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From the SelectedWorks of Jason Aleksander

February 25, 2016

Nicholas of Cusa in Oxford Bibliographies Jason Aleksander

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/jason-aleksander/11/ Nicholas of Cusa - Medieval Studies - Oxford Bibliographies http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-97801953965...

Nicholas of Cusa Jason Aleksander

LAST MODIFIED: 25 FEBRUARY 2016 DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195396584-0192

Introduction

Over the past century, Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus, Nikolaus von Kues, Nicolas de Cues, Nicolás de Cusa, Nicolau de Cusa, Nicola Cusano) (b. 1401–d. 1464) has garnered increasing attention as a barometer of the intellectual history of the European Renaissance. From a superficial perspective, it is not difficult to account for this interest. Nicholas’s theological and philosophical treatises offer a unique perspective on human nature and its relationship to the divine. Moreover, his ecclesiastical career is impressive. In 1432 he took part in the debates at the Council of Basel, where he defended the Conciliarist cause in a manner that earned him a reputation for diplomacy. In 1437–1438, having switched allegiance on the Conciliarism debate, Nicholas was appointed by Pope Eugenius IV to a delegation sent to Constantinople to summon the Byzantine emperor, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and other high Eastern Church officials to the Council of Florence. He was made cardinal in 1448 and appointed Bishop of Brixen in 1450. Beginning in 1451, he served as papal legate and, among other things, was charged with introducing religious reforms in Germany. In 1459 and 1460, Nicholas governed Rome and the Papal States as Legatus urbis in termporalibus while Pope Pius II attended the Congress of Mantua. In the last six years of his life, Nicholas served in the papal curia as an advisor to the pope. Given the significance of Nicholas’s ecclesiastical career, it is no surprise that a good deal of academic attention on Nicholas has focused on his role in the history of the church. Nevertheless, it would also be fair to say that a good deal of the attention that is focused on the life and thought of Nicholas of Cusa is the legacy of prior generations of scholars who saw in his theoretical work an opportunity to define the most salient features of transformations in the habits of thinking leading from the Middle Ages into the epoch of modernity. Thus, although contemporary scholars have not been able to achieve any clear consensus on the question of whether Nicholas belongs to the Middle Ages or to modernity, the field of Cusanus studies has become much more attentive to the possibility that the uniqueness and significance of Nicholas’s vision is a function of his ability to synthesize and redeploy a variety of strands in the Catholic intellectual tradition—strands that are as apt to involve practical matters of canon law and church reform as they are to hinge on a unique and richly developed mystical theology. Given the flourishing of the attention devoted to Nicholas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the choices about which texts to include in this article were difficult ones. The rationale for this article’s predominant focus on scholarship of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is that, insofar as the recent studies listed here enter into the debates that have been shaped by their predecessors, the sources mentioned here will point readers to the prior work in the field not acknowledged here.

General Overviews

Despite the currently flourishing state of scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa, there remain relatively few works (especially in English) that are devoted to providing non-specialists with accessible introductions to his career and thought. Kremer 2002 provides a basic introduction to the life and career of Nicholas of Cusa. Meuthen 2010 (originally published in 1964) remains the best biography available. Flasch 2004 and Gandillac 2001 provide accessible overviews of Nicholas’s thought in German and French. Bellitto, et al. 2004 and Watanabe 2011 provide useful overviews of a number of topics relevant to contemporary Cusanus scholarship. Albertson 2010 is a good entry point for those wanting an orientation to current key topics of interest and debate in scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa.

Albertson, David. “Mystical Philosophy in the Fifteenth Century: New Directions in Research on Nicholas of Cusa.” Religion Compass 4 (2010): 471–485. Albertson’s review of recent literature on Nicholas of Cusa highlights scholarship that attempts “to unify potential divisions in the German cardinal’s writings: between science and religion, novelty and tradition, action and contemplation, and mathematics and theology” (p. 471).

Bellitto, Christopher M., Thomas M. Izbicki, and Gerald Christianson, eds. Introducing Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man. New York: Paulist, 2004. Contains thirteen essays providing overviews of the main topics of inquiry in Cusanus studies as well as a glossary and an extensive, topically arranged bibliography (pp. 409–457) that “attempts to list all published literature in English on Nicholas of Cusa from Tudor times to the end of 2002” (p. 411).

Flasch, Kurt. Nikolaus von Kues in Seiner Zeit: Ein Essay. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2004. Flasch’s scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa has made a significant impact on the field for more than forty years. In this brief volume (111 pages), however, Flasch intends to reach an audience of non-specialists. His essay focuses on Nicholas’s biography and career and includes annotated selections from Nicholas’s writings.

Gandillac, Maurice de. Nicolas de Cues. Paris: Ellipses, 2001. Gandillac’s first major contribution to scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa was his 1942 dissertation La philosophie de Nicolas de Cues. In this brief (128 pages) introduction, Gandillac intends to reach an audience of non-specialists. Includes annotated selections from Nicholas’s writings.

Kremer, Klaus. Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464). One of the Greatest Germans of the 15th Century. Translated by Frankie Kann and Hans-Joachim Kann. Trier, Germany: Paulinus, 2002. A brief (seventy-nine pages), basic introduction to Nicholas of Cusa’s biography, career, sources, and legacy. Originally published as Nikolaus von Kues (1401–1464), Einer der grössten Deutschen des 15. Jahrhunderts (Paulinus, 1999); also available in French as Nicolas de Cues: (1401–1464); Un Des Plus Grands Allemands Du 15e Siècle, trans. Patrick Wilwert (Trier, Germany: Paulinus, 2002). Includes a number of full color images.

Meuthen, Erich. Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography. Translated by David Crowner and Gerald Christianson. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010.

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Originally published in German in 1964 and now in its seventh edition as Skizze Einer Biographie (Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1992). The English edition includes a glossary and brief introduction by Crowner and Christianson (pp. xvii–xxvi) that provides a brief orientation to Nicholas’s historical context. Also included in the English edition is a brief annotated bibliography compiled by Hans Gerhard Senger that focuses on Cusanus research from the period 1992–2005.

Watanabe, Morimichi. Nicholas of Cusa: A Companion to His Life and Times. Edited by Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. Provides encyclopedic entries on the “Ideas and Events,” the “Persons,” and the “Places” associated with Nicholas of Cusa. Many of the entries are revised versions of essays that were originally published in the American Cusanus Society (cited under Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources). Each entry includes a brief bibliography.

Primary Sources

Although there are a number of publications of various parts of the corpus of Nicholas’s Latin writings, Nicholas of Cusa 1929–, Nicholas of Cusa 1932–, and Meuthen and Hallauer 1976– are the most comprehensive and reliable critical editions. Wilpert 1966–1967 is the best source for works not yet included in the critical editions. Reliable Latin-German editions include Gabriel 1964, Bormann 2002, and Nicholas of Cusa 1936–.

Bormann, Karl, ed. Nikolaus Von Kues Philosophisch-Theologische Werke. 4 vols. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2002. A Latin-German collection based on the materials previously published in the Schriften des Nikolaus von Kues in deutscher Übersetzung.

Gabriel, Leo, ed. Nikolaus Von Kues Philosophisch-Theologische Schriften. Vienna: Herder, 1964. A Latin-German edition that includes a number of major works and translations and commentary by Dietlind und Wilhelm Dupré.

Meuthen, Erich, and Hermann J. Hallauer, eds. Acta Cusana: Quellen zur Lebensgeschichte des Nikolaus von Kues. 6 vols. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1976–. The volumes in the Acta Cusana collect detailed documents related to Nicholas’s life and career. Most of the material is in Latin with preliminary matter, summaries, and critical appraisals of the documents in German. The latest volume (covering 1 April 1452–29 May 1453) appeared in 2012, so the Acta Cusana project is far from complete at this point.

