Glosses made by Nicholas of Cusa discovered in Vatican Library manuscript
A historian has identified a new set of annotations and commentaries made by German philosopher and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), in the margins of the manuscript Vaticano Latino 4071 in the Vatican Apostolic Library, following his reading of a Latin Qu'ran.
The discovery is an important one as it shows the Cardinal's interest in giving theological support to the "geopolitical" strategy of Pius II towards Islam. To this end he read the Qu'ran carefully and thoroughly, and went on to make these glosses: attributable to him from their content and paleographic features.
The discovery was made by José Martínez Gázquez, emeritus professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and been published in the journal Medieval Encounters. It was presented in greater detail in the 52nd International Conference of the Centro Italiano di Studi sul Basso Medioevo Accademia Tudertina, dedicated to «Nicolò Cusano. L’uomo, i libri e l’opera», held last month in Todi, Italy (the town where Nicholas of Cusa died in 1464).
From a young age, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa took a great interest in Islam and the relationships between religions. He wrote three fundamental works on Islam: De pace fidei, dated September 1453 (Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453), his letter to Juan de Segovia on 29 December 1454 and the Cribratio AlKorani of 1460/61.
Nicholas of Cusa directed all his intellectual energy towards writing the latter of these, reading the Qu'ran carefully and thoroughly and making his customary notes as he read. And the end result of all this reading is the glosses written in his hand in the margins of the manuscript Vaticano Latino 4071, in the Vatican Apostolic Library, in the years 1459 to 1460. This is a different set to the well-known glosses of MS. 108 in the library of the St. Nikolaus Hospital in Bernkastel-Kues, and its discovery will give us a better understanding of Nicholas of Cusa's thinking on Islam and the arguments he used to discredit the Qu'ran in favour of the truths of the Christian gospel. Nicholas of Cusa's work shows a hostility to the doctrine of the Koran and the Moslem way of life that was typical among Christians all through the Middle Ages and the Modern Age.