NICHOLAS
60
NICHOLAS
to the tiara of the Roman Pontiff. After many oU-
stadcs and delays a force of ten papal galleys anil a
number of vessels furnished by Xaples, (!enoa, and
Venice set sail for the Ivist, but before they rcticlicd
their destination the imperial city had fallen and the
Emperor Constantine was no more (29 May, 1 l"i:>).
Whate\'er may have been the dilatoriness of Nicholas
up to this point — and it must be acknowhHlgeti tliat
he luui good reason for not helping the Clreeks — he
now lost no time. He addressed a Bull of Crusade
to the whole of Christendom. Kvery sort of induce-
ment, .spiritual and temporal, was held out to those
who should take [lart in the holy war. Princes were
exhorted to sink their dilTereuces and to unite against
the common foe. Hut t he days of chivalry were gone:
most of the nations took no notice of the appeal; some
of them, such as Clcnoa and Venice, even solicited
the friendship of the infidels.
The gloom which had settled upon Nicholas after Porcaro's conspiracy grew deeper as he realized that his warning voice had been unheeded. Gout, fever, and other maladies warned him that his end was at hand, ."summoning the cardinals around him, he de- livered to them the famous discourse in which he set before them the objects for which he had laboured, antl enumerated with pardonable pride the noble works which he had accomplished (Pastor, II, 311). He died on the night between 24 and 2.5 of March, 1455, and was laid in St. Peter's by the side of Eugene IV. His splendid tomb was taken down by Paul V, and removed to the crypt, where some portions of it may still be seen. His epitaph, the last by which any pope was commemorated, was written by iEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II.
Nicholas was small in stature and weakly in consti- tution. His features were clear-cut; his complexion pale; his eyes dark and piercing. In disposition he was lively and impetuous. A scholar rather than a man of action, he underrated difficulties, and was im- patient when he was not instantly understood and obeyed. At the same time he was obliging and cheer- ful, and readily granted audience to his subjects. He was a man of sincere piety, simple and temper- ate in his habits. He was entirely free from the bane of nepotism; and exercised great care in the choice of cardinals. We may truly say that the lofty aims, the scholarly and artistic tastes, and the noble generosity of Nicholas form one of the brightest pages in the history of the popes.
Platina, Lives of the Popes CEnglish translation, London); Ves- PASIANO DA BiSTlccr, Vite di uomini ittustri del secolo X V (Rome, 1839); Sforza. Rieerche su Niccold V (Lucca, 1884); Muntz. Les Arts d la cour des papes pendant le xW et le xvi" Steele (Paris, 1878-9); Pastor, History of the Popes, II, 1-314, very complete and well documented (Eng. tr., London, 1S91); Gre- GOROvius, Gesch. der Stadt Rom (Stuttgart. 1894) ; Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom. Ill (Berlin, 1867-70); Ckeiohton, History of the Papacy, III (London, 1897); GciRAtlD, Ueglise romaine et les origines de la renaissance (Paris, 1904); MiLMAN, History of Latin Christianity, VIII (London, 1867).
T. B. SCANNELL.
Nicholas Justiniani, Blessed, date of birth un- known, became monk in the Benedictine monastery of San Niccold del Lido at Venice in 1153. When, in a military expedition of the Venetians in 1172, all the other members of the family of the Justiniani per- ished in the JDgean Sea near the Island of Chios, the Republic of Venice mourned over this disaster to so noble a family as over a public calamity. In order that the entire family might not die out, the Venetian Government sent Baron Morosin and Toma Falier as delegates to Alexander III, with the request to dis- pense Nichohis from his monastic vows. The dis- pensation was granted, and Nicholas married Anna, thedaughter of Uoge Michieli, becoming through her the parent of five new lines of his family. Shortly after 1179 he returned to the mona-stery of San Niecolo del Lido, having previou.sly founded a convent for women on the Island of Aniano, where his wife took
the veil. Both he and Ills wife died in the odour of
sanctity and were \'ener.ated by the pcoi)le, though
neither was r\ CI fuiin;ill\ JH-.iified.