Nicholas of Cusa. Cusanus-Texte. Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter, 1929–. Like the Acta Cusana, this is a good source for many of Nicholas’s minor works, including letters, sermons, and manuscript annotations. Much of this material also appears in the recent volumes of the Opera Omnia.

Nicholas of Cusa. Opera omnia, iussu et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Heidelbergensis ad codicum fidem edita. 22 vols. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1932–. The authoritative edition of Nicholas’s Opera omnia as directed by the Cusanus-Kommission of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. This edition is now nearing completion, and only a few of Nicholas’s works remain to be included. The Opera omnia is also available through the Cusanus Portal website (cited under Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources).

Nicholas of Cusa. Schriften des Nikolaus von Kues in deutscher Übersetzung. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1936–. An accessible Latin-German edition commissioned by the Heidelberg Academy to keep pace with the Opera Omnia.

Wilpert, Paul, ed. Nikolaus von Kues Werke. 2 vols. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1966–1967. The best source for works that have not yet appeared in critical editions and other collections.

English Translations of Primary Sources

Most of Nicholas’s individual treatises and a large number of his sermons have been translated into English (see Izbicki’s extensive bibliography in Bellitto, et al. 2004, cited under General Overviews). The entries below include publications that either (a) offer the only published English translation of one of Nicholas’s works or (b) collect translations of several treatises or other writings. Among publications that offer the only published English translation of one of Nicholas’s works, Sigmund 1991 provides the only complete translation of the The Catholic Concordance (De concordantia catholica), and Wertz 1995 provides the only English translation of On the Quadrature of the Circle (De quadratura circuli). Among collections of translations of Nicholas’s writings, Bond 1997 includes translations of five treatises, including the only English translation of On Seeking God (De quarendo Deum). Izbicki 2008 includes several of Nicholas’s political writings and sermons. Hopkins 2001 includes translations of twenty-four of Nicholas’s major treatises, mostly from the editions of the Opera Omnia, as well as John Wenk’s attack on Nicholas in the De ignota litteratura. Hopkins 2003 and Hopkins 2008 offer translations of a number of Nicholas’s sermons.

Bond, H. Lawrence, trans. Selected Spiritual Writings. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1997. Includes translations of On Learned Ignorance (De docta ignorantia), Dialogue on the Hidden God (Dialogus de Deo abscondito), On the Vision of God (De visione Dei), On the Summit of Contemplation (De apice theoriae) and the only English translation of On Seeking God (De quarendo Deum). Also includes an introductory essay (eighty-four pages), notes, a glossary, and a bibliography.

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Hopkins, Jasper, trans. Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa. 2 vols. Minneapolis: A. J. Banning, 2001. These volumes contain translations of twenty-four of Nicholas’s major treatises, mostly from the editions of the Opera Omnia, as well as John Wenk’s attack on Nicholas in the De ignota litteratura. Many of these translations are reprinted from Hopkins’s prior publications offering studies of individual works. Hopkins’s translations are also available on the Cusanus Portal and Hopkins’s personal website, Jasper Hopkins (both cited under Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources).

Hopkins, Jasper, trans. Nicholas of Cusa’s Early Sermons: 1430–1441. Loveland, CO: A. J. Banning, 2003. Includes translations of sermons 1–25. These translations are also available at Hopkins’s personal website (Jasper Hopkins, cited under Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources).

Hopkins, Jasper, trans. Nicholas of Cusa’s Didactic Sermons: A Selection. Loveland, CO: A. J. Banning, 2008. Includes translations of a selection of sermons covering the years 1442–1456. These translations are also available at Hopkins’s personal webpage cited under online research tools below. Hopkins’s self-published translations of Nicholas sermons from 1457–1464 are also available at his at his personal website (Jasper Hopkins, cited under Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources).

Izbicki, Thomas M., trans. Writings on Church and Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. A critical edition that includes Latin and facing English translations of a number of Nicholas’s political writings and sermons. Selections are indicative of the different phases of the development of Nicholas’s ecclesiology and attitudes toward church reform throughout his career.

Sigmund, Paul E., trans. The Catholic Concordance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Although excerpts of De concordantia catholica are translated elsewhere, Sigmund’s remains the only complete English translation of the work.

Wertz, William F., Jr., trans. Toward a New Council of Florence: “On the Peace of Faith” and Other Works. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: Schiller Institute, 1995. Includes sixteen treatises (in whole or in part) that are translated in other collections. However, this collection also includes the only English translation of On the Quadrature of the Circle (De quadratura circuli).

Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa has benefitted enormously from the efforts of professional societies in a number of countries. Among these societies, the American Cusanus Society and the Cusanus-Gesellschaft (the German Cusanus Society) have played a significant and direct role in the publication of a number of books included in this article as well as four of the journals mentionted in this section. The thirty-one volumes to date of the American Cusanus Society Newsletter (1983–) include reports on the society’s activities as well as annual bibliographies covering research in the field of Cusanus studies. Many of the volumes also include papers delivered in conference sessions sponsored by the society as well as original contributions by society members. Cusanus Jahrbuch offers articles, book reviews, and reports on the activities and events of the Cusanus-Gesellschaft and the Institut für Cusanus- Forschung at the University of Trier. Litterae Cusanae, which was also sponsored by the Institut für Cusanus-Forschung, published two issues per year containing articles, book reviews, and announcements. The annual volumes of the Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft include articles, book reviews, and conference proceedings. Also included in this section is the website for the Circulos de Estudios Cusanos de Buenos Aires, which provides information about the activities of the society and a well-maintained bibliography of recent research in the field. In addition to these resources, Miller 2013 provides a good introduction to Nicholas’s speculative thought. The Cusanus Portal provides useful research tools for Cusanus scholars, including a fully searchable digital archive of the critical edition of the Opera Omnia. Jasper Hopkins is Hopkins’s personal website, which provides a wealth of information and links to other online resources.

American Cusanus Society. The society’s website includes a blog that provides timely updates about events relevant to the study of Nicholas of Cusa. Members of the society are also able to access a full archive (1983–) of the American Cusanus Society Newsletter, each issue of which contains both original contributions to Cusanus scholarship as well book reviews, bibliographies, and reports on the activities of the American Cusanus Society.

Circulos de Estudios Cusanos de Buenos Aires. Provides information about the activities of the society as well as bibliographies that emphasize Spanish contributions and translations of other important works in the field of Cusanus studies.

Cusanus Jahrbuch. 2009–. Annual issues offer articles, book reviews, and reports on the activities and events of the Cusanus-Gesellschaft (the German Cusanus Society) and the Institut für Cusanus-Forschung at the University of Trier. Members of the Cusanus-Gesellschaft receive free copies of the Cusanus Jahrbuch. Non-members may access tables of contents and purchase back issues through the website for the Institut für Cusanus-Forschung online.

Cusanus Portal. Contains a fully searchable digital archive of the critical edition of the Opera omnia, a large number of German and English translations of the primary sources, an encyclopedia on the life and work of Nicholas of Cusa, and a regularly updated, searchable research bibliography. The portal can be accessed in either German or English.

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Jasper Hopkins. Jasper Hopkins’s personal website offers downloadable versions of the English translations that are found in Hopkins’s Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa as well as archived and self-published versions of Hopkins’s other contributions to the field of Cusanus studies.

Litterae Cusanae. Informationen der Cusanus-Gesellschaft. 2001–2008. This journal, which appears to have been superseded by the Cusanus Jahrbuch, typically published two issues per year containing articles, book reviews, and announcements. Tables of contents for each issue are available at the website for the Institut für Cusanus-Forschung online.

Miller, Clyde Lee. “Cusanus, Nicolaus [Nicolas of Cusa].” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. 2013. Provides an excellent overview of Nicholas’s philosophical views and useful bibliography.

Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft. 1989–. Includes articles, book reviews, and conference proceedings. Issued by the chairman of the advisory board of the Cusanus-Gesellschaft in cooperation with the members of the advisory board. Volumes 1–17 published by Matthias-Grünewald Verlag; Volumes 18–33 published by Paulinus Verlag. Tables of contents for all volumes to date are available through the website for the Institut für Cusanus-Forschung, online.

Landmark Scholarship

Although this article focuses primarily on Cusanus scholarship from 1980 to the present, the works included in this section are landmarks in the field. Cassirer 1927, Gandillac 1942, and Jaspers 1964 are seminal works but are no longer widely cited in Cusanus scholarship. Sigmund 1963 and Watanabe 1963 did much to bring attention to Nicholas’s ecclesiology and political theories. Blumenberg 1985 offers a famous example of the attempt to use Nicholas as a barometer for broad shifts in intellectual history. Burgevin 1969 and Hagemann 1976 did much to bring attention to discussion of Nicholas’s philosophy of religion and interest in the theme of interreligious dialogue. The work of Flasch 1973 on Nicholas’s philosophy and Haubst 1952 on Nicholas’s theology remains more current than other landmark works.

Blumenberg, Hans. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Translated by Robert M. Wallace. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1985. Originally published in German as Die Legitimität der Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966), though Wallace’s translation is from a revised version of the 1966 German edition. Blumenberg makes use of Nicholas of Cusa along with Giordano Bruno to defend a notion of an epochal shift that separates modern from pre-modern intellectual history.

Burgevin, Frederick H. Cribratio Alchorani: Nicholas Cusanus’s Criticism of the Koran in the Light of His Philosophy of Religion. New York: Vantage, 1969. Burgevin offers a detailed analysis and criticism of Nicholas’s interpretation of Islam and the Qur’an.

Cassirer, Ernst. Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1927. Cassirer’s scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa is no longer cited widely in contemporary Cusanus studies, but Cassirer’s crucial role in the revitalization of the study of Renaissance philosophy was greatly abetted by his analysis of Nicholas of Cusa’s speculative philosophy in this work. Later published in English translation as The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).

Flasch, Kurt. Die Metaphysik des Einen bei Nikolaus von Kues: Problemgeschichtliche Stellung und systematische Bedeutung. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1973. The first of Flasch’s many contributions to Cusanus scholarship. This volume focuses mainly on metaphysical themes in Nicholas’s philosophical writings. Flasch’s recent work is especially focused on the internal developments of Nicholas’s philosophical thought across his career.

Gandillac, Maurice de. La philosophie de Nicolas de Cues. Paris: Éditions Montaigne, 1942. A well-reputed study of Nicholas’s philosophy that has been largely supplanted by more detailed studies on the same themes in more recent scholarship. Gandillac later revised and published the work in German translation as Studien zu seiner Philosophie und philosophischen Weltanschauung (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1953).

Hagemann, Ludwig. Der Kur’an in Verständnis und Kritik bei Nikolaus von Kues. Ein Beitrag zur Erhellung islamisch-christlicher Geschichte. Frankfurt: Knecht, 1976. Hagemann offers a detailed analysis of Nicholas’s Cribratio Alkorani.

Haubst, Rudolf. Das Bild des Einen und Dreieinen Gottes in der Welt nach Nikolaus von Kues. Trier, Germany: Paulinus-Verlag, 1952. This volume is the first of Haubst’s many important contributions to the study of Nicholas of Cusa’s theology. This study focuses in particular on Trinitarian theology in Nicholas’s writings. Haubst’s later work also discussedNicholas’s Christology.

Jaspers, Karl. Nikolaus Cusanus. Munich: Piper, 1964. Although Jaspers discusses some of Nicholas’s political ideas and the historical context from which they emerge the main focus of the work is an appraisal of Nicholas’s speculative philosophy

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on its own terms.

Sigmund, Paul. Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963. Like Watanabe 1963, Sigmund focuses primarily on the De concordantia catholica. But whereas Watanabe emphasizes the relationship of Nicholas’s political theory to its historical predecessors, Sigmund attempts to provide an account of how Nicholas’s early political theory relates to views articulated in his later speculative writings.

Watanabe, Morimichi. The Political Ideas of Nicholas of Cusa. Geneva, Switzerland: Librairie Droz, 1963. Provides an overview of Nicholas’s life, writing, and sources that emphasizes Nicholas’s career in canon law and his interactions with the Conciliar movement. Like Sigmund 1963, Watanabe pays particular attention to Nicholas’s De concordantia catholica.

General Essay Collections

Although there are relatively few works devoted to providing accessible introductions to the career and thought of Nicholas of Cusa, the following essay collections provide useful points of entry to the broad range of issues in Cusanus studies. Casarella 2006, Christianson and Izbicki 1991, Christianson and Izbicki 1996, and Izbicki and Bellitto 2002 were sponsored by the American Cusanus Society and provide essays in English on the wide range of topics current in Cusanus studies. Catà 2010 provides a good introduction to contemporary Italian scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa. Counet and Mercier 2005 provides a good introduction to contemporary French scholarship. Machetta and D’Amico 2005 is a rewarding entry point to contemporary Spanish and Portuguese scholarship. Yamaki 2002 illustrates the extent to which Cusanus studies draws from scholarship throughout various parts of the world.

Casarella, Peter J. Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006. Collects fourteen essays in English that were originally presented at a conference organized by the American Cusanus Society at the Catholic University of America in 2001 in order to celebrate the sixth jubilee of Nicholas’s birth. Essays cover a variety of subjects, including Nicholas’s speculative thought, attitudes toward Islam, ecclesiology, and influence in math, natural philosophy, and the visual arts.

Catà, Cesare, ed. A caccia dell’infinito. L’umano e la ricerca del divino nell’opera di Nicola Cusano. Rome: Aracne Editrice, 2010. Includes eighteen essays in Italian on a wide variety of subjects. Contents include introductory and biographical essays as well as essays on Nicholas’s theology and philosophy, Nicholas’s place in the history of ideas, the significance of the natural sciences in Nicholas’s thought, the relationship between mathematics and aesthetic theory in Nicholas’s thought, and essays about Nicholas’s views on ecumenism.

Christianson, Gerald, and Thomas M. Izbicki, eds. Nicholas of Cusa in Search of God and Wisdom. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1991. Collects fourteen essays in English that discuss a broad range of issues in Cusanus studies, including Nicholas’s speculative theology, cosmology, metaphysics and epistemology, views on interreligious dialogue and ecumenism, role in the Council of Basel, and general place in the history of ideas.

Christianson, Gerald, and Thomas M. Izbicki, eds. Nicholas of Cusa on Christ and the Church. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1996. Collects twenty essays in English that discuss Nicholas’s historical context, his ecclesiology and role in church reform, and his Christology, negative theology, and metaphysics.

Counet, Jean-Michel, and Stéphane Mercier. Nicolas De Cues, Les Méthodes D’une Pensée: Actes du Colloque de Louvain-La-Neuve, 30 Novembre et 1er Décembre 2001. Leuven- la-Neuve, Belgium: Université Catholique de Louvain, 2005. Contains twelve essays in English and French originally offered for a conference celebrating the sixth jubilee of Nicholas’s birth on a broad range of themes in Cusanus studies. Among the topics covered are the ethical and hermeneutic implications of Nicholas’s conjectural method, Nicholas’s ecumenism, the sources for Nicholas’s mathematical theology, the influence of Eckhart on Nicholas’s mystical theology, Nicholas’s anthropology and epistemology, and the relationship between Nicholas’s ecclesiology and mystical theology.

Izbicki, Thomas M., and Christopher M. Bellitto, eds. Nicholas of Cusa and His Age: Intellect and Spirituality: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of F. Edward Cranz, Thomas P. McTighe, and Charles Trinkaus. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002. Collects thirteen essays in English that discuss a broad range of issues in Cusanus studies, including Nicholas’s speculative theology, pastoral concerns, ecclesiology, and his historical context.

