Nicolau de Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) was born in Cusa, Germany, and was a bishop and cardinal of the Church of Rome. He received his education in Heidelberg, Padua (where he came into contact with early humanism), and Cologne. A man and thinker of great stature and depth during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age, he combined intense ecclesial activity with a profound speculative capacity, making him one of the greatest figures in German thought. Entrusted with various missions in Germany and the Netherlands as papal legate, and with a bishopric in Brixen quite troubled by conflicts with Duke Sigismund of Austria, he came to occupy a prominent place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy as vicar-general of the Papal States. But, at the same time, he left us a body of work of unusual depth, in which, in addition to mathematical and cosmological themes, he addresses, with a marked Neoplatonic influence, great philosophical, mystical, and theological questions. Among his works, the following stand out. Learned Ignorance, The Conjectures, The Idiot, The Vision of God and The Hunt for Wisdombut his ecumenical concerns also led him to write a dialogue entitled The Peace of Faith, an authentic hymn to concord among peoples. He died in 1464 in Todi. Considered one of the forerunners of the modern metaphysics of the subject, his thought would influence Giordano Bruno, echo in German Romanticism and, indirectly, in some of the exponents of idealism.