Andrea Fiamma

John Picardi of Lichtenberg was a lecturer at the Dominican Studium in Cologne in the early 14th century. The result of his lectures were some Quaestiones, which were identified by Landgraff in 1922, and which attracted the interest of the Neo-Thomists in the first half of the 20th century, including Martin Grabmann. Renewed interest in Picardi’s work has emerged in recent years, and a print edition of the Quaestiones will soon be published. The present article collects and summarises the main studies on Picardi, highlighting the main points raised by scholars, and proposes possible lines of research. The categorisation of Picardi as a ‘Thomist’ is based on his views on the relationship between being and essence, form and matter, will and intellect, as well as in consideration of his relationship with the other ‘German Dominicans’ from the ‘Cologne school’ in the 13th and early 14th centuries.

The volume aims to investigate one of the most layered and pivotal concepts in the philosophical tradition: reason, understood not only as an intellectual faculty but also as a historical force and organizing principle. The book stems from a shared intellectual project initiated at the conference held in Foggia in March 2023, later enriched by contributions developed within PRIN research programs, with the goal of expanding and deepening the inquiry into the theme. Adopting an interdisciplinary and intercultural lens, the volume gathers essays that explore the concept of reason across different philosophical contexts: from classical Greek thought to Christian and Islamic medieval philosophy, from Cartesian and Kantian modernity to contemporary critiques, including lesser-studied fields such as alchemical practices. The collection highlights both the faith in rationality as a driver of human progress and its historical contradictions, epistemological ambiguities, and ethical-political limitations. A central focus lies on the tension between reason and history: on one hand, reason as a guiding force in human development; on the other, history as a testing ground for its validity, as well as a domain of crisis and transformation. This dialectic permeates the volume, offering a multifaceted and critical understanding of a concept that remains central to the human condition.

John Wenck (†1460) supported Albertism while he was master of Arts in Paris. In 1426, he enrolled at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Heidelberg. It is not yet clear whether in Heidelberg Wenck continued to uphold the same Albertist ideas or whether he shifted toward Thomism, as suggested by Rudolf Haubst. The paper reconsiders this issue by analyzing the early works Wenck wrote as a theology student in Heidelberg, namely his Principia on Peter Lombard’s Sentences and quaestiones on the Holy Spirit and on the Incarnation (1431). Editions of these writings are either lacking or currently in preparation. The paper brings out their main sources, especially Bonaventure, and highlight the doctrinal aspects of the debates that Wenck developed with his colleagues in those years. Moreover, the paper finds here the premises of the Wegestreit between the via Antiqua and the Nominalists, which continued to mark the University of Heidelberg in the following years. The main topics discussed by the paper are divine omnipotence, the creation and eternity of the world, and the interpretation of Aristotelian philosophy.

L’article brosse un portrait de l’humanisme en Autriche au milieu du xv e siècle à travers l’analyse des lettres et des sermons, encore inédits, de Bernard de Kraiburg († 1477), évêque de Chiemsee, collaborateur de Nicolas de Cues et de Enea S. Piccolomini et détenteur d’une extraordinaire bibliothèque personnelle. La production de Bernard aide à comprendre la triangulation culturelle entre l’enseignement universitaire à Vienne (Thomas Ebendorfer), la tradition spirituelle bénédictine (Bernard de Waging) mise à l’épreuve par la réforme de Melk (Jean Schlitpacher) et les débats issus dans les récents conciles à Constance et Bâle. Se dessine un humanisme autrichien, caractérisé par l’influence de l’humanisme padouen (en particulier de Pétrarque), par une tentative de retour à la théologie du xii e siècle et par une ouverture spirituelle au mysticisme.

John Schlitpacher (†1482), who was prior of Melk in the 15th century, encouraged both the circulation of manuscripts at his Abbey and their transcription, even in abbreviated form to the benefit of the Abbey School students. This article looks at the sources and diffusion of texts to and from Melk Abbey in that period, examining the case of a codex purchased by Nicholas of Cusa, registered in his Library as no. 58, and subsequently loaned to the monks in Melk to be copied. It contained the Scala Paradisi by John Climacus and the De spiritualibus deliciis by John of Dambach. In the article, I underline that both of these works, copied in codex 58, were in accordance with John Gerson’s theological approach, which was prevalent in Melk at that time. Moreover, I confirm that there are doctrinal similarities between the two works mentioned above and two, hitherto, unedited writings by Schlitpacher from the same period – the treatise De ascensionibus cordis, which is a summary of the De spiritualibus ascensionibus by Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen, and another entitled De felicitate beatorum (or De gaudiis electorum).

