NICHOLAS III, POPE
(c. 1225–1280, r. 1277–1280)
Pope Nicholas III (Giovanni Gaetano Orsini) was the
son of Matteo Rosso Orsini, senator in 1244 and 1246.
Nicholas had been created cardinal priest of Saint
Nicholas in Carcere Tulliano in 1244 and succeeded
John XXI as pope in 1277 after a vacancy of seven
months, in the face of strongly voiced opposition from
Charles of Anjou, then senator of Rome. Charles’s
term as senator expired in September 1278. Nicholas
prevented its renewal and, in the bull Fundamenta
militantis Ecclesie, specifi ed that any emperor, king,
prince, marquis, duke, or baron could become senator
only with express permission from the pope, and never
for more than one year; Romans could become senator
without problems. Nicholas (as an Orsini) was then
elected senator himself, but he exercised power through
deputies, all Roman nobles.
Rudolf of Hapsburg was negotiating to come to
Italy for his coronation when Nicholas became pope.
Nicholas agreed to receive Rudolf in return for the
cession of the Romagna to the papal state (1278). The
province, infl uenced by the Ghibelline leader Guido
da Montefeltro, proved diffi cult to pacify, despite con-
ciliatory measures including a temporary recall of the
exiled Ghibelline faction to Bologna. Nicholas fi nally
requested help from Charles of Anjou but died before
order was restored in the Romagna.
Ptolemy of Lucca accused Nicholas of aspiring to
establish an Orsini kingdom based on the Romagna.
This has been seen as either an attempt to counterbalance
the Angevin power, which was encircling the papacy,
or an Angevin fi ction designed to bring Nicholas into
disrepute. Probably it was neither: Charles manifested
no intention of attacking the papal state. The coolness
between him and Nicholas shown in his opposition to
Nicholas’s election, in the ending of Charles’s tenure
of the senate, and subsequently in the termination of
Charles’s papal vicariate in Tuscany has been exagger-
ated, notably by Giovanni Villani. Although Charles
probably distrusted the Orsini, he continued to receive
support from the papacy in the south and sent support
to the pope further north. Dante’s story that Nicholas
was persuaded by Byzantine gold, offered by John of
Procida, to transfer Sicily from the Angevins to the
Aragonese seems unfounded.
However, Dante justifi ably denounced Nicholas for
unprecedented nepotism. Nicholas created three Orsini
cardinals. One nephew was papal vicar in the Romagna;
another nephew was papal legate there; in Tuscany, a
brother was senator twice; and so on.
Before his election Nicholas had been cardinal pro-
tector of the Franciscans. As pope, he issued the bull
Exiit qui seminat, which was based on the Apologia
pauperum of Saint Bonaventura and was intended as
a defi nitive statement on the problem of Franciscan
poverty—on which it (unsuccessfully) forbade further
discussion.
Nicholas began an artistic revival in Rome that was
carried on by his successors. He extended and embel-
lished Innocent Ill’s palace on the Vatican, rebuilt the
Sancta Sanctorum chapel (the only part of the medieval
Lateran palace now surviving), and started improve-
ments at Saint Peter’s and Santa Maria in Aracoeli.
See also Dante Alighieri; Ptolemy of Lucca,
Villani, GiovanniFurther Reading
Editions
Nicholas III. Les registres, ed. Jules Gay. Paris: A. Fontemoing,
1898–1938.
Ptolemy of Lucca. Historia ecclesiastica. In Return Italicarum
Scriptores, ed. L. A. Muratori, Vol. 3. Milan: Societatis Pa-
latinae, 1723–1751.
Critical Studies
Davis, Charles T. “Roman Patriotism and Republican Propa-
ganda: Ptolemy of Lucca and Pope Nicholas III.” Speculum,
50, 1975, pp. 411–433.
Demski, Augustin. Papst Nikolaus III: Eine monographie. Mün-
ster: H. Schöningh, 1903.
Léonard, Émile G. Les Angevins de Naples. Paris: Presses Uni-
versitaires de France, 1954. (See especially pp. 124–128.)
Partner, Peter. The Lands of Saint Peter: The Papal State in
the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance. London: Eyre
Methuen, 1972, pp. 268–277.
Sternfeld, Richard. Der Kardinal Johann Gaetan Orsini (Papst
Nikolaus III.) 1244–1277: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
römischen Kurie im 13. Jahrhundert. Berlin: E. Ebering,
1905.
Carola M. SmallNICHOLAS OF CUSA (1401–1464)
Most important German thinker of the fi fteenth cen-
tury (Latin, Nicolaus Cusanus), ecclesiastical reformer,
administrator, and cardinal. His lifelong effort, as
canon law expert at church councils, as legate to Con-
stantinople and later to German dioceses and houses
of religion, in his own diocese, and even in the papal
curia was to reform and unite the universal and Ro-
man Church. This active life fi nds written expression
in several hundred Latin sermons and more theoretical
background in his writings on ecclesiology, ecumenism,
mathematics, philosophy, and theology. Curious and
open-minded, learned and steeped in the Neoplatonic
tradition, well aware of both humanist and scholastic
learning, yet self-taught in philosophy and theology,
Nicholas anticipated many later ideas in mathematics,
cosmology, astronomy, and experimental science while
constructing his own original version of systematic
Neoplatonism. A whole range of earlier medieval writersNICHOLAS OF CUSA