Machetta, Jorge M., and Claudia D’Amico, eds. El problema del conocimiento en Nicolás de Cusa: Genealogía y proyección. Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2005. This volume contains the proceedings of the Primer Congreso Internacional Cusano de Latinoamérica held in Buenos Aires 1–4 June 2004. The volume includes thirty-four essays in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, English, and German on a wide array of topics.

Yamaki, Kazuhiko, ed. Nicholas of Cusa: A Medieval Thinker for the Modern Age. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 2002. Collects twenty-five papers in German, English, and French originally presented for a conference celebrating the sixth jubilee of Nicholas’s birth held 6–8 October 2000 at Waseda University, Tokyo. The essays cover a broad range of subjects, including: Nicholas’s speculative theology, philosophy, mathematics, and cosmology; his career and biography; his significance in the history of ideas; and his theology from “the point of view of the encounter” with non-European cultures.

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Speculative Theology and Philosophy

The scholarship mentioned in this section covers the major themes of Nicholas’s work: his philosophy of human nature, epistemology, metaphysical commitments, and various aspects of his mystical theology. The cited essay collections provide a good overview of the major topics of discussion in scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa’s philosophy and theology. The monographs provide more detailed discussions of some of these themes.

Essay Collections

The following essay collections provide excellent overviews of current topics of discussion in the study of Nicholas of Cusa’s theology and philosophy. André and Alvarez-Gómez 2002 collects twenty-two essays exploring Nicholas’s concept of the “coincidence of opposites” throughout his writings and in relationship to the other major themes of his treatises. The contributors to these volumes hail primarily from Europe and South America and were brought together for a conference held jointly in Salamanca and Coimbra that celebrated the sixth jubilee of Nicholas’s birth. Four other recent proceedings volumes listed here are also each devoted to particular themes of Nicholas’s work and include mainly essays by European scholars. André, et al. 2006 includes essays on the theme of “intellect” and “imagination.” Euler, et al. 2010 includes essays on “The Self, Self-Consciousness, and World View.” Pasqua 2011 includes essays that discuss themes of identity, unity, and/or difference as they are taken up in individual treatises. Schwaetzer and Reinhardt 2003 includes essays on Nicholas of Cusa’s anthropology, epistemology, and mystical theology. Cranz 2000 and Duclow 2006 collect essays by these two individual authors on a variety of subjects in the field.

Alvarez-Gómez, Mariano, and João Maria André, eds. Coincidencia de Opuestos y Concordia: Los Caminos del Pensamiento en Nicolás de Cusa: Actas del Congreso Internacional Celebrado en Coimbra y Salamanca los Días 5 a 9 de Noviembre de 2001. Salamanca: Sociedad Castellano-Leonesa de Filosofía, 2002. Collects eleven essays in German, Spanish, and Italian originally presented in 2001 at a conference on the theme of “Coincidence of Opposites and Concord: Ways of Thought in Nicholas of Cusa” that was held in Coimbra and Salamanca to celebrate the sixth jubilee of Nicholas’s birth.

André, João Maria, and Mariano Alvarez-Gómez, eds. Coincidência dos Opostos e Concórdia: Caminhos do Pensamento em Nicolau de Cusa: Actas do Congresso Internacional Realizado em Coimbra e Salamanca nos Dias 5 a 9 de Novembro de 2001. Coimbra, Portugal: Unidade de Investigação e Desenvolvimento, Linguagem, Interpretação e Filosofia, Faculdade de Letras, 2002. Collects eleven essays in German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian originally presented in 2001 at a conference on the theme of “Coincidence of Opposites and Concord: Ways of Thought in Nicholas of Cusa” that was held in Coimbra and Salamanca to celebrate the sixth jubilee of Nicholas’s birth.

André, João Maria, Gerhard Krieger, and Harald Schwaetzer, eds. Intellectus und Imaginatio. Aspekte geistiger und sinnlicher Erkenntnis bei Nicolaus Cusanus. Amsterdam: Grüner, 2006. Proceedings volume that collects ten essays in German on the themes of “intellect” and “imagination” in the works of Nicholas of Cusa.

Cranz, F. Edward. Nicholas of Cusa and the Renaissance. Edited by Thomas M. Izbicki and Gerald Christianson. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000. Collects six of Cranz’s previously published essays and seven previously unpublished lectures on Nicholas of Cusa, including: essays on “major themes in Nicholas of Cusa”; essays that analyze specific treatises; previously unpublished lectures on the influence of Augustine, Proclus, and Pseudo-Dionysus on Nicholas; comparative assessments of Nicholas and Martin Luther; and a previously unpublished lecture on the bibliographic background for the De visione Dei.

Duclow, Donald F. Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2006. Collects twenty of Duclow’s previously published essays on Eriugena, Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa. The introductory essay discusses the hermeneutics of the divine names as a common theme in Pseudo-Dionysus, Eriugena, and Nicholas of Cusa. Part 1 of the volume includes seven essays on Eriugena. Part 2 includes five essays on Eckhart. Part 3 includes seven essays on Nicholas of Cusa.

Euler, Walter A., Ylva Gustafsson, and Iris Wikström, eds. Nicholas of Cusa on the Self and Self-Consciousness. Turku, Finland: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2010. Includes papers in German and English on a wide variety of topics in Nicholas’s speculative thought. The papers in this collection were originally presented at conference on “The Self, Self-Consciousness and World View in the Later Writings of Nicholas of Cusa” that was held 31 July–8 August 2008 at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.

Haubst, Rudolf. Streifzüge in die cusanische Theologie. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1991. Summarizes and collects a number of Haubst’s many significant essays contributing to the study of Nicholas’s theology.

Pasqua, Hervé, ed. Identité et différence dans l’oeuvre de Nicolas de Cues. Leuven, Belgium: Éditions Peeters, 2011. This volume’s eleven essays, all in French, were originally presented at a colloquium held at the Institut Catholique de Rennes, 24–25 April 2009. Most of the essays focus on the themes of identity, unity, and/or difference in one or two specific treatises.

Schwaetzer, Harald, and Klaus Reinhardt, eds. Nicolaus Cusanus: Perspektiven seiner Geistphilosophie. Internationale Tagung junger Cusanus-ForscherInnen vom 24.-26. Mai 2002 am Institut für Cusanus-Forschung an der Universität und der Theologischen Fakultät Trier. Regensburg, Germany: Roderer-Verlag, 2003. Includes fifteen essays (twelve in German, one in Spanish, and two in English) focused mainly on Nicholas of Cusa’s anthropology, epistemology, and mystical theology.

Monographs

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Among the monographs below, those of Hopkins 1996, Hopkins 2000, and Miller 2003 are devoted to the explication of specific treatises—Hopkins 1996 discusses De sapientia, De mente, and De staticis; Hopkins 2000 discusses De coniecturis and De ludo globi; Miller 2003 discusses De docta ignorantia, De coniecturis, Idiota de mente, De visione Dei, De li non aliud, and De venatione sapientiae. Bocken 2004 focuses on Nicholas’s De coniecturis but does so in order to leverage a discussion of hermeneutic theory. Albertson 2014, Hudson 2007, and Wolter 2004 focus on Nicholas’s theology. Albertson 2014 also discusses Nicholas’s situation in the history of ideas. Hudson 2007 assesses the extent to which Nicholas’s doctrine of theosis (deification) remains consistent with traditional Roman Catholic incarnational theology. Wolter 2004 focuses on how Nicholas of Cusa’s theology of creation is itself an immanent expression of a Trinitarian theophany. Schwaetzer 2000 is focused specifically on the idea of aequalitas (equality) as it expresses itself both explicitly and latently throughout Nicholas’s works.

