely a sorcerer to boot. He served under Stephan III, Duke of Bayern-Ingolstadt, amongst others, until he fell from favour. In an attempt to set his career back on track he wrote a huge volume on warfare and other subjects called Bellifortis (c.1405).5 Generally admired today for its technological illustrations, Bellifortis went beyond engineering to explore how the dark arts could be employed against the enemy. Kyeser gave instructions on how to manufacture inextinguishable torches, how to use the hide of a deer to protect against being wounded in battle, and how to use the feathers and hair of animals killed in the hunt to produce target-seeking arrows. With some of his recipes he strayed onto the dangerous ground of witchcraft. The book spawned numerous copies, imitations and adaptations that continued to have an influence as late as the seventeenth century. It is feasible that Faustus could have come across Bellifortis and used it in his own pitch to potential clients.
If Faustus was in the field with the imperial forces and not conjuring from afar, then, to make his alleged claims stand up, we would expect him to have made his way south. We must suppose that Faustus cast his charts and gave his prognostications for the ‘top brass’, since it would make no sense for him to make his claims if he had been advising anyone of lesser rank. Perhaps he met with Georg von Frundsberg, who raised most of the mercenaries bound for the Italian campaigns. Von Frundsberg was no stranger to Italy or to war. He had fought against the French at Milan in 1499. He had been involved in the war of the Bavaria-Landshut succession in 1504, fighting for Maximilian I. He had led his men against Ulrich von Württemburg in 1519. In 1521 he had been with von Sickingen at the walls of Mézières, opportunity enough, one supposes, to have heard of Faustus, perhaps even to have met him. The year afterwards he distinguished himself at the Battle of Bicocca. Amberger Memmingen’s portrait of him shows a stout character in black armour, a halberd grasped in his mailed fist, but the open visor reveals a friendlier face than his accoutrements suggest. He is without the extravagant plumage of the Landsknechte, a sober, more serious man of action. Stern though he no doubt was, even the hard men of the Teutonic Order were eager for the advantage magic promised, as Hartlieb testified, so we should not suppose that he was disinclined to listen to a necromancer, especially one connected with his old comrade-in-arms von Sickingen.
The Four Years War (1521–1525)
While Emperor Charles V was strengthening his position through alliances with Pope Leo X and Henry VIII, Robert de la Marck had been harrying the borders of the Low Countries in league with Charles, Duke of Gelders, and Henri d’Albret had crossed the French border into Spain. For a time things looked black for the Empire and, notwithstanding the successes of von Sickingen and the Spanish levies, it was largely the fault of the French themselves that began their reversal of fortunes in Italy. Given the vagueness of Faustus’s reported claim – ‘all the victories’ – it is here that we should start.
François I’s captain Odet de Foix (1485–1528), Vicomte de Lautrec, could not be said to have much enjoyed his occupation of Milan. De Foix owed his office to his sister, currently in François’s favour, and in 1521 he would come to regret it. To the north German Landsknechte had crossed the Alps and were advancing via Trent. To the south the Italian condottiere and Lieutenant of the Emperor, Fernando de Avalos (1489–1525), Marquis of Pescara, was marching out of Naples. Siege was thrown round Parma, but abandoned when Alfonso d’Este (1476–1534), Duke of Ferrara, threatened. It seemed as if the Imperialist advance would be checked, but Ferrara was defeated and the Pope’s condottiere Giovanni de’ Medici (1498–1526) struck hard at France’s Venetian allies, clearing the road to Milan.
As the Imperialist and Papal armies met up it brought the Swiss into conflict with each other, as mercenary contingents now fought for both the French and the Imperial alliance. Disquieted by this development, the Swiss Diet ordered the recall of all Swiss units. To the dismay of de Foix he found his Swiss decamping in droves, whilst those on the Papal payroll stood firm. De Foix fell back on Milan, but here he found that his oppressive measures had not subdued the populace and an uprising flared up as soon as the banners of the Empire were seen over the horizon. De Foix, his Venetian allies running before him, retreated on Como.
As usual it came down to money. The substantial funds voted by the Low Countries in 1521 were exhausted by the end of the year. Still revelling in his diplomatic success in England and the Treaty of Windsor pledging both rulers to a massive invasion of Italy in 1524, Charles V was nevertheless forced to disband much of his army – and any freelancing necromancer would find himself in a tight spot. To salt this self-inflicted wound, the death of Leo X caused the Swiss to transfer their allegiance to the French en masse and François I of France found the unemployed German Landsknechte only too ready to accept his coin. The balance of power had shifted suddenly and dramatically yet again.
In spring 1522 de Foix marched back towards Milan, intent on recapturing it. However, he found that new defensive works now rendered the city nigh impregnable and the fiery Milanese were eager to bloody French noses again. To add to de Foix’s troubles, unrest had been growing amongst the Swiss mercenaries as their pay fell into arrears. On 26 April unrest boiled over into mutiny. It was still a soldierly mutiny with the Swiss demanding to be allowed to attack what they thought was a weak Imperial position at Bicocca just outside Milan. Scenting an easy victory over the much smaller force, the Swiss were keen to get their hands on the spoils. On the 27th de Foix reluctantly led them into battle. The French assault was stopped in its tracks by withering fire from the Imperial harquebusiers and cannon.6 As many as 3,000 of de Foix’s Swiss did not return from the field of battle that day.
With their tails between their legs, the Swiss returned home to lick their wounds. ‘They went back to their mountains,’ said Guicciardini, ‘diminished in numbers, but much more diminished in audacity.’7 De Foix had no option but to abandon his designs on Milan and retreat altogether from Lombardy.
Hoisted by their own petard at Bicocca, the French next faced the Empire at the Siege of Genoa. Fernando de Avalos an
d Prospero Colonna (1452–1523), another seasoned mercenary and scion of the noble house of Colonna, approached the city on 20 May 1522 to find its gates defiantly shut against them. The siege lasted until 30 May when the Genoese finally surrendered. The triumphant Imperialists ran riot, looting and pillaging.
In the summer of 1522 English and Imperial fleets harried the French coast off Brittany and Normandy, but in Italy Charles was again forced by lack of ready money to lay off troops. Revenues from Castile, beginning to come in after the suppression of revolt, were already pledged and those of the Low Countries were used up. His brother Ferdinand was pressing for funds to fight the Ottomans just as lack of resources left an unrelieved Rhodes to fend for herself and lose. François I, therefore, had every hope of retaking Milan. But his aggressive legal claims upon the Duchy of Bourbon had alienated his powerful Constable of France, Charles III (1490–1527), Duke of Bourbon, who now offered his sword, 500 men-at-arms and 8,000 foot-soldiers to the Emperor. Together with Henry VIII and Charles V, he hatched a secret plan to partition France.
The plot was discovered and Bourbon was lucky to escape with his life, let alone the army he had promised. The allies went ahead with their design: the Duke of Suffolk and Count van Buren in the north marched to within 80 kilometres of Paris, the Spanish in the south advanced on Bayonne and to the east a German force threatened the border at Bresse in today’s Rhône-Alps. With the element of surprise gone, a shortage of funds and an overall lack of co-ordination, the campaign quickly foundered, allowing the French once more to march into Lombardy in 1523 – although a fearful François had chosen not to lead them as originally intended.