The article reconstructs the history of historiography on the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa in the 20th century and focuses on the book of Ernst Cassirer entitled Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance. The research hypothesis is that Cassirer’s position on the modernity of the Cusanus’ philosophy was the starting point of the formation of two different historiographical currents in the 20th century : the former interested in the understanding of the genesis of what is called modern subjectivity and the latter, in defining the image of Italian humanism in the history of Renaissance philosophy.

Il volume ripercorre lo sviluppo del pensiero del giovane Nicola Cusano dalla frequentazione del maestro albertista Eimerico da Campo presso l’Università di Colonia (1425) e dal confronto con le posizioni filosofiche dei domenicani dello Studium coloniense, fino agli anni della maturità a Roma (1450). Il saggio illustra il contesto storico-culturale della genesi del De docta ignorantia, testo che suggella la presa di distanza di Cusano dal proprio passato universitario ma anche, al contempo, la sua insoddisfazione nei confronti dell’umanesimo diffuso in Italia negli anni del Concilio di Ferrara-Firenze; e lo segue nella sua ‘caccia della Sapienza’, nell’incontro con differenti tradizioni e contesti, fino alla formulazione dell’ideale del ‘Socrate cristiano’ nell’Idiota. Il volume, riccamente documentato anche sul piano della storia delle interpretazioni e degli studi su Cusano, contribuisce a far luce sulla formazione del suo pensiero e sulle questioni che ne hanno segnato la vita.

Considering the historical background and the transmission of the manuscripts, the paper discusses the relations between Nicholas of Cusa and the so-called “Cologne School” – Albert the Great, Ulrich of Strasbourg, Ugo Ripelin of Strasbourg, Dietrich of Freiberg, Meister Eckhart and Berthold of Moosburg. In this context are highlighted a few moments of the biography of Nicholas of Cusa, especially the friendship with Heymeric de Campo between 1425 and 1429, the debate with Johannes Wenck and the meeting with Dionysius the Carthusian in 1451.

Richard Falckenberg (1851-1920) in his book Grundzüge der Philosophie des Nicolaus Cusanus mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lehre vom Erkennen was among the first historians of philosophy to support the argument that Nicholas of Cusa was a modern philosopher because his innovative theory of knowledge. The Falckenberg's celebrity shall be reduced because he was later obscured by the most famous historians of philosophy as Ernst Cassirer and Joachim Ritter. In our paper we want to come back to the Falckenberg's book and recover his main arguments about the proximity of Cusanus with the philosophies of Leibniz, Fichte and the positivists.

Il contributo consiste in una analisi e commento della prima sezione del De docta ignorantia di Nicola Cusano (capp. I-XVI), dedicata ai concetti di precisione matematica e di uguaglianza. Il saggio offre la possibilità di ripercorrere la teoria della conoscenza di Cusano, laddove l'impossibilità per la ragione di giungere ad una mens-ura precisa dell'oggetto da conoscere non si trasforma in una mera cultura del limite, bensì la filosofia negativa diviene base per la mistica. In altri termini l'obiettivo specifico del saggio è rilevare come il metodo della dotta ignoranza apra alla conoscenza dell'infinito proprio nel momento in cui essa nega ogni conoscenza razionale precisa. La matematica diviene dunque il fondamento su cui far leva per innalzare la propria mente (transferre) verso la conoscenza simbolica di Dio, nel medesimo solco tracciato da Dionigi e dalla tradizione della mistica speculativa.

Il lavoro consiste in una particolare rilettura del testo cusaniano, nella quale si cerca di evidenziare, tra le altre fonti, soprattutto la presenza di Meister Eckhart. La “discesa” nel fondo dell'anima è presentata come il culmine teoretico di quel cammino di visione a cui e-duca l'aegnima dell'icona. Per queste ragioni l'articolo punta sull'influsso della mistica speculativa in campo teoretico e di quella dottrina che M. Eckhart chiama “Generazione del Logos nell'anima”. Tale trattazione apre poi il senso dell'ampia sezione dedicata alla filosofia negativa e ai “nomi divini” del Deus Trinitas, stavolta sulla scia di Dionigi: Infinito, Non-Aliud e Padre. Centrale è la figura del Cristo, unica vera condizione di possibilità della visione “di” Dio in quanto unico mediatore tra il finito e l'infinito; in Cristo si realizza quella paradossale unione delle due nature ed offre così all'umanità la chiave tanto desiderata per avvicinare l'Infinito.

This article discusses the reception of Plato's Timaeus in De docta ignorantia of Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), particularly about the philosophical concepts of being, time and the production of the cosmos. In this context, it is argued that the School of Chartres had played a significant role in the replacement of philosophical categories of Plato in the Christianity. But the contribution of Nicolas of Cusa to the history of the reception of the Timaeus in the Middle Ages it seems original because Nicolas, more than others, use this text in order to show that the world is a being-in-relation, as God is the relationship of three persons.