Gennahi, A '■ ^ : 1 rnlo Giustiniani, monaco di
S. Nicclo del I I Pi. l,M \,.iice, 1845); Giurtiniano,
Epistola ad I'i'i /'/n, ,,',-( < i <: i ^.^irnum in qua B. Nicholai
Justiniani Vettrti mori'irhntia^ n fnhulis i'«7itsf/KC commentis asseri- tur (Trent, 1746); MnKATOKI, Rerum Italicarum scriptores, XII, 293 and XXII, 503 aq.
Michael Ott. Nicholas of Clemanges. See Clemanges,
Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de.
Nicholas of Cusa, German cardinal, philoso])her, and administrator, b. at Cues on the MoscU,', in the Archdiocese of Trier, 1400 or 1401 ; d. at Todi, in Umbria, 11 August, 1464. His father, Johann Cryfts (Krebs), a wealthy boatman (naula, not a "poor fisherman"), died in 14.50 or 1451, and his mother, Catharina Roenurs, in 1427. The legend that Nicholas fled from the in-lrciiliiicnt of his father to Count Ulrich of Mandirsclicid is doubtfully re- ported by Hartzheim (Vita N. de Cu.sa, Trier, 1730), and has never been proved. Of his early educa- tion in a school of Deventer nothing is known; but in 1416 he was matriculated in the University of Heidelberg, by Rector Nicholas of Bettenberg, as "Nicolaus Cancer de Coesze, eler[icus] Trever[ensis| dioc[esis]". A year later, 1417, he left for Padua, where he graduated, in 1423, as doctor in canon law (decretorum doctor) under the celebrated Giuliano Cesarini. It is said that, in later years, he was hon- oured with the doctorate in civil law by the Univer- sity of Bologna. At Padua he became the friend of Paolo Toscanelli, afterwards a celebrated physician and scientist. He studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and, in later years, Arabic, though, as his friend Johannes Andrea;, Bishop of Aleria, testifies, and as appears from the style of his writings, he was not a lover of rhetoric and poetry. That the loss of a lawsuit at Mainz should have decided his choice of the clerical slate, is not supported by his previous career. Aided by the Archbishop of Trier, he matriculated in the Uni- versity of Cologne, for divinity, under the rectorship of Petrus von Weiler, in 1425. His identity with the "Nicolaus Trevirensis", who is mentioned as secre- tary to Cardinal Orsini, and papal legate for Germany in 1426, is not certain. After 1428, benefices at Coblenz, Oberwesel, Miinstermaifeld, Dypurgh, St. Wendel, and Liege fell to his lot, successively or si- multaneously.
His public career began in 1431, at the Council of Basle, which opened under the presidency of his for- mer teacher, Giuliano Cesarini. The cause of Count Ulrich of Manderscheid, which he defended, was lost and the transactions with the Bohemians, in which he represented the German nation, proved fruitless. His main efforts at the council were for the reform of the calendar and for the unity, political and religious, of all Christendom. In 1437 the orthodox minority sent him to Eugene IV, whom he strongly supported. The pope entrusted him with a mission to Constantinople, where, in the course of two months, besides discover- ing Greek manuscripts of St. Basil and St. John Dam- ascene, he gained over for the Council of P'lorence, the emperor, the patriarch, and twenty-eight arch- bishops. After reporting the result of his mission to the pope at Ferrara, in 1438, he was created papal legate to support the cause of Eugene IV. He did so before the Diets of Mainz (1441), Frankfort (1442), Nuremberg (1444), again of Frankfort (1446), and even at the court of Charles VII of France, with such force that jEneas Sylvius called him the Hercules of the Eugenians. As a reward Eugene IV nominated him cardinal; but Nicholas declined the dignity. It needed a command of the next pope, Nichohis V, to bring him to Rome for the acceptance of this honour. In 1449 he was proclaimed cardinal-priest of the title of St. Peter ad Vincula.
