Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/17

INTRODUCTION 5 tury before Copernicus, had the courage and inde- pendence to uphold the theory of the earth's motion and its rotation on its axis. He published an able treatise on the correction of the Julian Calendar, and he headed the list of those astronomers who were the pioneers of modern knowledge of the solar system and its workings. It was personal and literary inter- course with him that awakened the creative genius of Georg von Peuerbach and Johann Miiller, the two re- storers of the direct and independent method of natural research, and the fathers of astronomical observation and calculation. Mcolaus of Cusa was also one of the first in Ger- many to revive the thorough and enlightened study of those master works of classic antiquity which unite in such perfect harmony the freedom of Nature with the restraints of Art. His love for the classics, which he had devoured eagerly at Deventer in the schools of the 'Brethren of the Social Life,' was raised to such en- thusiasm in Italy by an exhaustive study of Plato and Aristotle that he could not rest without doing his ut- most to kindle a like zeal in others. He was unwearied in his efforts to bring these studies back into vogue wherever he could, utilising them as means of true culture and as evidences of the sublimity of the Christian faith. He met all seekers after knowledge with winning condescension and cordiality, and, although over- whelmed with the duties of his office, was ever ready to explain and instruct. In the very year in which his useful and laborious life closed (in 1464), the Cardinal, so we learn from Trithemius, had intended, with the aid of Gutenberg's invention, to convert into the common