Albertson, David. Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Discusses the impact of a neglected tradition of neo-Pythagorean and Chartrian theological sources on the development of what Albertson calls Nicholas of Cusa’s “mathematical theology.”

Bocken, Inigo K. M. De kunst van het verzamelen. Historisch-ethische inleiding in de conjecturele hermeneutiek van Nicolaus Cusanus. Budel, The Netherlands: Damon, 2004. Offers an analysis of Nicholas’s De coniecturis in order to argue for the value of Nicholas’s conjectural method for the development of contemporary hermeneutic theory. Also translated into French by Jean-Michel Counet as L’Art de la collection: Introduction historico-éthique à l’herméneutique conjecturale de Nicolas de Cues (Leuven, Belgium: Éditions de L’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 2007).

Hopkins, Jasper. Nicholas of Cusa on Wisdom and Knowledge. Minneapolis: Banning, 1996. Contains Hopkins’s translations of De sapientia, De mente, and De staticis experimentis and a lengthy analysis of the major themes of these works (pp. 3–84).

Hopkins, Jasper. Nicholas of Cusa: Metaphysical Speculations. Vol. 2. Minneapolis: Banning, 2000. Contains translations of De coniecturis and De ludo globi and a lengthy “orienting study” of these works. The first part of the orienting study (pp. 3–60) is an “expository purview” that Hopkins intends to be of use to “all students and scholars who are interested in Nicholas of Cusa’s thought.” The second part is an “analysis of specialized topics” (pp. 61–145) that “is meant only for those scholars who are directly working in the field of Cusan studies.”

Hudson, Nancy. Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007. Discusses De docta ignorantia, De coniecturis, De filiatione Dei, De visione Dei in order to draw out Nicholas of Cusa’s doctrine of theosis (deification) and assess the extent to which Nicholas’s emphasis on the possibility of “intellectual salvation” remains consistent with traditional Roman Catholic incarnational theology.

Miller, Clyde Lee. Reading Cusanus: Metaphor and Dialectic in a Conjectural Universe. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Offers detailed analyses of De docta ignorantia, De coniecturis, Idiota de mente, De visione Dei, De li non aliud, and De venatione sapientiae. Miller’s method of commentary makes this volume a useful companion to the study of these specific works.

Schwaetzer, Harald. Aequalitas: Erkenntnistheoretische Und Soziale Implikationen Eines Christologischen Begriffs Bei Nikolaus von Kues: Eine Studie Zu Seiner Schrift De Aequalitate. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 2000. Provides a detailed analysis of Nicholas’s concept of aequalitas (equality), its development throughout his career, and its general importance for understanding his speculative thought.

Wolter, Johannes. Apparitio Dei: Der theophanische Charakter der Schöpfung nach Nikolaus von Kues. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 2004. Wolter focuses on Nicholas of Cusa’s theology of creation and argues that, for Nicholas, creation is itself an immanent expression of a Trinitarian theophany.

Nicholas of Cusa’s Sources

One of the chief characteristics of Nicholas’s thought is his broad, synthetic approach to the resources available to him. Moreover, that Nicholas cites these sources explicitly and frequently has given rise to a great deal of contemporary scholarship discussing Nicholas’s unique synthetic approach to his precursors. Consequently, a great number of works included in this bibliography, to greater or lesser degree, touch on one or more sources of influence on Nicholas. Beierwaltes 1989 focuses on John Scottus Eriugena’s impact; Hankey 2008 focuses on the impact of Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysus; Moran 2007 and Moran 2008 focus on Pseudo-Dionysus, Meister Eckhart, and other neo-Platonic sources; the essays in Schwaetzer and Steer 2011 and Vannier 2006 focus on the impact of Eckhart. Cranz 2000 includes essays that focus on the influence of Augustine, Proclus, and Pseudo-Dionysus. Duclow 2006 contains essays that discuss the influence of Pseudo-Dionysus, Eriugena, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, and Eckhart.

Beierwaltes, Werner. “Cusanus and Eriugena.” Dionysius 13 (1989): 115–152. Discusses Eriugena’s legacy in terms of its impact on Nicholas of Cusa. Originally published in German as “Eriugena und Cusanus.” In Eriugena Redivivus: Zur Wirkungeschichte Seines Denkens im Mittelalter und im Übergang zur Neuzeit. Edited by Werner Beierwaltes, 311–343. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter, 1987.

Cranz, F. Edward. Nicholas of Cusa and the Renaissance. Edited by Thomas M. Izbicki and Gerald Christianson. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000. Collects six of Cranz’s previously published essays and seven previously unpublished lectures on Nicholas of Cusa. Among these, the essays in Part 3 include the previously published “Saint Augustine and Nicholas of Cusa in the Tradition of Western Christian Thought” and three previously unpublished lectures: “The (Concept of the) Beyond in Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysus, and Cusanus”; “Nicolaus Cusanus and Dionysius Areopagita”; and “Cusanus’ Use of Pseudo-Dionysus.”

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Duclow, Donald F. Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Variorum, 2006. Collects twenty of Duclow’s previously published essays on Eriugena, Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa, including essays discussing the influence on Nicholas of sources such as Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, Meister Eckhart, and Pseudo-Dionysus.

Hankey, Wayne J. “Misrepresenting Neoplatonism in Contemporary Christian Dionysian Polemic: Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa versus Vladimir Lossky and Jean-Luc Marion.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82 (2008): 683–703. Hankey’s objective is to show that Vladimir Lossky and Jean-Luc Marion “polemically misrepresent” Pseudo-Dionysian speculative theology and its legacy. The discussion of the first half of the essay, however, provides a useful discussion of the profound impact of Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius on Nicholas’s speculative theology.

Moran, Dermot. “Nicholas of Cusa and Modern Philosophy.” In The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy. Edited by James Hankins, 173–192. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Argues that Nicholas’s approach to cosmological and epistemological questions is best understood as an expression of a “conservative” Platonic mystical theology that is especially indebted to the influence of Pseudo-Dionysus.

Moran, Dermont. “Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464): Platonism at the Dawn of Modernity.” In Platonism at the Origins of Modernity. Edited by Douglas Hedley and Sarah Hutton, 9–29. Dordrecht, Germany: Springer, 2008. As in Moran 2007, this essay argues that Nicholas’s innovations are best understood in relation to the orthodoxy of his reliance on neo-Platonic predecessors. This essay discusses Nicholas’s indebtedness to a wide range of neo-Platonic authors, especially Pseudo-Dionysus and Eckhart.

Schwaetzer, Harald, and Georg Steer, eds. Meister Eckhart und Nikolaus von Kues. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2011. Includes nine essays in German that discuss Eckhart’s influence on Nicholas of Cusa. Also includes a new critical edition and assessment of the authenticity of the Latin translation of the Koblenzer manuscript of Eckhart’s bürgelin sermon (Intravit Iesus in quoddam castellum).

Vannier, Marie-Anne, ed. La naissance de Dieu dans l’âme chez Eckhart et Nicolas de Cues. Paris: Cerf, 2006. Includes three essays that focus on the influence of Eckhart on Nicholas of Cusa. Klaus Reinhardt (pp. 85–100) discusses Eckhart’s influence on Nicholas’s theory of creation. Harald Schwaetzer (pp. 101–120) discusses Eckhart’s influence on Nicholas’s concept of divine filiation. Isabelle Mandrella (pp. 121–136) discusses Eckhart’s influence on Nicholas’s understanding of free will as renunciation.

