Letter to Niccolo Da Bologna

This third to last work of Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464) has been best summarized by the renown German Cusa scholar Josef Koch as Cusa's "religious last will." Here Cusa pedagogically summarizes the insights of his life in a letter to the novice Nicolas of Bologna, whom he had clothed in the monastic habit of a renown monastery just a few days before this letter was written. The young man tragically died a few months after these events and Cusa died just about a year later, but the letter and the wisdom within was preserved in Italian archives until it was recovered in 1949 and published in 1955. Any thinker, young as old, will benefit from Cusa's considerations about the fundamental nature of the relationship between man and his creator, between the power of intelligence and the power of belief, between seeking praise and giving praise and between free will and corruption. Never before translated into English, this publication closes an important gap in the works of Cusa available to an english speaking audience.