NICHOLAS
61
NICHOLAS
His new dignity was frauglit with labours and
crosses. The Diocese of Brixen, the see of which was
vacant, needed a reformer. The Cardinal of Cusa
was appointed (1450), but, owing to the opposition
of the chapter and of Sigmund, Duke of Austria and
Count of the Tyrol, could not take possession of the
see until two years later. In the meantime the cardi-
nal was sent by Nicholas V, as papal legate, to
Northern Germany and the Netherlands. He was to
preach the Jubilee indulgence and to promote the
crusade against the Turks; to visit, reform, and cor-
rect parishes, monasteries, hospitals; to endeavour to
reunite the Hussites with the Church; to end the
dissensions between the Duke of Cleve and the
Archbishop of Cologne; and to treat with the Duke
of Burgundy with a view to peace between England
and France. He crossed the Brenner in January,
1451, held a provincial synod at Salzburg, visited
Vienna, Munich, Ratisbon, and Nuremberg, held a
diocesan synod at Bamberg, presided over the pro-
vincial chapter of tlie Benedictines at Wiirzburg,
and reformed the monasteries in the Dioceses of
Erfurt, Thuringia,
Magdeburg, Hildes-
heim, and Minden.
Through the Nether-
lands he was accom-
panied by his friend
Denys the Carthu-
sian. Inl452hecon-
cluded his visitations
by holding a provin-
cial synod at Co-
logne. Everywhere,
according to Abbot
Trithemius, he had
appeared as an angel
of light and peire,
but it was not to be
so in his own duH i ^e
The troubles ixgui
with the Pool ( Ui< s
of Bri.xen and the
Benedictine nuns of
Sonnenburg who
needed reform ition,
but were shielded b>
Duke Sigmund. The
cardinal had to take refuge in thestronghold of Audraz,
at Buchcnstein, and finally, by special authority re-
ceived from Pius II, pronounced an interdict upon
the Countship of the Tyrol. In 1460 the duke made
him prisoner at Burneck and extorted from him a
treaty unfavourable to the bishopric. Nicholas fled
to Pope Pius II, who excommunicated the duke and
laid an interdict upon the diocese, to be enforced by
the Archbishop of Salzburg. But the duke, himself
an immoral man, and, further, instigated by the anti-
papal humanist Heimburg, defied the pope and ap-
pealed to a general council. It needed the strong in-
fluence of tbe emperor, Frederick III, to make him
finally (1464) submit to the Church. This took place
some days after the cardinal's death. The account
of the twelve years' struggle given by Jager and, after
him, by Prantl, is unfair to the "foreign reformer"
(see Pastor, op. eit. infra, II). The cardinal, who had
accompanied Pius II to the Venetian fleet at Ancona,
was sent by the pope to Leghorn to hasten the Genoese
crusaders, but on the way succumbed to an illness,
the result of his ill-treatment at the hands of Sig-
mund, from which he had never fully recovered. He
died at Todi, in the presence of his friends, the phy-
sician Toscanelli and Bishop Johannes Andreie.
The body of Nicholas of Cusa rests in his own titu- lar church in Rome, beneath an effigy of him sculp- tured in relief, but his heart is deposited before the altar in the hospital of Cues. This hospital was the
cardinal's own foundation. By mutual agreement
with his sister Clare and his brother John, his entire
inheritance was made the basis of the foundation, and
by the cardinal's last will his altar service, manuscript
library, and scientific instruments were bequeathed to
it. The extensive buildings with chapel, cloister, and
refectory, which were erected in 1451-56, stand to this
day, and serve their original purpose of a home for
thirty-three old men, in honour of the thirty-three
years of Christ's earthly life. Another foundation of
the cardinal was a residence at Deventer, called the
Bursa Cusana, where twenty poor clerical students
were to be supported. Among bequests, a sum of 260
ducats was left to S. Maria dell' Anima in Rome, for
an infirmary. In the archives of this institution is
found the original document of the cardinal's last will.
The writings of Cardinal Nicholas may be classified
under four heads: (1) juridical writings: "De concor-
dantia catholica" and "De auctoritate prjesidendi in
conciho generali " (1432-35), both written on occasion
of the Council of Basle. The superiority of the general
councils over the pope is maintained; though, when
the majority of the
assembly drew from
these writings start-
ling conclusions un-
favourable to Pope
Eugene, the author
seems to have
changed his views,
as appears from his
art ion after 1437.
The political reforms
)>iii]iosed were skil-
liillv utilized bv
I .urresin 1814. (2")
In his philosophical
-'iitings, composed
liter 14.39, he set
aside the definitions
and methods of the
"Aristotelean Sect"
antl replaced them
by deep speculations
and mystical forms
of his own. The best
known in his first
treati.se, "De docta
ignorantia" (1439-40), on the finite and the infinite.
The Theory of Knowledge is critically examined in
the treatise "De conjecturis" (1440-44) and espe-
cially in the "Compendium" (1464). In his Cosmol-
ogy he calls the Creator the Possest (]>osse-est, the
possible-actual), alluding to the argument: God is
possible, therefore actual. His itiicrocosmos in created
things has some similarity with the "monads" and
the "emanation" of Leibniz. (3) The theological
treatises are dogmatic, ascetic, and mystic. "De
cribratione alchorani" (1460) was occasioned by his
visit to Constantinople, and was written for the con-
version of the Mohammedans. For the faithful were
written: "De quaerendo Deum" (1445), "Defiliatione
Dei" (1445), " De visione Dei " (14.53), "Excitationum
libri X" (1431-64), and others. The favourite sub-
ject of his mystical speculations was th(! Trinity.
His concept of God has been much disputed, and has
even been called pantheistic. The coni cxf of his writ-
ings proves.however, that they are all st rict ly Christ ian.
Scharpff calls his theology a Thomas a Kcnipis in phil-
osophical language. (4) The scientific writings con-
sist of adozen treatises, mostly short., of which the " Re-
paratio Calendarii" (1436), with a correction of the
Alphonsine Tables, is the most important. (For an ac-
count of its ('ontents and its results, see Lilius, Aloi-
sius.) The shorter malheinalical treati.scs are ex-
amined in Kiistner's "History of Mathematics", II.
Among them is a claim for the exact quadrature of the