Reception and Place in the History of Ideas

The most significant perennial matter of debate in Cusanus studies concerns the question of whether Nicholas belongs to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or modernity. Recent scholarship has shown that Nicholas’s direct impact on the development of modern philosophy and science was probably negligible. Nevertheless, a number of scholars have tended to see Nicholas as a figure who at least occupies or exemplifies an epochal threshold between the Middle Ages and modernity. At the same time, recent scholarship has become more attentive to Nicholas’s historical context, and so many contemporary scholars maintain that the best way to appreciate the uniqueness of Nicholas’s vision is to attend to his own perspectives on his historical context and the views of his predecessors (see Nicholas of Cusa’s Sources) rather than put him forward as a harbinger of modernity. Each of the five monographs explicitly evaluate previous scholarship on the question of Nicholas’s modernity in order to ground their own assessments of the question. Brient 2002 argues that Nicholas of Cusa and Meister Eckhart’s work indicates an historical transformation in perspectives on divine immanence that mark a transition from the medieval to the modern work. Hoff 2013 reads Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei as an exemplary expression of late-scholastic responses to the realism/nominalism controversy. Maurizi 2008 argues for the specific relevance of Nicholas’s concepts of concordantia, coincidentia, and praecisio to adjudicating the question of his modernity. Meier-Oeser 1989 evaluates arguments about Nicholas’s modernity by offering a detailed discussion of the history of Nicholas’s reception in the 17th and 18th centuries. Moore 2013 discusses the question of Nicholas’s modernity through the lens of the historiography of post–Second World War debates (especially between Gadamer and Blumenberg) about Nicholas’s role in the history of ideas. The three essay collections provide essays that represent the breadth of perspectives on the question of Nicholas’s reception and place in the history of ideas. Müeller and Vollet 2013 includes essays on a broad variety of perspectives on Nicholas’s influence, reception, and the applicability of his ideas to contemporary philosophical and theological issues. Schwaetzer and Zeyer 2008 offers essays that discuss Nicholas’s influence in four main arenas: religion and science, aesthetic theory, social processes, and the history of European philosophy. Thurner 2002 collects essays that focus on the influence of 15th-century German and Italian culture on Nicholas’s thought and Nicholas’s subsequent influence on Renaissance German and Italian humanist philosophy.

Brient, Elizabeth. The Immanence of the Infinite: Hans Blumenberg and the Threshold to Modernity. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002. Brient assesses Hans Blumenberg’s argument in Die Legitimität der Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966) that Nicholas, paired with Giordano Bruno, occupies an epochal threshold between medieval and modern worldviews. Contrary to Blumenberg’s identification of this threshold with nominalism’s impact on the understanding of divine transcendence, Brient argues that this epochal threshold is more accurately located in transformations of perspectives on divine immanence, as witnessed in the works of Eckhart and Nicholas.

Hoff, Johannes. The Analogical Turn: Rethinking Modernity with Nicholas of Cusa. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2013. Offers a reading of Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei in order to argue that Nicholas’s anagogical thinking is both an exemplary expression of late-scholastic responses to the realism/nominalism controversy and a potential resource for what Hoff regards as a contemporary challenge to find meaning in what otherwise seems to be a world of “completely ordinary chaos.”

Maurizi, Marco. La nostalgia del totalmente non altro: Cusano e la genesi della modernità. Soveria Mannelli, Italy: Bubbettino, 2008. Evaluates prior scholarship on the question of Nicholas’s modernity. Offers a reassessment by arguing for the specific relevance of Nicholas’s concepts of concordantia, coincidentia, and praecisio to the question of his modernity.

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Meier-Oeser, Stephan. Die Präsenz des Vergessenen: Zur Rezeption der Philosophie des Nicolaus Cusanus vom 15. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1989. Evaluates arguments about Nicholas’s modernity by offering a detailed discussion of the history of Nicholas’s reception in the 17th and 18th centuries. Argues that Nicholas’s supposed modernity cannot have been a consequence of his actual historical impact on the development of modern science and philosophy even while acknowledging that attending to Nicholas’s unique concepts may help appreciate the historical transition from a medieval to modern worldview.

Moore, Michael E. Nicholas of Cusa and the Kairos of Modernity: Cassirer, Gadamer, Blumenberg. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum, 2013. Discusses the question of Nicholas’s modernity—and, more generically, the meaningfulness of all discussions about the essence of “modernity”—through the lens of the historiography of post–Second World War debates (especially between Gadamer and Blumenberg) about Nicholas’s role in the history of ideas.

Müeller, Tom, and Matthias Vollet, eds. Die Modernitäten des Nikolaus von Kues. Debatten und Rezeptionen. Bielefeld, Germany: Verlag, 2013. Includes twenty-four essays, mostly in German, offering a broad variety of perspectives on Nicholas’s influence, reception, and the applicability of his ideas to contemporary philosophical and theological issues.

Schwaetzer, Harald, and Kirstin Zeyer, eds. Das europäische Erbe im Denken des Nikolaus von Kues. Geistesgeschichte als Geistesgegenwart. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 2008. Includes sixteen papers in German originally presented at a symposium “Cusanus als Europäer” held in Trier, Germany, 3–5 March 2007, by the Institut für Cusanus-Forschung, the Theologische Fakultät, Universität Trier, and the Katholische Akademie Trier. The volume is arranged in four main parts with sections on “A New World View: Art, Religion, and Science”; “Perspectives on Art”; “Social Processes”; and “Nicholas of Cusa in the History of European Philosophy.”

Thurner, Martin, ed. Nicolaus Cusanus zwischen Deutschland und Italien. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002. A collection of essays, mostly in German and Italian (one essay is in English), that focus on the influence of 15th-century German and Italian culture on Nicholas’s thought and Nicholas’s subsequent influence on Renaissance German and Italian humanist philosophy.

Mathematics, Cosmology, and Natural Philosophy

Contemporary scholarship on Nicholas’s views on mathematics is often tied to discussions of his theology. Among the works below that emphasize the connection between mathematics and theology in Nicholas’s thought, Böhlandt 2009 argues that Nicholas’s mathematical theories are an expression of medieval theological views. Hösle 1990 argues that Nicholas synthesizes Platonic/Euclidian mathematical impulses with conceptions of infinitude that arise in Christian theology. Nagel 2007 emphasizes the influence of Boethius and neo-Pythagorean philosophy on Nicholas’s mathematical theories, especially as these pertain to Nicholas’s discussions of the possibility of squaring the circle. Other scholarship focuses on the relationship between Nicholas’s views on mathematics and cosmology and/or natural philosophy or on the connection between Nicholas’s views on mathematics and his understanding of human nature and epistemology. Harries 2001 treats Nicholas as a pivotal figure in his wide-ranging discussion of the historical transition from pre-modern to modern science and cosmology. Powrie 2013 focuses on the possible influence on Nicholas of mathematical innovations and thought experiments of 14th-century natural philosophy. Nagel 1984 argues that Nicholas’s epistemological views and understanding of mathematics and measurement may be seen as a development away from the ambitions of late-scholastic philosophy. Vengeon 2006 discusses the mathematical implications of Nicholas’s epistemological and anthropological theories throughout a number of his major treatises. As is the case to greater or lesser degree for all of the works, discussions of Nicholas’s views on mathematics, cosmology, or natural philosophy tend to be offered as grounds for an assessment of the question of Nicholas’s place in the history of ideas.

Böhlandt, Marco. Verborgene Zahl—Verborgener Gott. Mathematik und Naturwissen im Denken des Nicolaus Cusanus (1401–1464). Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009. Provides a historically oriented discussion of the formation of Nicholas’s mathematical views as they are expressed in Nicholas speculative and mathematical treatises. On the basis of a detailed reconstruction of the context for Nicholas’s work, Böhlandt maintains that Nicholas’s mathematical theories are an expression of his theological views and that these theories are fully rooted in the medieval worldview.

Harries, Karsten. Infinity and Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2001. In the midst of his wide-ranging discussion of the historical transition from pre-modern to modern science and cosmology (and Harries’s advocacy of “a new postmodern geocentrism”), Harries draws on Nicholas as a liminal figure who occupies a conceptual link between ancient and modern worldviews.

