Nicholas of Cusa, << KOO suh >> (1401-1464), was a German theologian, scholar, and statesman. Nicholas wrote extensively on philosophy, theology (the study of God and religion), mathematics, and astronomy. In his most famous work, On Learned Ignorance (1440), Nicholas argued that reason was inadequate to determine truth. Nicholas’s writings on astronomy suggested that Earth was in motion and was not the center of the universe. Thus, Nicholas’s ideas were forerunners of theories developed in the 1500’s by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
Nicholas was born at Kues, Germany, near Trier. The Latin form of Kues is Cusa. In 1437, with the approval of Pope Eugene IV, Nicholas traveled to Constantinople to arrange a meeting between Eastern and Western church officials to discuss reunification of the Eastern and Western Christian churches. In 1438, Nicholas went to Germany to help regain for the papacy the allegiance of the Holy Roman Empire. This mission ended successfully in 1448 with the signing of the Concordat of Vienna. Pope Nicholas V made Nicholas a cardinal in 1449. In 1450, Nicholas became bishop of Brixen (now Bressanone), Italy. He died on Aug. 11, 1464.