Hösle, Vittorio. “Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Nicholas of Cusa’s Philosophy of Mathematics.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 13 (1990): 79–112. Discusses Nicholas’s cosmological views as an outgrowth of his philosophy of mathematics. Argues that by synthesizing tensions between Platonic/Euclidian mathematical impulses and conceptions of infinitude that arise in Christian theology, Nicholas becomes “one of the fathers not only of modern mathematics, but also of modem science” (p. 103).

Nagel, Fritz. Nicolaus Cusanus und die Entstehung der exakten Wissenschaften. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1984. Argues that Nicholas’s epistemological views and understanding of mathematics and measurement may be seen as a development away from the ambitions of late-scholastic philosophy. The first part of the book discusses Nicholas’s work; the second part discusses Nicholas’s reception and legacy.

Nagel, Fritz. Nicolaus Cusanus—mathematicus theologicus: Unendlichkeitsdenken und infinitesimalmathematik. Trier, Germany: Paulinus, 2007. Focuses on the relationships between Nicholas’s mathematical theories and theology, especially as these are expressed in Nicholas’s discussions of the possibility of squaring the circle. Nagel

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emphasizes the influence of Boethius and neo-Pythagorean philosophy on Nicholas’s mathematical theories.

Nicolle, Jean-Marie. Mathematiques et Metaphysique Dans L’oeuvre De Nicolas De Cues. Villeneuve d’Ascq, France: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2001. Focuses on the metaphysical presuppositions that influence Nicholas’s mathematical theories, especially with regard to the question of the possibility of squaring the circle. Nicolle emphasizes the influence of Proclus on Nicholas’s thought.

Powrie, Sarah. “The Importance of Fourteenth-Century Natural Philosophy for Nicholas of Cusa’s Infinite Universe.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2013): 33–53. Argues that Nicholas of Cusa’s discussion of limit, measure, infinity, and incommensurability in De docta ignorantia was shaped by the mathematical innovations and thought experiments of 14th-century natural philosophy.

Vengeon, Frédéric. “Mathématiques, Création et Humanisme chez Nicolas de Cues.” Mathématiques et Savoir à la Renaissance 59 (2006): 219–243. Discusses the mathematical implications of Nicholas’s epistemological and anthropological theories throughout a number of his major treatises. Also offers some reflections on Nicholas’s reception and legacy.

Ecclesiology, Political Theory, and Role in the History of the Church

Roughly speaking, there were two main strands of scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa in the mid-20th century: one devoted to his speculative views and mystical theology, the other devoted to his ecclesiology, political theory, and role in the history of the church. The essays collected in Watanabe 2001 are indicative of that individual scholar’s significant impact on the latter strand of research. Sullivan 1994 contributes a detailed summary of one of the most significant periods of Nicholas’s ecclesiastical career. Other works, however, illustrate how the two major strands of the prior generations of research have begun to merge so that scholars reflecting on Nicholas’s ecclesiastical career have increasingly drawn connections to his speculative works, while those interested in his speculative works have been increasingly attentive to the significance of Nicholas’s historical context, including his ecclesiastical career. The essays in Bocken 2004 focus on Nicholas’s ecclesilogical career, his role in the consiliarism debate, and his views on interreligious conflict. Bond and Christianson 2011 collects several essays concerning Nicholas’s role in the Council of Basel and his ecclesiological views at the time. Frank and Winkler 2012 collects essays focusing on Nicholas’s theoretical views concerning church reform as well as his concrete reform efforts in his ecclesiastical roles. Miroy 2009 argues that Nicholas’s political theory and ecclesiological views are expressions of his his speculative views concerning the metaphysics of concordance. Ziebart 2014 discusses Nicholas’s role in the Tegernsee Debate in order to discuss the entwinement of his ecclesiological views and his speculative views and their common roots in traditional Roman Catholic theology and Aristotelian philosophy.

Bocken, Inigo, ed. Conflict and Reconciliation: Perspectives on Nicholas of Cusa. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004. Includes thirteen essays in English and German. The volume includes essays under five main headings: “Cusanus and the Spirit of the Devotio Moderna,” “Cusanus and Consiliarism,” “On Religious Conflicts and Tolerance,” “Theology Between Conflict and Resolution,” and “Freedom and Reconciliation.”

Bond, H. Lawrence, and Gerald Christianson. Reform, Representation and Theology in Nicholas of Cusa and His Age. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. Includes eight essays by Christianson and seven by Bond. All of Christianson’s and one of Bond’s focus on Cusanus’s role in the Council of Basel and his ecclesiological views at the time. Bond’s other seven essays in this collection focus on Nicholas’s speculative theology.

Frank, Thomas, and Norbert Winkler, eds. Renovatio et Unitas: Nikolaus von Kues als Reformer: Theorie und Praxis der Reformatio im 15. Jahrhundert. Gottingen, Germany: V&R Unipress, 2012. Papers (nine in German, one in English) originating in a February 2011 workshop and fall conference held at the Freie Universität Berlin. Contributions focus on Nicholas’s theoretical views concerning church reform as well as his concrete reform efforts in his ecclesiastical roles.

Miroy, Jovino. Tracing Nicholas of Cusa’s Early Development: The Relationship between De concordantia catholica and De docta ignorantia. Leuven, Belgium: Éditions Peeters, 2009. By discussing the relationship between Nicholas of Cusa’s De concordantia catholica and De docta ignorantia, Miroy argues that Nicholas’s political theory is best understood neither as a theory about the significance of political equality nor as an argument derived primarily from principles of canon law, but instead as an expression of his speculative views concerning the metaphysics of concordance as a harmonious, hierarchical arrangement of diverse elements within a single, unified whole.

Sullivan, Donald. “Nicholas of Cusa as Reformer: The Papal Legation to the Germanies, 1451–1452.” Medieval Studies 36 (1994): 382–428. Discusses Nicholas of Cusa’s reform commission and assesses the success of his legation tour through Germany. Contrary to the views of earlier scholars, Sullivan concludes that, “on the question of the success or failure of the German legation as a whole, the answer must lie, in any measurable sense, near to a judgment of failure” (p. 422).

Watanabe, Morimichi. Concord and Reform: Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political and Legal Thought in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Thomas M. Izbicki and Gerald Christianson. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001. Following an introduction by Francis Oakley (pp. xix–xxv), this volume collects twenty of Watanabe’s previously published essays (one co-authored with Thomas M. Izbicki) on Nicholas of Cusa and the legal and ecclesiological context for his career and contributions to the history of the church.

Ziebart, K. Meredith. Nicolaus Cusanus on Faith and the Intellect: A Case Study in 15th-Century Fides-Ratio Controversy. Boston: Brill, 2014.

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Focuses on Nicholas’s work through the lens of Nicholas’s role and participation in the Tegernsee Debate concerning the relationship between faith and reason in mystical theology. Ziebart makes a compelling case for a historically contextualized reading of Nicholas’s work and maintains that both his ecclesiological views and his speculative views tend to be more rooted in tradition than those who read him as a modern or proto-modern thinker have appreciated.

Views on Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenism

Closely connected to research on Nicholas of Cusa’s ecclesiology, political theory, and role in the history of the church are questions concerning his theoretical views on ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, especially as they are expressed in the De pace fidei’s (On the Peace of Faith) response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and Nicholas’s criticisms of Islamic theology in Cribatio Alkorani (The Sifting of the Koran). Among the sources below, Biechler and Bond 1990 provides a useful introductory essay discussing Nicholas’ De pace fidei. Helander 1993 interprets both Nicholas’s overtly political and ecclesiological works as well as his speculative views as broadly expressive of the same ecumenical ambitions. Hopkins 1990 provides a useful introductory essay concerning the De pace fidei and the Cribatio Alkorani. Levy, et al. 2014 provides several essays on Nicholas’s De pace fidei and Cribratio Alkorani, Nicholas’s views on Islam, and a few essays discussing the wider range of late-medieval texts on Christian-Muslim relations. Bakos 2011 uses a focused analysis of Nicholas’s concepts of manuductio and pia interpretatio in order to discuss Nicholas’s understanding of the value of interreligious dialogue. Costigliolo 2012 provides a historically contextualized analysis of Nicholas’s apologetic strategies in De concordantia catholica, De docta ignorantia, De pace fidei, and Cribatio Alkorani. Euler 1990 provides a detailed analysis of Raymund Lull’s and Nicholas of Cusa’s attempts to reconcile their ecumenical ambitions with their apologetic defenses of Christian theology. Riedenauer 2007 makes a case for the contemporary relevance of Nicholas’s views on interreligious dialogue.

Bakos, Gergely Tibor. On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages: A Study of Nicholas of Cusa’s Manuductive Approach to Islam. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011. Discusses Nicholas’s understanding of the value of interreligious dialogue through a detailed analysis of the concepts of manuductio and pia interpretatio. Bakos emphasizes the practical import of Nicholas’s understanding of the value of a manuductive approach to non-Christian religions. In doing so, Bakos acknowledges but deemphasizes the extent to which Nicholas offers an apology for the privileged doctrinal status of Trinitarian theology.

Biechler, James E., and H. Lawrence Bond. Nicholas of Cusa on Interreligious Harmony: Text, Concordance, and Translation of De pace fidei. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1990. In addition to Bond’s excellent translation and a concordance (rendered obsolete by the searchable texts on the Cusanus Portal, cited under Journals, Book Series, Academic Societies, and Other Resources), the volume contains a useful introduction to the De pace fidei (pp. ix–xlvii).

Costigliolo, Marica. Islam e Cristianesimo: mondi di differenze nel Medioevo. Il dialogo con l’Islam nell’opera di Nicola da Cusa. Genova, Italy: Genova University Press, 2012. Discusses Nicholas’s apologetic strategies in De concordantia catholica, De docta ignorantia, De pace fidei, and Cribatio Alkorani. While Costigliolo shows that these works share the same coherent set of assumptions and apologetic aims, she also emphasizes the ways in which these works are indicative of the development of Nicholas’s views in response to the concrete historical context in which they were written.

Euler, Walter A. Unitas et Pax: Religionsvergleich bei Raimundus Lullus und Nikolaus von Kues. Würzburg, Germany: Echter, 1990. Lays out a detailed analysis of Raymund Lull’s and Nicholas of Cusa’s attempts to reconcile Christianity’s insistence on its universality with their own impulses to regard all religions as expressing, in some fashion, the same underlying truth.

Helander, Birgit H. Nicolaus Cusanus als Wegbereiter auch der Heutigen Ökumene. Uppsala, Sweden: Acta Universitatis, 1993. Helander interprets both Nicholas’s overtly political and ecclesiological works as well as his speculative views as broadly expressive of the same ecumenical ambitions.

Hopkins, Jasper. Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei and Cribratio Alkorani. Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning, 1990. Contains an introductory essay, notes, a bibliography, and translations of the two treatises most directly relevant to a discussion of Nicholas of Cusa’s views on interreligious dialogue and ecumenism (these translations are also available in Hopkins 2001, cited under English Translations of Primary Sources and on Hopkins’s personal website, Jasper Hopkins).

Levy, Ian C., Rita George-Tvrtković, and Donald F. Duclow, eds. Nicholas of Cusa and Islam: Polemic and Dialogue in the Late Middle Ages. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014. Contains several essays originally presented at the 2012 biennial symposium of the American Cusanus Society on the topic of Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Late Middle Ages. Includes essays on Nicholas’s De pace fidei and Cribratio Alkorani and Nicholas’s views on Islam as well as a wider range of late-medieval texts on Christian-Muslim relations.

Riedenauer, Markus. Pluralität und Rationalität. Die Herausforderung der Vernunft durch religiöse und kulturelle Vielfalt nach Nikolaus Cusanus. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007. Riedenauer explicates Nicholas’s views on interreligious dialogue in order to argue for their contemporary relevance. Chapters 2–3 discuss Nicholas’s historical context. Chapter 4 discusses Nicholas’s general epistemological views and philosophy of human nature. Chapter 5 provides a detailed analysis of Nicholas’s De visione Dei in order to expose the theoretical foundations for Nicholas’s views on the legitimacy of religious diversity.

Aesthetic Theory and Contributions to the History of the Visual Arts

A recently emerging topic of discussion in scholarship on Nicholas of Cusa concerns his aesthetic theories and contributions to the history of the visual arts. Bender 2010 situates Nicholas’s doctrine of beauty in relationship to the legacy of Pseudo-Dionysus and Albert the Great. Carman 2014 argues that Alberti’s On Painting and various works of Nicholas Cusanus reveal a “shared epistemology of vision.” Catà 2008 compares Nicholas’s philosophical principles to the iconography of 15th-century art in order to show that his philosophy is an exemplary product of a Renaissance culture. Cuozzo 2012 discusses Nicholas’s aesthetic theory by comparison to the artistic works and treatises of a variety of well-known Renaissance artists. Roark 2010 discusses Nicholas’s “pespectivalism” in the context of Renaissance developments in theories of vision and artistic production. These four monographs also offer perspectives on the question of Nicholas of

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Cusa’s broader role in the history of ideas. The essays collected in Eckert and Schwaetzer 2013 offer a broad range of perspectives on Nicholas’s aesthetic theory.

Bender, Melanie. The Dawn of the Invisible: The Reception of the Platonic Doctrine on Beauty in the Christian Middle Ages: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa. Münster, Germany: Verlagshaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat, 2010. Chapter 7 (pp. 269–350) offers a detailed discussion of Nicholas’s doctrine of beauty. Bender situates Nicholas’ doctrine with particular attention to the influence of Pseudo-Dionysus and Albert the Great.

Carman, Charles H. Leon Battista Alberti and Nicholas Cusanus: Towards an Epistemology of Vision for Italian Renaissance Art and Culture. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. Argues that Alberti’s On Painting and various works of Nicholas Cusanus reveal a “shared epistemology of vision.” In light of the commonalities in these two thinkers’ aesthetic theories, Carman argues for a reassessment of Alberti that emphasizes the mystical Neoplatonic dimensions of his views.

Catà, Cesare. “Perspicere Deum: Nicholas of Cusa and European Art of the Fifteenth Century.” Viator 39 (2008): 285–305. Compares Nicholas’s philosophical principles to the iconography of 15th-century art (especially in the artworks and treatises of Alberti, Paolo Ucello, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, and Michael Pacher) in order to show that Nicholas’s philosophy is an exemplary product of a Renaissance culture that must be understood as driven by a “new idea of God” rather than, “as Cassirer wanted, a new epistemological principle” (p. 301).

Cuozzo, Gianluca. Raffigurare l’invisibile: Cusano e l’arte del tempo. Milan: Mimesis, 2012. Discusses Nicholas’s aesthetic theory by comparison to the artistic works and treatises of Leon Batista Alberti, van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Lorenzo Lotto, Leonardo da Vinci, and Leonardo da Bressanone.

Eckert, Michael, and Harald Schwaetzer, eds. Cusanus: Ästhetik und Theologie. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 2013. Contains eight essays in German relating to various aspects of Nicholas’s aesthetic theory and a German translation of Nicholas’s Sermon 243 (“Tota pulchra es, amica mea et macula no est in te”) by Matthias Simperl.

Roark, Rhys W. “Nicholas Cusanus, Linear Perspective, and the Finite Cosmos.” Viator 41 (2010): 315–366. Discusses Nicholas’s “pespectivalism” in the context of Renaissance developments in theories of vision and artistic production. Argues that neither Nicholas’s nor Alberti’s views on perspective offer radical departures from ancient and medieval cosmological and epistemological theories.

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